“...the liberating novelty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ"???? Ew.

Can't they EVER just drop the doublespeak and the excessive use of adjectives?

I've always heard the Pact spoken of in negative terms, and that it was much more secretive than made out to be by reports like the one you linked to.

Have you ever seen the video (surely there are many) of the elderly African woman singing various chants in Latin, from her memories of the Mass? I think the people who define what the "poor" are capable of, or what knowledge the "poor" possess, do a great disservice to mankind. This only perpetuates stereotypes.

So yes, Reval, I think you are right. The Pact is one fragment of the Rosetta stone. The music is another. There are a multitude of other fragments.

A question I have always had: what do these people do or feel or think, when they help a poor person, and that person then becomes financially successful?

I don't believe the goal is to get people out of poverty. I think these people need poverty to exist, so they can use it as an excuse for a multitude of ills, a multitude of bad policies, a multitude of fundraising campaigns, a mutitude of all kinds of things.

I hope I am not being offensive. Just my very skeptical opinion.

Francis LOLLLLLL

It is strange that 'quality music' and the liturgy it glorifies is still being batted about negatively as elitist and such. It is interesting to note that the Oxford movement and good music had some of their greatest successes amongst the poor who flocked to them and loved the beauty of the music and the glory of the liturgy. The same argument is still in use today to frighten every one away from classical music.