Over at LarryD's "Acts of the Apostosy" http://actsoftheapostasy.wordpress.com/ he has a poll of the most influential RC in 2012. I nominated Prof. Mahrt, and he's got three votes. C'mon folks, stack the deck! Flash Mob over there and vote for our mentor! It's the American Way, and your duty as he is the spirit behind "Save the Liturgy..."
Kathy or Jeffrey, can you also repost this at the Cafe?
ok...done...but I must confess I voted three times. mea culpa
(FYI - I voted for three different people - Dr. Mahrt and two others. I don't want to get melofluent in trouble for putting me onto the thread. It didn't say I couldn't....so I don't think I did any harm.?))
Actually, at third behind C.s Dolan/Burke, he's ahead of Fr. Zed, whom I think wouldn't mind. THE POINT IS, dear CMAA comrades, to get a lot of RC folk to wonder "Hey, who is this Bill Mahrt guy?" Well he's not the jerk on HBO. If they see this gentle soul who's steered the American RC sacred music cause into a cause celebre, they might just make the connection between yakkers like Bill Donohue (bless his blustery soul) and Voris and doers like our beloved professor. So go there, vote for Mahrt!
Of him one cannot Tucker out And Ms. A of O-Z holds great clout One Stoops to praise Bill Buchholz still can thrill Of all these there can be no doubt
The ruler of Schuler lies long The merits of Skeris stay strong Ostrowski's and Bartlett's Have opened new markets But MAHRT is our mission's King Kong!
President Mahrt is solely in possession of 2nd place now. This readership is huge here. You want to promote the Mahrt paradigm universally? Vote for him at this little poll, and make more than a few Catholics google his name and consider why he's accomplished so much to advance "lex O', lex C'," than thousands of our beloved clerics.
I tried to vote but the link would not materialise on my computer. I must confess that I would be pulled in two directions: one toward Dr Mahrt, and the other toward Msgr Steenson. Incidentally, an anonymous donor has just donated five acres of land adjacent to Our Lady of Walsingham for to build an ordinariate chancery upon. Yet another Te Deum to sing! (Perhaps Dr Mahrt should lead it! -- no, it should be led by our own choirmaster.)
Ben, you're one of our onboard genius', isn't it Dec.22 near the I'ntl. dateline som'eres? Keep lobbying, then we can say that Mahrt literally saved the world!
MJO, I had problems too. At first only the "bad guys poll" was up. After I voted that and went back, the "good guy poll" was there. So try again and maybe refresh.
C'mon CMAA, G-Mahrt (Gregorian, as opposed to Wal...or K-Mart) is above the 20th percentile, thus within 9% of Cdl. Dolan, for chanting out loud! Stay churchy, my friends, this is one election we don't have to pinch our noses as we cast our vote! http://actsoftheapostasy.wordpress.com/
Mahrt is within 4 points of equating USCCB President T.C. Dolan at this straw poll. In the cheesy quote of Lay Mee-zu-rah-bluh, "Bring him home!" Do it, do it now! If he at least ties, then we can hoist this up to the Nat'l Catholic Register as newsworthy! What a Christmas surprise.
I'm thrilled that you're rooting so enthusiastically for your guy, and am enjoying the poll at my blog, but I really hope you're only voting once. This ain't Chicago, you know! :-)
Larry, I've been above board and honest in all my lobbying. And, if you've gone this far to track our guy down and, thus, our organization, we're all about the rules! For my part, this I can verify and thus earn your trust. And besides, we don't believe the dead can vote, and moreso, don't believe they'd even WANT to! Merry Christmas, LarryD, you've given many of us, along with the Archbolds and Zmirak, many laughs from the creative minority!
But I guess all my campaign ambitions have to have an output somewhere after taking off school for two weeks to work on the romney campaign right before the election. The joys of homeschool flexibility!
Done, my dear cmaa dad! Great find! And should Bill Mahrt be reading this thread, with bemused smile and wine glass in hand, I offer a robust "cheers"! And I'll tack on singing the Offertory for this week as well as a Divine Mercy chaplet as a concrete guesture of gratitude.
