Job - here today, gone tomorrow.
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    Got word today that a very fine organist and composer after three years saw the pastor a staff meeting, prayed the Angelus with him, got called into the office at 2:00 and was fired.

    No severance, shut the door.

    Did I mention that this was a Florida Catholic church?

    In the Protestant church this usually takes a committee and is rarely a surprise.
  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,204
    I've said it before, and I'll say it again. . . Anyone who thinks that the only abuse a priest is capable of is the sexual kind is whistling past the grave yard.

    And, just as with the sex abuse scandal, the only way it will stop is when those of us who have been treated in this manner (by wantonly stupid or worse, wantonly cruel priests who suffer from grave moral defects), step forward and publicly expose these scandals to anyone and everyone who will listen. Name names, tell people exactly what happened. If you're asked, as I was, to sign a "separation agreement" (with cash incentives) in exchange for your silence, DON'T do it. Don't sell your silence. And let them (the pastor, the diocese, everyone) know that you have no intention of keeping silent and that you will exercise your right as a Christian to protect your good name, an absolute right that is guaranteed and codified in the Teachings of the Church.

    This is a white martyrdom, and it's been going on long enough.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    i have suffered through the same, but i did not resign as i was told... i told the pastor he had to fire me straight out... they have no reason to offer NOW as to why I was fired.
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    I have never been fired from a Protestant church, but have been fired or pushed out of Catholic ones....which convinced me to stay away from them for 27 years.
  • Cantor
    Posts: 84
    David et al.,

    The problem, as I see it, is that the morality of being suddenly fired from a church is a more complicated issue than the morality of child sex abuse. It’s a foregone conclusion that abusing children is wrong, but churches can (and do) make asinine statements justifying their actions.

    When I was let go, with no warning, never a performance review, and even in a diocese that makes performance reviews and progressive discipline a policy, the parish basically said that I should have “gotten the idea” from the occasional off-handed comments, and the diocese agreed with them, saying essentially that parishes can interpret diocesan policy (heh, at least *this* particular one) however they please.

    I really think most Catholics *want* to believe that the Church and her leaders are upright, good people who won’t do things like that without remorse. And, maybe it’s a pathology among Church leaders that they themselves so want to believe in the morality of treating musicians like dung that they end up believing that they’re in the right.

    In short, I hate to be pessimistic about things like this, but I really think we fight a losing battle when we try to protest such treatment, to the public at large or to the Church hierarchy. Compounding the issue is that musicians probably, by nature, intimidate clergy. Hopefully this isn’t true in general, but I’m coming to regard an awful lot of clergy I meet as ... well, not the sharpest knives in the drawer. (Mercifully, there are some exceptions.) Meanwhile, most musicians I know are pretty sharp people, and the fact that we’re around parish life as much as we are predisposes us to a level of understanding of some things that will, by nature, compel some clergy to feel threatened.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    cantor...

    I think the clergy often are more confused and manipulated than anything else. The evil one wars against them on every side. It can happen in many ways... politics, beaurocratic pressure, money, and the list goes on.

    Noel...

    Don't let the wiles of the devil throw you from your calling to the office of church musician. I will pray that God opens the doors for you once again.
  • Abbot Jonathan CoelAbbot Jonathan Coel
    Posts: 167
    Unfortunately, philosophies of liberalism, Progressiveness, Liberation Theology, Universalism and so many other heresies are so rampant in so many situations and people. In addition to this, I sincerely believe that a vast majority within churches are both knowingly and unknowingly ignorant and or ill informed about music in general and sacred music in specific. So many people have mistaken ideas and generalities about musicians and they come to the table with these erroneous misconceptions; thus making seriously wrong judgements in both policy and polity.

    Although I am not quite in favor of church musicians all joining the professional musicians' Union as many other professional musicians do, I do recommend that somehow professional church musician in the Catholic and Anglican churches perhaps, at the leas,t be granted the status of deacon or deaconess. This might help!

    Perhaps, if churches and clergy have to actually go through an agency, organization of some kind or official department within their respective churches nationwide in order to hire and or fire a musician, then maybe it will cause them to stop, think and really take stock of their actions before doing so. In this way, a pastor or church would need to go through a national organization and its scrutiny in order to be fair and just. This way, hopefully, nothing would be hid under the cloak of secrecy or behind a parish closed door.

    In other words, an interested musician would offer to a church their resume and make known their interest in a position through such an national church organization. Then a pastor, church and or committee would have to agree to go through a very specific hiring process and when a candidate is selected, have to agree by a legal binding contractual relationship with both the musician and that churches national musicians organization, on all job procedures including employment termination. And such a termination would automatically trigger an objective impartial committee that would visit the pastor, musician, choir members and key parish members in order to evaluate and ascertain whether termination is justified. The AGO does something like this but the difference would be twofold, 1) it would be a highly authoritative official department or organization of that church's denomination and 2) it would actually be a hands on, present, in your face committee visiting that situation in person.

    Just food for thought!
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    Ah, remember how we learnt in music history how the artist became free around the time of Beethoven and that the age of royal and noble patronage came to an end? Except the Catholic Church did not participate in this development. It is still very much a patronage institution. Hence the awful century and a half of warmed over Palestrina masses by Sister This and Father That. The only thing that changed after Vatican II was what was patronised - it now has to be sacro-pop or you're fired. With very few exceptions (which are often mentioned here) Catholic churches do not have real choirmasters nor real organists, they do not have real choirs, they do not sing real church music, and largely they do not have real organs. BUT! They boast grand pianos! And 'contemporary ensmbles'. (The wise man or woman would never take the designation 'contemporary' here to signal 'modern'.) This is what happens when the ruling caste are, largely, cultural illiterates who want to make sure everyone else is, too.
  • Daniel Bennett PageDaniel Bennett Page
    Posts: 833
    Hear! Hear! The aesthetic and intellectual culture of the average Catholic parish (and priest and diocese and bishop) is at about a K-Mart level. A glass with a few drops lingering at the bottom is not empty, but it's not nearly half-full.
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    Ham (Amateur Radio) tried to swell the ranks that were depleted by CB Radio by eliminating the need for memorizing Morse Code, which I refer to as the Latin obligation to become a Catholic Priest. This did not help. Having to pass the code test was a badge of honor.

