@Wiesorganista ROFL hahahah, now that was good

To return the discussion to its earlier topic (and, I must admit guilt in dragging it off further), I think Noel may be on to something. Catholics on BOTH sides will exhibit this (frankly immature) behavior. One of the interesting things I noticed though, is that at least progressives will only stop for the hymns they don't like. Trads, I've noticed, will permanently clam up for the whole Mass if they don't like ANYTHING, even if it means passing up on Salve Regina!

So what? Why did Noel make this observation?

I'd propose that what we can take from this is that 1) moving TOWARDS solid hymnody is not good enough. One must BANISH unworthy hymnody. It can be done - just don't program it!

Perhaps more importantly, 2) it is important, pastorally, to firmly institute the place of the choir. That way, it doesn't matter if people don't like the choir music - they won't be singing anyway! There is no form of protest against it! And silence implies consent more readily for choral music than for hymnody.

Poor, poor Saginaw. I'm sooooooo sad to see the country parishes I grew up playing at next to abandoned :(

If anybody wonders about the long-term effects of Catholo-liberalism, look no further than there...

Half the parishes (about 50) are expected to close next year, Charles.

They should just merge back into the Archdiocese of Detroit, in my opinion.

Oh please, we have enough trouble in Detroit. Some of these parishes do not need to be closed. This sounds conspiratorial but I think the bishop wants another assignment and one way to get the attention of the Vatican is to close 50% of the parishes in your diocese.

I had no idea things were that bad. Roman Catholicism and both Eastern Catholicism and Orthodoxy are growing in this area of East Tennessee.

Thanks to Bps. Reh and Untener and their shenanigans thet went on for 30 or 40 years, people just stopped going according to my observations. I remember "Nuns" in albs "concelebrating" when I was a kid. Poor people (many hundreds of my own family members) are so confused.

Population has also declined with people moving out of the area (I'm in that catagory).

Relating to this thread: I can't go to Mass at my childhood parish when I visit because the music and liturgy is so terrible. The Pastor ad libs everything, even the consecration, and does the elevation before bowing (yes, bowing not genuflecting). I wrote a letter to the Bishop after I witnessed that, to which I never received a response.

Bp. Carlson was good but he was only there a few years.

"Wouldn't that be a negative thing though?" Yes it is and it might get him a new assignment.

Let me pose a challenge: if somebody thinks that a failure by a lay person in the pews to sing along with some hymn at Mass is either (a) immoral or (b) unlawful, then you should be able to find expert opinion confirming this. Go find it. Go find the moral theologian or the magisterial statement; find the canon lawyer or the authoritative interpretation of law that confirms your contention.

The burden of proof is on the person claiming that there is an obligation.

Yes, Chonak is fully correct. And it is not virtuous to go running round claiming there are obligations without sufficient basis, which has not been provided, at least yet. And the document so far suggested in the other thread is not about a legal obligation on the part of the faithful to join the singing - rather, it's about what ideally should be sung (and has since been modified by later instructions in other documents).

I have read most of the Church documents concerning music and there is no place I have seen where it even suggests that if a person does not sing they are disobedient. There are many reasons why a person would not sing that have nothing to do with dislike of particular music, they are sick, they are deaf, they are tone deaf. If they are praying while the singing is going on then they are participating with one voice because they are actively participating. Active participation in the Mass can be just paying attention and praying.

Pride can slice both ways E A. If you think someone is not singing because they do not like the music and therefore prideful, does not make it so. You may be participating in the very sin you believe the silent parishioner is engaged in. I witnessed a serious wrong done to a very fine young man because another thought he was being silent out of pride at Mass.

When I am serving at a sung Mass, I do not usually sing, there are other things to do while the choir is singing. This can not be considered to be sinful.
When I am sitting with my family in the congregation I usually do not sing, I have other things to do (4 children under 7 years)! Note I am actively participating in the Mass in another way.
When I am attending Mass where another Schola are singing I do not usually join in. I prefer to read the suggested commentaries in my Missal.

As I see it, it is the Choir / Schola job to sing the Mass. The congregation is optional!