Ah, sweet angel soprano daughter o' mine, I was wonderin' where ye be? I know this whole bit is a calculated gambit, but really, who else has labored day and night to change the face of our maligned culture here? Love ya Mum, C For the rest of ye who've not ventured to vote, consider this: The nominative "Spirit of V2" callled for the contributions of the laity to the mission directives of the Church in the modern era. Who else embodies better the unity of tradition (and treasury) with the acceptance of intermediate steps towards a "unified field" sacrality in our musical domain than Bill Mahrt? Cardinal Dolan is a proven trouper. Bill Mahrt is and has always been a soldier on the front lines of the righteous side. Vote.
At the risk of not conveying sufficient respect for the fine work Prof. Mahrt has done through his illustrious career, I have to ask: why is he nominated for this? Is he an influential Catholic? Yes, very much so. But what has he influenced in 2012? Steenson, I can see. The Ordinariate has taken off and breathed new air into the Catholic Church. Dolan and George, yes, very influential, given their role in national politics. But, so far as I know, Mahrt has been keeping on with the fine work he's been doing. Which is not to be denigrated, but is there something specific he's done, or some way he's affected events ecclesiastical over the past year?
Mahrt is probably not well known outside of the highly insular CMAA world. That does not in any way diminish his work or contributions. However, we are talking music not world shaking hype. He doesn't get the media coverage Justin Bieber gets. Dolan and others play on a much larger stage.
Gavin, how are studies and gig going in Houston? I pray thee well. First of all, an honest question deserves an honest response. LarryD's blog, "Acts of the Apostacy" is first and foremost one of a number of satirically based catholic sites such as Creative MInority, the Crescat and others, and the humor these sites purvey undegirds pretty much what they put out. Larry didn't pull these names out of a hat, readership, including moi, submitted noms. And frankly, I was surprised to see that Mahrt actually made the list. But then, as you can see by the tone of my posts above, that Larry himself had to google Mahrt to find us and his humorous admonition about Chicago voting practices reflects what I've described. But now, there might be people, especially if Mahrt wins this straw poll, who will also be intrigued enough to google him and thereby us, and spread the word of what we and CMAA do. It's not a "for real" contest, it's a pageant. C's. Dolan and Burke are no less or no more eminent and worthy than Mahrt, but personally I think it'd be a hoot if our supremely modest, Yoda-like sensei won the pageant representing the apostacy of orthodox Catholics from the gulags of "bad taste and political correctness" that have ruled the roost for two generatons. Don't worry, be happy.
I would also submit that Prof. Mahrt's "The Musical Shape of the Liturgy" is arguably one of the most influential Catholic publications of 2012 - and certainly makes him worthy of any such list.
Okay, cards on table. I embraced catholicism at 19 because of the liturgy in 1970. I had no idea it was compromised, how could I? In Oakland, at the cathedral with Brahms, Beatles, Temple and Dixieland, it was a musical orgy. But I knew underneath all the visceral excitement was the living skeleton that is the Ritual of the Divine Liturgy, the Holy Mass. It,at once, made sense, made one love, made one aware of each other's importance in all things seen and unseen. I followed the paths that both Christ, His Church and (for good or ill) her "agents" placed before me. And I sure as snot knew it all by my second assignment as a choir director at a major parish at 22. I knew so much that when I was in my fifties I was still cocky and obnoxious enough to parce and fisk the occasional writings of one Wm. Mahrt I'd run into on the internet via Adoremus or other reprints, and was sure my polemics were more informed than his in his own insulated world a stone's throw away in Palo Alto. When I first heard of a CMAA colloquium via a forum, "Six Days of Musical Heaven," my first thought was "how arrogant!" That was 2005. But by following the lead to Musica Sacra, I attended a colloquium in 2006. Tho' I came from DC still feeling a bit like an alien in a foreign land, from the first compline, Wm. Mahrt was not whatever pedigog I had pigeon-holed in my mental fortress. He changed my life forever, being, at once, the living voice of Jesus chanting the Hallel, the St. Gregory of vision and servitude, and St. Cecilia, the pure voice of the Bride of Christ singing the Song of Songs. I can't say how many can share similar encounters and transformations, but I suspect I'm not at all alone. I've met a lot of bishops, a couple of cardinals and they're great apostles, disciples and witnesses. I've never met anyone like Bill Mahrt. That's the truth, and that's that.
Richard and Charles, excuse me, I gave Larry our word that we, of all people, follow the RULES. We do this fair and square, or we're chumps like the rest of the world.
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