Oh, my! I only wish you were joking. I'm glad I haven't got his nerve in my tooth.

If my superior said that to me, I'd hand him my keys and wish him luck . . . on Saturday . . . . just before Mass . . . . after having loaded up my office stuff under cover of darkness the night before.

My favorite songs are Happy Birthday and Edelweiss from Sound of Music. If I come to your parish, can we sing them?

In a word, yes. Or, very likely, at any rate.

I have heard, (though not been asked to accompany, nor did I join in,) the former, and as to the latter --
I was going to be out of town for a Sunday Mass at which a couple I know were renewing their vows after 50 years. They expressed regret on learning that I wouldn't be around, because they especially wanted me to program the Lamb of God they used to use at the parish.
You guessed it -- it was set to Edelweiss.
You see?
Yet another example of why the reductio ad absurdum rhetorical device does not work in the world we live in. (I'm thinking of my online joke about flogging my new book, "The Liturgical Harmonica Player" to GIA.... I received a very sweet inquiry as to when it would be available.)

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

My sympathies in extremis as well, G.
This is an enormous topic as I see it. Without diverting to a discussion whether the Church's song should or will ever revert to primarily the psalms, the reality is that we will continue to employ hymn texts at worship for the forseeable future. And that reality should inform ourselves as well as our "superiors" that we DMs cannot just be arbiters of musical taste and viability. I agree with David's sentiment and zeal (tho' a bit melodramatic, which I love); if I'm entrusted with that responsibility originally by a pastor-it should then be common knowledge that no one supercedes that authority except the pastor. And should a pastor have repeated and fundamental problems with a DM in these concerns, the DM has a real problem that didn't surface during the hiring interview.
I'd like to offer a couple of examples of how text supercedes music:
1. As in many hymntunes, FINLANDIA was appropriated from "theater" or art music. I love everything about this melody and its harmonic foundation. Most of us, at first blush, would likely associate it with the hymn "Be still, my soul." But there are at least a handful of other texts within my office reach that someone has couched in FINLANDIA. The most recent is a strophic treatment of the Magnificat by Californian Janet Sullivan-Whitaker. (Quite a unique treatment with a very not-Kings College descant that works for my money.) There are many others that, were they in OCP, I'd program because of their text's worthiness to the tune. However, another text, "Gather and Remember" was, IMO, misappropriated by the otherwise level-headed Owen Alstott to FINLANDIA to commemorate the elevation of John 23 to Blessed. It's text is fraught with problematic, revisionist portrayals of the Church's worship through the centuries in order to praise the "spirit of Vatican II." This sort of didactic propaganda hasn't any place in an actual liturgy, no matter what tune is attached to it. (Need we mention the infamous text with NETTLETON? These two are buddies with OCP and with "Are are welcome" the 3 Musketeers of NEWCHURCH thinkspeech.) But I cannot, in good conscience, program this hymn for Sunday Mass despite the fact that I personally love FINLANDIA as MJB loves Edelweiss. I believe a studied and intuitive DM can make these assessments quite easily. I remember instantly knowing that M.D. Ridge's "Three Days" was clearly worthy of her using THAXTED the first time I sang its text in my head. Understandably, not everyone regards FINLANDIA itself as appropriate music for worship, and I'm okay with that. YMMV.
2. Strangely, one hymn tune and text that, by virtue of its title, text and meaning would seem perfectly matched, actually drives me nuts: "When in our music God is glorified..." set to ENGELBERG seems to me so pompously hokey I've never been able to justify programming it for Sundays. The tune, so very English like JERUSALEM in its leaps and bounds, is quite well matched to the grand idea of its text. So what's my problem? I suppose it's its ostentatiousness. In its own way it seems just as self-congratulatory as some of the texts mentioned above. I can't find reason or resonance with using it at my parish, even tho' we have all the requisite externals (environment, choral/organ forces, singing congregations, etc.) I think there's certain biases we all bring to our deliberations about this stuff. And not all of those involve ONLY the text to music axiom. There are other associative factors; anyone else have a bit of trouble singing EIN FESTE BERG simply because of its origins? ST. ANNE? NEW BRITAIN? HANSONS PLACE? HOW GREAT THOU ART?
I think you get the point.
Whether or not the people "like" the tune is a secondary symptom indicating a hymn's nutritional health. If you, the DM, get the whole package of a hymn to tune marriage, then your job duty is to get the people to "get" and therefore "like" the hymn as well. I know that's easier said than done, but that how I see our priorities.

As am I, Brother o' mine! :-)

G wrote:

my hymn programming choices are henceforth NOT to be based on the appropriateness of the texts, or similarity to the propers, but on how much people like the tunes.

On the surface this sounds just outrageous and maybe even like a bit of crass pandering to low tastes. Does he write homilies based on what people want to hear? Don't answer that.

On the other hand, the superior who delivered himself of that directive has stumbled upon a truth: hymns are not made of text alone, and if we were to choose hymns for the text alone, without regard to the tunes, we might be missing opportunities to add beauty to the celebration of Mass. Occasionally I'll hear some hymn chosen because it reflected a Scripture reading, and think it comes across as didactic.

Excellent comment, Richard.

The transformation effectively spiritualized these tunes

I was sympathetic to the polemical value of this claim until I started to study counterpoint. As far as I can tell, parody Masses and motets of the Renaissance were only obviously parodic for maybe four to eight bars. You hear the opening secular melody, smile your smile of recognition, and then the introduction of more voices and dense polyphony makes the original melody disappear, and what you have is something like polyphony off to the races. This oversimplifies things a bit, but the basic point is that the original secular melody is quickly lost as a recognizable, stand-alone melody in the overall texture of the music. The latter overwhelms it.

Perhaps this is what you mean by "spiritualizing" the secular?

If so, this is very, very different from what happens in a lot of contemporary parodic music, which simply adopts the original secular melody entire and forces the sacred text to meet its secular demands. The implications of that procedure are clear, and I consider it no more than a repulsive insult to the Church.

Be not conformed to this world; but be reformed in the newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, and the acceptable, and the perfect will of God.

How many "adaptations" of secular melodies in contemporary church music are truly "not conformed to this world"?
These kinds of adaptations are what Benedict XVI considers the misguided attempt to make the Mass conform to the worldliness of a given local group. The world is powerful. If we let it, it will gladly overwhelm the proceedings, interposing itself between us and God.