Two unfollowed paths in the lengthy preceding comments interested me:

1) gender change process

2) one specific hymn text by Stuemple to discuss/criticize/praise.

As to the first, I changed gender to be female in every children's book I read to my children (who are girls), from Runaway Bunny (SHE) to Bonnie Prince Charlie (SHE). Recently, my oldest, now adult, thanked me, and seemed to understand why I did it: it's enabling, enlightening, and exciting to think you, the child, can be anything and everything. Were we to persist with HE did HE was HE saids: we'd be better to have only male children.

And the downside of this is...??

I can think of a few drawbacks.

I changed gender to be female

Why it's always important to read to the end of the sentence.

The explication of Fr. Krisman about the Tietze introits is (pax to the compiler) one of the better all-time posts on this board. I can never put my finger on it, but there it is. Thank you!

It would probably be helpful if those whose work, especially new work, is being considered for inclusion not also be part of the editorial board vetting it and judging its orthodoxy, or is openness to unintended heterodox interpretation, surely a greater danger in those who don't actually share our beliefs.

Preach on! I have noticed the inbreeding on some review boards. The individuals are probably all nice folks who never speak ill of each other's works.

I'm not sure I catch the draft of G's latest comment, but if he or she thinks the editorial committee of a publishing company judges the orthodoxy of hymn texts, he or she is mistaken.

If something like a hymnal is intended for use in Roman Catholic religious services, a permission to publish (formerly referred to a an "imprimatur") is needed from the diocesan bishop in whose jurisdiction the publication will occur. The permission is based on the fact that the content of the publication is in accord with Catholic teaching.

Members of an editorial committee may know Catholic teaching very well, so much so that they are able to weed out items presented for inclusion in a proposed hymnal which appear not to accord with Catholic doctrine. But ultimately the diocesan bishop (and the censors of books he appoints) are the judges.

I think the assumption here was that the editors would try (as best they can) to put forth and include only texts which - as far as they can determine - are orthodox and sound. As opposed to, for example, including any old thing and hoping it will slip by the censors.

I also don't know what CharlesW is referring to when he writes, "I have noticed the inbreeding on some review boards."

I assume he means members of editorial review boards including a great deal of material written by members of editorial review boards, or their friends and colleagues.

if he or she thinks the editorial committee of a publishing company judges the orthodoxy of hymn texts, he or she is mistaken.

You're serious?
An editorial board of a Catholic publishing company pays no attention to the texts of hymns other than for the quality of the poetry, they don't care what they say? just compile a hymnal and wait for someone in the chancery to veto anything inappropriate?
I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm trying to figure out on what basis they vet hymn texts if they wouldn't disqualify one for inclusion on the basis of saying something contrary to the Catholic Faith.
Particularly with greater attempts at inclusivity, with texts coming from nations and traditions with which they are not extremely familiar, their must be some attempt at discerning whether the texts are compatible with Christianity?
One might include a native American hymn addressed to Gitche Manitou, for instance, but reject the use of a veda to Surya and Savitri however lovely and poetic, (or for something closer to home for us North Americans, paeans to Ometeotl or Tlaloc.)
It's clear that doctrinal judgments are not always made with much precision or care, but surely they are made at least a little, with orthodoxy being preferred to heterodoxy?

If theological judegments weren't made, a decision in favor of eliminating some male pronouns in older hymns wouldn't be made, I would think, since those, I would hope are made not to be "nice" or for political reasons but for actual doctrinal reasons, to better express the reality that men and women are both made in the image and likeness of God, that "in Christ there is no longer.... male or female."

Incidentally, I'm ..... made in a female image of God.

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

p.s. The preface to Worship 4 states "Perhaps the single most defining feature of Worship-Fourth Edition is the effort the committee put into choosing high-quality hymn texts. The result is a body of hymns that are theologically sound," which implies that someone made a theological judgement as to their orthodoxy; or is the preface not part of the book that is submitted to the diocese, and was written after the hymns were all approved?

G,

I think that your initial quote taken from Fr. Krisman's above post is best understood by the remainder of his post, especially the following:

Members of an editorial committee may know Catholic teaching very well, so much so that they are able to weed out items presented for inclusion in a proposed hymnal which appear not to accord with Catholic doctrine. But ultimately the diocesan bishop (and the censors of books he appoints) are the judges.

