Kimberly,

From the most recent document (although only a recommendation from the US Bishops) Sing to the Lord:

Pg. 17
E. Ministers of Liturgical Music
The Choir
28. The Second Vatican Council stated emphatically that choirs must be diligently
promoted while ensuring that “the whole body of the faithful may be able to contribute that
active participation which is rightly theirs. . . .”
41
The choir must not minimize the musical
participation of the faithful. The congregation commonly sings unison melodies, which are more
suitable for generally unrehearsed community singing. This is the primary song of the Liturgy.
Choirs and ensembles, on the other hand, comprise persons drawn from the community who
possess the requisite musical skills and a commitment to the established schedule of rehearsals
and Liturgies. Thus, they are able to enrich the celebration by adding musical elements beyond
the capabilities of the congregation alone.

29. Choirs (and ensembles—another form of choir that commonly includes a combination
of singers and instrumentalists) exercise their ministry in various ways. An important ministerial
role of the choir or ensemble is to sing various parts of the Mass in dialogue or alternation with
the congregation. Some parts of the Mass that have the character of a litany, such as the Kyrie
and the Agnus Dei, are clearly intended to be sung in this manner. Other Mass parts may also be
sung in dialogue or alternation, especially the Gloria, the Creed, and the three processional
songs: the Entrance, the Preparation of the Gifts, and Communion. This approach often takes the
form of a congregational refrain with verses sung by the choir. Choirs may also enrich
congregational singing by adding harmonies and descants.

Page 18
30. At times, the choir performs its ministry by singing alone. The choir may draw on the
treasury of sacred music, singing compositions by composers of various periods and in various
musical styles, as well as music that expresses the faith of the various cultures that enrich the
Church. Appropriate times where the choir might commonly sing alone include a prelude before
Mass, the Entrance chant, the Preparation of the Gifts, during the Communion procession or after
the reception of Communion, and the recessional. Other appropriate examples are given in the
section of this document entitled “Music and the Structure of the Mass” (nos. 137-199). The
music of the choir must always be appropriate to the Liturgy, either by being a proper liturgical
text or by expressing themes appropriate to the Liturgy.

31. When the choir is not exercising its particular role, it joins the congregation in song.
The choir’s role in this case is not to lead congregational singing, but to sing with the
congregation, which sings on its own or under the leadership of the organ or other instruments.

32. Choir members, like all liturgical ministers, should exercise their ministry with
evident faith and should participate in the entire liturgical celebration, recognizing that they are
servants of the Liturgy and members of the gathered assembly.

33. Choir and ensemble members may dress in albs or choir robes, but always in clean,
presentable, and modest clothing. Cassock and surplice, being clerical attire, are not
recommended as choir vesture.

My contribution.

It's good to see that Sing to the Lord is at least recognizing that the choir has a special function. There is a strain of radical thought that has been a driving force in liturgy in the last 50 years that has seen the choir has the key impediment to the achievement of a people's liturgy. Many people wrote in periodicals over the last decades that choirs should just be smashed and abolished forever.

On the other hand, the endorsement from Sing to the Lord is still rather weak: "persons drawn from the community who possess the requisite musical skills and a commitment to the established schedule of rehearsals and Liturgies."

As a result of the attack on choirs, the fact is that few of our "communities" have persons with requisite skill. Those that do often lack that service ethic that comes with the very difficult task of committing to weekly rehearsals and Masses. It turns out to be extremely difficult to raise a choir to do anything beyond just up for a good seat at Mass.

The extreme low view of the choir--that if it has to exist, it should play play the role of a support group for the people: from, by, and for the people--is probably a reaction against the old Ceacilian view of the choir, which is that its role is clerical. It members should be men like the priesthood itself and they should strive for minor orders and tonsures. It's function was clerical as well, in their view.

This too is exaggerated.

