The reason that this is such a surprise for people is that undeniable and shocking reality that everything seemed to change after the new Missal now called the ordinary form. There was folk music, rock music, calypso music, sweet songs from here and yon with words grabbed from anywhere and everywhere. A massive new publishing industry sprang up to publish not the music of the Church but rather new compositions with new texts for use in Mass.

How can both be true? You might at first think it was merely at matter of disobedience. There is some truth to that. Two kinds of music are specifically named by Sacrosanctum Concilium as appropriate for Mass: chant and polyphony. That is the letter and certainly the spirit of the music legislation of the Council. By jettisoning chant completely, publishers and musicians were certainly violating the spirit of Vatican II.

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Now, this introduces an often unwelcome aspect of the human personality: the desire to use any and every venue to express ourselves on our own terms. There are times for this (Facebook, MySpace, graffiti) and times when this is not a good idea (Mass, for example). The invitation to use Mass as a time for musical creativity unleashed the musical ego as never before.

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We don’t have to wait for a repeal of the plank that permits “another appropriate song” to replace the propers. We can sing these right now and do something about the problem. Pastors can insist on propers immediately, starting this next Sunday. There are many options out there in both English and Latin, with Gregorian propers as the shining jewel of the musical repertoire.

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