    The ORGAN lost it's aura as KING OF INSTRUMENTS when it became a parlor toy with one-finger chords...people lost repest for organists as a result.

    Some, if not many, of the priests we see screwing things up in parishes today, would not be there if standards and requirements for such useless things like learning Latin at seminaries had not been abandoned or lowered.

    Every diocese has a couple of brilliant priests and their position in the diocese tells you the overall average IQ of the diocese. Stuck in the boondocks means below average.
  • Donnaswan
    Posts: 585
    I am planning to get every medical test known to man under my Diocesan Health Plan before my severance ends!! All the things I have put off for years.
    My replacement freely admits she cannot even read music!
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    Donna:

    That is very sad. You have our prayers and thoughts.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    Yes, and your replacement has recently been promoted. Scary, isn't it?
  • Dale Fleck
    Posts: 49
    We must organize to promote some kind of status for professional musicians in the Catholic Church. The Episcopalians always seem to be ahead of us in this regard. In many cathedrals, they recognition as "canon musicians" which does give stablility. We need something similar. Sometime ago, my friend, a lawyer in the Catholic Church Dwayne Galles, promoted the idea that musicians ought to be ordained as permanent deacons and sited many early examples of this where this happened. I wish that there was a way that we could all be protected against the whim of a rector!
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    The AGO has a rather effective grievance procedure that permits the church to hire an AGO member for 90 days after an event, but then bans them from employing AGO members until the grievance has been settled. If not settled, then the church continues to be publicized as a church that AGO members will not work at.

    Not that long ago non-AGO members were not permitted to view job listings...now they are open again:

    http://www.agohq.org/profession/indexjobs.html
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    Has there ever been a Vatican Director of Music that cannot read....music?
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    The Protestants can be a classy bunch - this just in:

    Noel, thank you for your recent resume submission for the Director of Traditional Music position at xxxxxxxxxxx Presbyterian Church in xxxxxxxxxxxxx. We are just beginning the search and appreciate your interest.

    Our next search committee meeting is Monday evening, September 20. I will forward an update on our progress or request for a next step after that meeting. Thanks for your patience.

    Regards,

    xxxxxxxx
    Traditional Music Director Search Committee Chair
    xxxxxxxxxxxxx Presbyterian Church
    xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


    [refreshing, since many Catholic churches fail to respond in any way - this church tells you what's going on and where they are in the process]
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    Making worthy musicians canons, or ordaining them into a diaconal order would be fitting and could promote respect not only for musicians but, equally important, for real church music. This latter is, of course, what we all wish for. There is ample precedent in the early and mediaeval church for such ordination. The great Jean Titelouze and numerous others into the early modern era were highly respected and made canons. Bestowing such honours continues, as was mentioned above, in the Anglican church. The disrespect often shown to musicians really stems from the notion that music itself is nothing to take seriously, and certainly should not sound too different from what is heard on the street or the radio. The fathers of the early church would have been heatedly vociferous in their rejection of such an idea. (The sort of 'inculturation' which is championed by the trendy chic nowadays is exactly what the fathers did NOT want! - they had a far, far greater respect for holy things; and, the holiness which is within people.)
  • ossian1898ossian1898
    Posts: 142
    When I was a Protestant, and played in a baptist congregation, I had performance reviews and they treated me well even when we disagreed. My experience now as a Catholic is different in the Novus Ordo. I wouldn't now play in a Protestant community, because I can't square supporting heresy and simulated sacraments.

    The new pastor, who eliminated gregorian chant from the parish a few months ago and I were supposed to meet "before summer ended". Yesterday when I reminded him of that (nicely) he simply stated that I shouldn't worry because as soon as the new missalettes arrived everything would change on it's own...

    I got the feeling that he doesn't want any musical input and doesn't see anything wrong with that. It's like my music degree is worthless. I should have just taken more private lessons. :-)
  • Liam
    Posts: 4,944
    This is simply one of the joys of monarchical governance....
  • marajoymarajoy
    Posts: 781
    We are limiting our perspective by only looking at one side of this issue---

    So what about when a "good" priest becomes pastor of a church? He is able to get rid of a "not-so-good" music director surprisingly easily!

    And I know personally of at least one priest who did that--Praise the Lord!
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    Marajoy

    You are correct about that.
  • ossian1898ossian1898
    Posts: 142
    Yes it does go both ways. I noticed today Fr. Z had a post about this. It made me consider the times we live in. All we want is to be free to do what the Church asks for, and in some cases requires. We shouldn't be mistreated for preparing or desiring the actual Catholic music for Mass.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    Very well put, Ossian.
  • don roy
    Posts: 306
    marajoy
    excellent point. I believe it was Fr. Jeffry Keyes who, a couple of colloquiems ago commented that when he came on board he met with the current music director and outlined his expectations. It only was after trying to work with said director that fr. keyes finally had to let him go. i believe that in fact it was a mutual decision.
    thats the difference. ive been in situations where the new pastor wouldnt even begin to give the director even a chance to grow. how can one in good faith work in a situation where the pastor is itching to fire you?
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