What makes the most sense to me is a third understanding of the role of the choir: that it stands not in a primarily clerical role or as a proxy for the people but rather as the chorus angelorum that ennobles the liturgy through specialized song. Whether its members are professionals from outside or amateurs from within the congregation is completely irrelevant.

It was David Hughes who first drew my attention to this third way. It is surely the case that this view is mention in documents somewhere or in articles. Can someone help me find references? I'm thinking that something more substantial should be written on this whole topic.

Well, the problem in many parishes is there would be no Catholic music if we could only have Catholics sing and play. The attack on choirs had a devastating effect on the accumulated musical capital of our parishes.

I think that the term "choir" has shifted meanings over the years in a liturgical sense. Ever since the Renaissance there has been the clerical "choir" which sat in the "choir" area. These canons, monks, or sometimes their hired substitutes sang the chants of the Office and Mass every day. OTOH there was also a group of paid professional "singers" whose job was to sing polyphony and other part music. In old Spanish cathedral records you clearly see the distinction between the "coro" and the "cantantes" or other variations of the word. I think that today's choir is more closely linked to the "singers" tradition. Unfortunately, there is no widespread tradition of the "choir" anymore. We don't have enough priests in most cathedrals, and those that are there don't sing enough (maybe because the Office is no longer a singing Office). Anyway, the church documents have not quite made this clear enough. Liturgical choirs are rare these days, but lay singers still serve the same function they have for centuries, ornamenting the Mass with beautifully composed music.

Sacr. Conc. has this to say about choirs:
29 Servers, lectors, commentators, and members of the choir also exercise a genuine liturgical function. They ought, therefore, to discharge their office with the sincere piety and decorum demanded by so exalted a ministry and rightly expected of them by God's people.
Consequently they must all be deeply imbued with the spirit of the liturgy, each in his own measure, and they must be trained to perform their functions in a correct and orderly manner.

114 The treasure of sacred music is to be preserved and fostered with great care. Choirs must be diligently promoted, especially in cathedral churches; but bishops and other pastors of souls must be at pains to ensure that, whenever the sacred action is to be celebrated with song, the whole body of the faithful may be able to contribute that active participation which is rightly theirs, as laid down in Art. 28 and 30.

Musicam Sacram also has the following to say:
9. In selecting the kind of sacred music to be used, whether it be for the choir or for the people, the capacities of those who are to sing the music must be taken into account. No kind of sacred music is prohibited from liturgical actions by the Church as long as it corresponds to the spirit of the liturgical celebration itself and the nature of its individual parts,(footnote to Sac. Con. 116: The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman Liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services. But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action, as laid down in Art. 30.) and does not hinder the active participation of the people. (footnote to Sac. Con. 28: In liturgical celebrations each person, minister or layman, who has an office to perform, should do all of, but only, those parts which pertain to his office by the nature of the rite and the principles of Liturgy.)

20. Large choirs (Capellae musicae) existing in basilicas, cathedrals, monasteries and other major churches, which have in the course of centuries earned for themselves high renown by preserving and developing a musical heritage of inestimable value, should be retained for sacred celebrations of a more elaborate kind, according to their own traditional norms, recognized and approved by the Ordinary.
However, the directors of these choirs and the rectors of the churches should take care that the people always associate themselves with the singing by performing at least the easier sections of those parts which belong to them.


GIRM 103: Among the faithful, the schola cantorum or choir exercises its own liturgical function, ensuring that the parts proper to it, in keeping with the different types of chants, are properly carried out and fostering the active participation of the faithful through the singing.(footnote to Musicam Sacram 19) What is said
about the choir also applies, in accordance with the relevant norms, to other musicians, especially the organist.


I have a profound problem with non-Catholics' singing in a choir during mass. It would be comparable to having a non-Catholic acting as lector. The two biggest liturgical scandals I have ever personally witnessed was a Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion telling some friends at breakfast outside of mass that she did not believe in the True Presence, and the way that a paid non-Catholic choir-member talked about Catholic mass in a very derogatory way afterwards. Someone's singing in the choir and internally disagreeing with the words cannot be sufficiently excoriated. At that point, the best the choir's contribution can be is performance. For comparison, non-Catholics' executing the role of reader is an extraordinary one at best: http://www.usccb.org/liturgy/q&a/mass/ncrd.shtml, and such readers must at least belong to a Christian church or ecclesial community.