As one of the five general editors of Worship IV, I can assure you that we did indeed read every text for possible inclusion in the hymnal with an eye toward Catholic orthodoxy. I think Fr. Krisman is saying that we ourselves were not the ultimate judges, but that the diocesan bishop and his censors were.

Does anyone (who works/worked for GIA or otherwise) know why SIOBÁN NI LAOGHAIRE seems to have fallen out of favor? It was included in both Worship III (With Jesus for Hero) and Gather Comprehensive II (O Mary of Promise), but doesn't appear to be in any of the "next generation" hymnals.

Does anyone (who works/worked for GIA or otherwise) know why SIOBÁN NI LAOGHAIRE seems to have fallen out of favor? It was included in both Worship III (With Jesus for Hero) and Gather Comprehensive II (O Mary of Promise), but doesn't appear to be in any of the "next generation" hymnals.

Matthew,

One of the first things the Worship IV editorial committee did was to decide which hymns from Worship III should also be included in Worship IV. Even though our committee was diverse in many ways, we wanted further input about the usefulness of about 85 hymns from Worship III.

So, we decided to develop a survey. We came up with a list of people who have used Worship III for a number of years, and asked them to rate the hymns. We tried for a diverse sampling of people (men/women, cathedral/parish, geographical location etc.) We received 36 responses.

Each person was asked two questions about each hymn: First, have you used this hymn (yes or no)? Second, should this hymn be included in Worship IV (rate on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being yes).

Only 4 people said that they used “With Jesus for Hero,” while 32 said they didn’t. On whether this hymn should be included in Worship IV, the result was 2.12 out of 5. So the hymn didn’t receive enough support for it to be included.

We didn’t do a survey about the hymns in Gather Comprehensive. Honestly, I don’t remember the reason why “O Mary of Promise” wasn’t included in Worship IV. My guess is that we felt that we already had a good number of hymns both old and new for Marian celebrations, and that the tune, although laudable, probably wouldn’t be used much.

I suppose a lot of respondents use Silence, Frenzied, Unclean Spirit...

Yes, Carol Doran's tune in Worship III, entitled AUTHORITY, did not get high marks. But the Thomas Troeger text is quite moving (and unsettling). It behooves us all to ask Christ to free us from the demons and unclean spirits in our minds and hearts:

Clear our thought and calm our feeling.
Still the fractured, warring soul.
By the pow-er of your healing
Make us faithful, true and whole.
(Troeger, last half of stanza 3, (c) 1985, Oxford University Press)

Thank you Fr.Krisman for your replies.
Ok here is another question... arent the GIA hymnals all now looking pretty much the same? It seems to me that Worship began as strictly a hymnal of traditional (few new hymns) all organ based... through the various incarnations, the hymnal now pretty much the same as Ritual Song, which is pretty much the same as Gather Comprehensive. Really, all three books are homogomous. Why is Worship iv even more so?
And it seems to me, that the GIA definition of traditional is any old or new text from any denomonation or new source as long as it is sung to a metered hymn tune.This is most of Wor IV is it not? Is worship iv really a traditional hymnal, when there are hundreds of new texts that Catholics have never sung?

@ghmus7: Sorry, but I cannot accept your premise. Worship IV definitely is not Gather 3. Yes, half the hymns in Worship IV are also in Gather 3, but the other half aren't. There's always going to be overlap like this in hymnals, because many hymns are part of a core Catholic repertoire. But there's so much more in a hymnal and service book: the music for the rites, the psalmody, the music of the responsorial psalms. If I were a DM, I'd be overjoyed to be able to work with Worship IV being in the pews; I'd be less overjoyed with Gather 3, but I'd make it work.

You appear to prefer making statements of what "seems to you" rather than what "is." Case in point: "the GIA definition of traditional is any old or new text from any denomonation or new source as long as it is sung to a metered hymn tune." And where is that definition stated or even hinted at by GIA?

I have never heard that hymn sung by a congregation. That doesn't mean it isn't sung, just that I never heard it.

I still have a number of Worship II hymnals in my choir room. It had an excellent selection of traditional hymns better, I think than its successor. However, the missal has changed since then and it would not work as a service book today. I still get it out for the choir to sing hymns as anthems.

Am I missing something here?

Possibly, :-) though you can hardly be blamed for not guessing I was mistakenly thinking of NETTLETON ("Come thou font...Here I raise my Ebenezer") instead of the tune I know as TON Y BOTEL, which actually might well pass without giggling.