Note I do not attend the OF, but I don't see why everyone MUST sing at the OF.

For the schola I sing with, the ability of the Congregation to join in is the least important part of choosing the music.

Does anyone read what was written? For reference:

A distinction should be made between conscientious objection and disobedience.

All it takes is for "singing or not singing" to be considered an issue of obedience. Questions of law overstated the case, apparently, though this was initially said in good faith, because I had foolishly trusted a man I thought worth trusting. Oy vey, people, read what was written.

Pride can slice both ways E A. If you think someone is not singing because they do not like the music and therefore prideful, does not make it so.

Who said it was applying to anyone in particular? This was an analysis of particular reasons given, and completely understood in the hypothetical against a hypothetical situation. If this is unclear, I apologize. So far as principles go, these principles are not meant to be applied to others while at Mass but only at themselves. Every single one of these principles is meant as a self-mortification.

Here are the principles, as have been laid out different places in the thread:

1. Priest of authority interprets GIRM 19 as a rule of the parish. Everyone sings, he interprets. Rightly or wrongly, it is not the capacity of laity to decide this. (This point comes again and again from those who cry out "liturgy police" on this forum.)
2. Syrupy, banal, bland, tasteless, inappropriate but not really heretical hymn selected. Rightly or wrongly, it is not the capacity of laity to decide this. (This point comes again and again from those who cry out "liturgy police" here on this forum.)
3. Because you, in your faculties as the laity, are supposed to be obedient to priests of authority in their capacity of authority, you should normatively sing.

Caveat, and in fact the point, from the very beginning of this side of the argument: If you do not obey, it should be as a conscientious objection for some reason rather than stubborn disobedience. All this means is "put some care into not singing rather than making 'not singing' a reflex."

How is this dilemma difficult to understand? Less was said than you all have read. If this dilemma appears a false dilemma, then believe-you-me it has really happened.

If the priest does not have the authority to compel this, then that is one solution. Nobody here has said that, though, instead reading into this commenter as a person, posing challenges that I, as a layman personally unfamilar with appropriate documents, am not equipped to handle.

Look, guys, I'm coming here to learn this stuff. If I have nonsense, maybe it comes from me. Please consider, though, that in this age of broken worship that I'm at least sometimes a carrier.

No, I'm at an FSSP Mass. I've heard this exact interpretation before from someone else online and was honestly persuaded, which is why I attend an FSSP Mass. Blather along these lines --- participate at Mass means doing everything! --- I have explicitly seen. The latent assumptions behind this position certainly haunt every parish I've ever attended, of course excepting all those "trad" chapels.

I'd rather not go into details about particulars. That's why the whole discussion is, trying and failing, to be framed as a hypothetical. Knowing particular situations do us no good. It's understanding the principles that really helps folks.

How do we know if something is worth taking up the chain of command? "Pragmatism" does not go very far to someone born in the last three decades, that time when a genuinely Catholic liturgical sense is rarer than white rhinos.

Not being a very effective document chucker, perhaps someone with better memory can help out on this one. I remember, back in the late 80s or so, a statement in a document or papal document that covered something similar. It said, roughly, that if a mass were not celebrated licitly or caused scandal to the faithful, the faithful were not required to attend. I assumed that would have meant only one mass was available and there was nothing better that could be attended instead.

"It is the music director's job to select music. When attending Mass, it is your job to sing it, excepting grave circumstances. Isn't the law quite clear on this?"

No, it's not.

Many Catholics do not sing because they never sang at Mass before....if it's the same Mass, then why should they? If it's not the same Mass....then Houston, "we've got a problem."

