I just watched the entire Los Angeles Religious Education Congress 2010 Closing Liturgy
  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,694
    .... I need a huge dose of Graduale Romanum, NOW!

    What a way to spend a Monday morning.... I feel like I've experienced some part of what the crucifixion might have been like...

    Although they did do some chant... Agnus Dei XVIII... but what they did to it... well, I'd have rather they did a non-chant setting. It would have been better if they had done a contemporary version well, than do the chant terribly.
  • Michael O'Connor
    Posts: 1,637
    I watched part of that too. What bothered me most was that everyone there was certainly doing what they thought was right for the Church. If I think about it too much, it keeps me awake.
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    Over the weekend I came across videos of this. Whoa.

    It made me wonder where this all came from. But today I visited a parish in another diocese, a very wealthy one.

    Their director of music has been there for almost a year, plays the organ, piano, directs the choir and cantors. At funerals, for example, she provides all the music.

    She was raised Mormon, was at a Lutheran church and now is at a Catholic church, She describes herself as a general Christian. She has never really had any training as a church musician aside from what she learned growing up Mormon. She is pleased that they have just bought Journey Songs for the congregation. She is unaware that there is a text change coming in the Mass. While she is glad to have Journey Songs, she is working to get the choir to sing music that is even more contemporary.

    She wants to go back to school to finish her music degree and intends to do this at a large Church of God College about 30 miles away There is a very conservative Presbyterian college a few minutes from the church with an excellent music program, including choral direction, but she wants to go to the COG one. The COG one increases their income by sending their choir up on weekends to Gatlinburg to perform evenings at a Brandon, MO like music theater. They are NOT singing anything remotely reverent....to say the least.

    So here, we have a situation where there is no interest in the person in becoming a proficient church musician in the Catholic tradition, much less develop a background in a choral tradition.

    Yet the person is declaiming the Psalms at Mass and leading the direction of the music in the parish.

    And we wonder why we see bizarre liturgical events...
Add a Comment