I in turn am puzzled by "beats 3 & 4" of AUTHORITY: as I remember the UMH and as appears in the New Century (which omits that verse) the second phrase starts with repeated notes on a downbeat, doesn't it?

EBENEZER is also an alternate name for CELESTE, fwiw.

Your three observations are all based on your rewriting Troeger's text, not what he actually wrote. That is not helpful.

As to the music of this example: "Silence. Frenzied". I'm not at all impressed.

Yes, it is quite appropriate, because "demon" has a number of meanings and usages other than "evil spirit," whether that evil spirit is personified or not. "I have to face my own demons," people say, and those demons include fears, bad memories, addictions, as well as temptations to sin.

Troeger uses a colon at the end of the second line of stanza two, indicating what is in apposition to his use of the word "demons."

We aren't disagreeing about the content.

Good

We are disagreeing about the theology behind the content.

I'm not so sure. I will say that I agree with your second and third sentences ("The gospel demons... know and fear."), and I would think that Troeger would too.

Perhaps the disagreement, if there is one, lies in the fact that I think it is fine that Troeger recounts the Markan pericope of Jesus' exorcism of a man demonically possessed in stanza 1 and follows that with us asking Jesus to heal us of our own demons that do not constitute demonic possession.

Q.E.D. We do appear to have a disagreement of a theological nature, but I'm still (adverb) not sure it has anything to do with Troeger's text.

When I pray to God for healing from anything and everything that inflicts me, I am not in any way "reducing the supernatural to the natural." If I receive the healing I have prayed for, and that healing is one that science cannot explain, great. God be praised. If, in addition to my prayer I also take the pills my doctor prescribed, and I am cured of my ailment and my spirit receives an inner healing as well, thanks be to God! Why the need to tightly compartmentalize supernatural and natural, or physical, psychological, and spiritual, for that matter? Thomistic rat psych generally is not a frame of reference for people today.

I say it is pastorally irresponsible to convey to people the understanding that the only worthwhile healings are the miraculous and supernatural ones.

No one has suggested this red herring.

It's not a red herring because it's precisely what you are suggesting when you say that applying Mark 1:21-28 to any affliction other than demonic possession is "flattening out the gospel" and "reducing the supernatural to the natural."

When you start hauling out Bultmann, I think it's time we agree that we've said enough on this issue.

I hope you are having a super Dies Domini, Kathy.

In my opinion, a successful hymn text about a Scripture passage is a homily-in-miniature: It presents the Scripture, relates the Scripture to the human situation, and acclaims how God is present and active in our lives today.

I think Thomas Troeger’s text, “Silence! Frenzied, Unclean Spirit” does this quite well.

The 1982 document of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops about preaching, Fulfilled in Your Hearing, states:

The preacher represents this community by voicing its concerns, by naming its demons, and thus enabling it to gain some understanding and control of the evil which afflicts it. He represents the Lord by offering the community another word, a word of healing and pardon, of acceptance and love… [13]

As we know, clergy of various denominations have been successful hymn text writers over the years. I tend to believe that homiletics and hymn writing can be complementary. Perhaps the context of Thomas Troeger’s hymn texts can be understood better by reading the following, excerpted from the Yale Divinity School website:

Thomas H. Troeger is Professor of Christian Communication at Yale Divinity School. As such, his primary task is to teach homiletics, or the art of preaching.

Colleagues say he has developed an "unorthodox pedagogy" that helps students avoid fixed and predictable ways of encountering the biblical texts, connect their preaching to "lived experience," and develop capacities to engage the imaginations of people in the pews.

"I talk about what I call imaginative theology," Troeger explains, "by which I mean the ability to draw on the symbols and stories and rituals and parables of the faith tradition and of the symbols and stories that live in human beings from their contemporary culture and draw those together."

From June 1991 through June 2005, Troeger was Professor of Preaching and Communications at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, CO, where he established and directed the school's Doctor of Ministry program in homiletics.

Ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA) in 1970 and in the Episcopal Church in 1999, he is dually aligned with both traditions. He ministered for seven years as a pastor and then taught homiletics for 14 years at Colgate Rochester Divinity School/Bexley Hall. Troeger holds an undergraduate degree from Yale. He is the author of more than a dozen books in the fields of preaching and worship. Dickinson College and Virginia Theological Seminary have awarded him honorary doctorates for his work in homiletics, liturgy and hymnody.

It's a niche text that isn't worth arguing about.