"When decisions are made for Pastoral reasons....church law seems to suffer."

When women have been in choir, have they formerly been able to wear cassock and surplice? It's a relatively new occurrence (i.e. 120 years), but not since STTL.

The decision to include the Responsorial Psalm at the expsense of the Gradual was more of a theological call than a pastoral one, and not a preference only made by the U.S. bishops. The theology of having the congregation perform the functions that were always theoretically its own goes beyond pastoral. Archaeologizing was a secondary cause. I like the responsorial psalm, though I do not agree with where it was placed in the sequence of readings.

l'd love to post about it, but can't afford the book!

Fourth-century evidence is less than we would like. In Constantinople under John Chrysostom, there is evidence from his homily that that the psalm sung in the course of the readings was sung responsorially with the response sung by the people. This seems to have been part of a movement widespread throughout the Mediterranean in the late fourth century, according to James McKinnon. It seems probable, then, that the same phenomenon was taking place in the Latin West, as the evidence in Augustine seems to jibe with the evidence from Constantinople. Before the fourth century, there seems to be little, if any, evidence of psalms as part of the pre-Eucharist part of mass.
The Fourth-Century Origin of the Gradual
Author(s): James W. McKinnon
Source: Early Music History, Vol. 7 (1987), pp. 91-106
Published by: Cambridge University Press

Helmut Hucke seems to have the same general concept:
"And in the liturgical celebrations of communities, every lesson was followed by a responsorial psalm sung by a psalmista or cantor or lector; to it the whole community responded with a refrain. This kind of singing was familiar everywhere from the Orient to Gaul, and from Northern Africa to Milan." p. 464.
Toward a New Historical View of Gregorian Chant
Author(s): Helmut Hucke
Source: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Autumn, 1980), pp. 437-467
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological Society

I have to admit that I don't know at what point the gradual psalm was given to the schola as opposed to the congregation and in what contexts this transition took place first. It seems the case that many of the congregation's roles were taken over by the choir and altar servers over the centuries. Here is Pius X in Tra le Sollecitudini:
12. With the exception of the melodies proper to the celebrant at the altar and to the ministers, which must be always sung in Gregorian Chant, and without accompaniment of the organ, all the rest of the liturgical chant belongs to the choir of levites, and, therefore, singers in the church, even when they are laymen, are really taking the place of the ecclesiastical choir. Hence the music rendered by them must, at least for the greater part, retain the character of choral music.

Dear Jeffery,

There is an extensive section on the “clericalness” of the choir’s role in “Problem Area II: The Role of the Choir”. Ruff takes the position that, in the modern reformed liturgy, the choir’s role must be seen as non-clerical.

Do you mean he doesn’t go into detail about how the choir’s role is non-clerical, or that he doesn’t give enough detail on what exactly the choir should (or shouldn’t) do?

In the former case, I do think there is enough material in that chapter to be considered a substantive discussion of the issue.

In the latter, I think he has purposely deferred to the liturgical rubrics themselves; at least, that is what makes sense to me. Particularly in light of how his discussion of the polyphonic Ordinary essentially concludes that something should allow this repertoire to be sung sometimes, I get a sense that the ideas he is working with are a bit broader than specific (ephemeral?) liturgical rubrics.

There is, too, the “different strokes for different folks” consideration. In my own parish, for example, the singing of an entrance hymn (occasionally one based on the introit text) is a well-ingrained practice that I would be loath to change; in another parish, it might be something more worth giving a shot. Church architecture may play a role, too.

My favorite is option one for the communion song in the "new" GIRM: The choir sings a song by itself.