Without appearing to be indiscreet, allow me to share anecdotal evidence I believe should influence from what perspective we should observe this "dilemma." At our four parish merge we are blessed with about ten permanent deacons. One of them meets the true physiological criteria that would qualify him as truly "tone deaf." (He also happens to be a fairly recent widower.)
When he assists at Sunday Masses receives blessing during the gospel acclamation, takes possession of the Gospel Book, processes to the ambo which is equipped with a very powerful condensor mic. Often he will ariive there shortly before the finish of the chanted "alleluia" and as we're singing I can hear his grainy, pitchless buzz coming through the PA system-"Al-le-luuuuuu-ia."
It brings such joy to my heart everytime that happens. He knows he can't literally sing (or so we all thought.) But he is the embodiment of "how can I keep FROM singing." I've used this story to illustrate to incoming catechumens the perspective that we should perhaps discuss instead of stigmatizing "not singing" with discussions of sin of ommission. And I add that the imperfection of our voice is quite nicely compensated for by the perfection of God's ears.
Nice coda: at the Easter Sunday Mass this deacon "came out of nowhere" and actually rendered the "ite Missa est" in a fairly solid recto-tono! I could hardly contain myself after Mass, hugging him. Tender mercies, simple gifts.

EAF, fellow San Joaquinian, what's at stake here that's worth such heavy lifting rhetorically? We've gotten this topic spread like a virus across at least three threads here. Let's not let it mutate into Ebola, please.
My wife, sage in all things, just yesterday expressed the lament that no one reads anymore period. NO ONE READS ANYMORE. So now we know no one sings anymore and no one reads anymore. In the immortal wisdom of another sage, Miles Davis, "So What?"
What you have written, you have written. It's out there, let it go.
That's how I regard all the compositions I've penned and forgotten in the ether.

Amen to that, humility in all.

EA, as far as I am concerned, if music is chosen that has objectionable texts and settings, I will not sing it. There have been times when a celebrant will urge us to sing this stuff and I will not. This happens when the music is chosen from Spirit and Song. I am not being disobedient when I choose not to sing. I cannot, in good conscience, sing pieces that fail to respect guidelines such as those offered in Sacramentum Caritatis and are, in the Holy Father's own words, "banal."

I will chant the ICEL setting, but, not something composed by Marty Haugen, as an example.

Oh BG, if you'd just had let it alone after "banal."....
It's one thing to call a specific Haugen piece anathema, it is quite another to condemn his work in toto because of your regard for the integrity of his personhood. Before you gnash your molars, allow me to illustrate.
You're in a choir, the director passes out a piece based upon the scriptural account of King David's learning of the death of his first son, Absalon. You don't pay much attention initially beyond learning your part and then towards the end of the learning curve you love the piece, it enriches your understanding of sin and suffering. Your soul is touched. The choir nails it, the spiritual bar is raised and everyone is better for it.
Then you want to know more about its composer, someone named Carlo Gesualdo.
Oh!
You then are so dismayed and you turn your attention away from sacred music to sacred art. And you come to appreciate a wonderful depiction of the conversion of St. Paul, which leads you to an incredible, breathtaking scene of the crucifixion of St. Peter. You want to know more about the artist, Caravaggio. Oh!
The artist can be a vessel of God's grace and beauty, and appear to be deeply flawed.
In fact, that's a dichotomy that artists and saints probably have in common frequently. (Not saying Haugen's a saint, mind you.)
Judge not...

Charles, has Marty Haugen been a bad boy?

I agree ryand but I thought Charles was comparing Haugen with Gesualdo and Gesualdo was not a very nice man. Don't know anything about Caravaggio's personality but the talents of both of these men are much greater than Haugen.

Charles' point about the quality of art vs. its creator's sanctity is beautifully put and, in fact, has a parallel in one of the Church's early controversies. Namely, the Donatist controversy, which was a fierce (and rather understandable) debate over whether or not priests who (as Charles puts it) lacked integrity of personhood should be allowed, and whether or not their sacramental activities were valid. The Church decided (rather understandably) that though a priest led an immoral life, the sacraments he celebrated were nonetheless valid, ex opere operato, because of God's faithful action through him. If this is true of priests, then certain it is that a particularly sinful person can create works of art, music, architecture, or even cuisine that may become what we call 'sacramentals': works that, though they are not sacraments, may be so inspired as to be occasional vehicles of grace upon various persons. (As it turns out, every one of us is sinful and unworthy!)

Charles no fight here, I just thought it was funny knowing what a bad boy Gesualdo was. :) Precisely M. Jackson. I just love Wagner.