There's a sense in which I agree with you. Catholic culture as a whole is about "me, me, me" these days. I can see it when I talk to the older children of the parish. An 8th grade girl remarked to me "Why do we only use the red book? (we celebrate) Why can't we use songs from the blue book? (you know what that is) We like the blue book songs better!" I said "well, the problem with your reasoning is that it doesn't matter what you like or what I like or what father likes. The church has standards for its worship and the blue book's songs largely don't measure up to those standards." Now I've been charged before that I should NEVER bring up the "suitability" argument around children. But this was about a month before I left, so to heck with that. And the girl didn't freak out or accuse me of partisanism; she dropped the argument. She said instead "Well we find the blue book songs easier to sing." Aha! There's a legitimate point of discussion! All it took was one correction for her to see that Mass isn't about tastes or egos. Unfortunately, the majority of Catholics have not 13 years of being taught Mass is about ego-stroking but 40 years. I always have the same "it doesn't matter what people like" conversation with the same adults. Over and over. Some of the more affected believe their personal tastes (as in them as an individual) should rule the parish! My mother was careful to raise us without that whole sense of entitlement, but most people HAVE drank the Kool-aid.

It's like my latest trouble situation. I arranged an occasional choir for Pentecost, and an old man who sang with an occasional men's group arrived on the day of Pentecost to sing, even though he had not shown up at any practices. I pulled him aside and said to him "I'm sorry, but if you haven't showed up at any rehearsals, I can't allow you to sing." He threw his music on the ground and stormed out of the loft in front of the priest, who later went on at me about how horribly he thought I handled the situation. I said to Father, "You know, 50 years ago that man would have said 'Yes, sir!' and left without a fuss, and then apologized to you as a priest for wasting time in your presence!" Rather, Mass is about egos now.

On the other hand, and perhaps a slightly different topic, we have to be careful of making ideologies our enemies. I'm reminded of the Infamous Todd the Progressive Liturgist. Anytime you try to engage him about this or that practice, he says "no true progressive would ever do that, so your criticism is irrelevant." Or if you bring up the propers, he'll say "progressives were doing the propers while Reform2 people were still doing the 4 hymn sandwich!" If Todd's characterization of progressives is accurate (which I bet it isn't, but let's assume it is), then we really have nothing to worry about with them. But still there's a lot of parishes out there that don't care about the propers or that sing all 22 verses of "We come to share our story" and "non-progressive" priests that don't give a darn about saying the black or doing the red. It seems to me that our fight ought not to be carried out in the abstract world of ideologies and groups of people, but against practices. There are, after all, a LOT of well-meaning people for whom Glory & Praise or Gather is "traditional music". Let's rather be like Paul at Mars Hill, "The tradition you love and do not know, I proclaim to you." Yes it'd be all fun to run out anyone who starts Mass with "Good morning" or thinks "To be your bread" is the source and summit of the Catholic faith, but let's start with the errant practices themselves and let the ideology work itself out in the context of good liturgy.

Of course, when people insult you, it's always a good idea to consider the source. That was one of my late father's words to live by, along with the concept that most free advice is worth what you paid for it. Because of the overwhelming emphasis on feelings in our culture, I find it very easy to spend my time trying to read other people's emotions. When I'm running a rehearsal, am I thinking about the music and the text and the balance? Or am I wondering if a touchy singer will have a fit if corrected and does one of the altos find this motet a bore? In other words, I'm making a god of other people's feelings (over which I have absolutely no control).

Worse still, when I'm actually playing or singing at a liturgy, do I have one eye cocked at the congregation to see if they've become "animated" yet? If Father yawns during the offertory, does my programming bore him and will I be replaced with a combo? And since the choir does nothing that I asked them to do at rehearsal, do they all hate me? I can cycle through of all these in less than 30 seconds. Thus in the course of a one-hour liturgy, I can freak out dozens of times.

Maybe I can be a vehicle of grace for some people, but it won't be thanks to my fretting about it or my frenzied efforts to whip up piety, faith, or whatever. That's God's business. And He'd probably prefer it if I'd do mine.

Charles, I meant no offense, and in fact rather did so as a humorous reference to the animosity St. Blog's holds toward him. I have nothing but respect for Todd, although as I indicated I think he overuses the "No true Scotsman" fallacy. There was no insult intended, except to those who write off anything he does simply because he is either "progressive" or a liturgist.

"No true Scotsman" is a logical fallacy where one refutes an argument by saying that it isn't practiced among their group. I do hold Todd in high regard, I think he reciprocates or at least tolerates me. Perhaps a counter-example of the fallacy would be if Todd said "Traditional musicians just want to go back to 'Jesus My Lord, My God, My All'!" and a commenter responded "No true traditional musician wants that!" Perhaps the commenter is right, but that is beside the point we have to deal with of whether we're turning back the clock or not.

Might be a mislabeling of the fallacy (or even not a fallacy) but I don't find it productive. Still, I enjoy Todd's perspective. Someone who can read church documents and come to a different conclusion than I would is someone I have an interest in listening to.