Essentially he is more friendly to the postconciliar reform reality than I am.

Jeffrey,

(to quote a line from one of my favorite episodes of "Cadfael"):

"You, brother, are well-schooled in understatement."

That's a relief! the thread title had me suspecting something like that clay-mation Celebrity Death-Match was about to ensue ...

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

"[Todd] is an honest debater..."
"Jeffrey is an honorable and professional colleague."

Why do I feel as if I were hearing John McCain start a response with "My friend ...."

David,

I apologize. I am responding this instant. You should receive my E-mail in the next 5 minutes. THANKS!

Hope you listened! It was a fun and interesting discussion. We talked about music trends, Summorum, translations, problems in Church music, challenges musicians face, and much more. The hour flew by.

Yes. Go to the "commander craig" link that Jeffrey provided on his first post, above. Look for the show (it's the most recent one... the second great liturgical debate) and click either 'play' or 'download.'

I listened live. Here's the rundown from my POV-
Jeffrey and Todd represent charity and respect as much as their respective interpretations of principles. Would that we all could conduct our differences as well as similarities with such courtesy.
One hour is drastically insufficient if you want to debate macro topics.
Craig, with respect to his bailywick, wastes far too much time setting up topics; He really should presume that folks tuning into such an internet program are fairly attuned and knowledgeable. This isn't EWTN taking calls from all comers.
He doesn't need to summarize (as he did for the first fiftenn minutes) the history, ramifications and updates of SumPon. for this audience.
What I miss that is provided in Craig's forum is a live chat room. Back, back, back in the old AOL and even NPM days there was serious discourse in real time. Trouble is, nutjobs can log in and logjam the discussion.
I really appreciate the acknowledgement that the major impediment to most aspects of reform2, whether OF/EF oriented, is the two-pronged apathy and disaffection by both priests and the faithful. I am officially, as of today, disillusioned and disheartened; similar to the attitudes expressed by others here and in the blogs elsewhere of late.
I cannot "don't worry, be happy" when my vision of Catholic worship that I believe is aligned with that of the universal Church, its documents and the Magisterium is so far from what is proffered deliberately or benignly by my priests and deacons and purposefully emulates the lack of decorum of evangelical Protestantism.
Joy, true joy is to be found if and when we reclaim our ritual focus and center; and that stuff cannnot be made up or on the fly. Off the box now. Sorry for the downer.

Thanks for saying this. I very much enjoy being on the show with Todd. If you read our writings, you would get the sense that would be at each other's throats, but the truth is that he has respect for What the Church intends, and knows the documents well. He is not among the crude boosters of the anything-but-chant school of days gone by. We have different perspectives to be sure, but our disagreements are reduced in importance once we start talking about the practical details of what we are going to sing this Sunday and how we are going to get there in the real world.

I'm not one of these "let's all get together and talk" kind of people, and I'm not interested in compromised positions that come with phony "dialogue."However, it turns out to be a good and productive thing for us to offer our perspectives on all this. those of us involved in this struggle need to become much better at presenting the sacred-music perspective in a compelling way, honing in on what really matters so that we can use our intellectual capital efficiently, and part of that requires a thorough understanding of the practical issues that people outside of our "movement" face. This can't but improve our programs and strategies and clarify our thinking. In any case, I have to say that I've benefited from these discussions.

I would agree with Gavin. I found the conversations rather "accommodating" in their dialectic. Neither side made a strong case for their experience, though I would say that I found Mr. Flowerday somewhat suspicious of tradition. But I believe that is a charge made of much of the post-conciliar church.

By and large, it was friendly. Maybe that is okay. But I grow weary of the post-conciliar attitudes toward excellence in anything of liturgical matters. As one who started out "there", I want to move on. Sadly, where I work is stuck in a 1980's liturgical mentality where anything goes as long as "the community" can do it. It seems to me that continuity with tradition carries with it an intellectual and theological heft that crumbles the general present state of liturgy in America. Benedict has already shown that to be possible.

I think it high time to begin to assail what is truly wrong, that is, a denial of continuity with tradition. A lowest common denominator attitude and a fear of "the sacred".

Okay, off my high horse now.

Kevin

I'm convinced we shut down the "dialectic" entirely here, there and everywhere for a prescribed time (to be determined by a panel of the young Marini, Dr. Paul Ford and Rev. Joncas!)
Then, Jeffrey and Todd can set up an internet protocol "gateway" that can determine whether an prospective entrant has read Rev. Ruff's tome a requisite three times, having highlighted his/her salient passages the second time, and scribbled (thanks, BMP) their own liner notes the third.
We seem to keep covering our own tracks over and over again, time after time, same issues after same issues.
I figure once we get the point that we're not reinventing the wheel here, we can get down to brass tacks.
No sense deliberating Bugnini/Dobszay if we haven't Ruffed up.
PS for Mike, music's fine, mon ami. It's, ahem, clerical indifference to what one could reasonably presume to be their function- the efficacy of the "source and summit of our being"- that's driven me bonkers beyond my normal quotient. This is/was supposed to be my last career, Mike, before keeling over during an anicrusis (sp?) Damn, I don't want to go back to teaching high school choir, ya know?

I'm with you on Ruff. It's all in there. I don't agree with his answers, but he provides most all the data to drive the debate.

Yes, those were excellent points of agreement and I too was excited about that. In fact, I need to write something about that. Todd has this excellent idea that the Bishops should buy copyrights and put the music in public domain. that is a very creative idea.

"Then, Jeffrey and Todd can set up an internet protocol "gateway" that can determine whether an prospective entrant has read Rev. Ruff's tome a requisite three times, having highlighted his/her salient passages the second time, and scribbled (thanks, BMP) their own liner notes the third."

Charles:

Next time I have Todd and Jeff on the show, I'll add an extra hour so I can set up the discussion by reading Ruff's book aloud. Just kidding, of course.

I appreciate the criticism. I'm usually assuming that some listeners are finding the show via the BlogTalkRadio site itself, and may not be as up to speed on these arguments as others. I probably shouldn't have assumed so in this case.

Dear Craig, sorry to have injured! Mea culpa.
I very much appreciate your alotting ANY time to liturgical matters. It often seems that the one thing missing from "catholic culture" discussions at all levels-parish, diocesan (at least in mine), broadcast/cable media and the WorldWideInterlink (Thanks, V for Vendetta) is the, ahem, state of our WORSHIP OF ALMIGHTY GOD!
So, I wish we had days of webcast forums! But then, as Gavin has stated, I definitely qualify as a liturgy geek. And as I was listening to Todd's voice for the first time (Jeffrey's dulcet tenor has graced my ears in close proximity already!) I also was clock-watching as I had to rush off to provide music leadership for an erzatz Youth Ministry Formation Workshop "Opening Service." That service was the subject of personal consternation for me, so I was already "funkified" and was yearning for gems of liturgical sanity from these two gentlemen. You have my gratitude for keeping their interplay going.
BTW, the yout' gig went fine: I just channel Jesse Manibusan and Matt Maher at age 57 and (think Fred Astaire) it's "Heaven, I'm in heaven...." for the LifeTeen Crowd, some of whom are OLDER THAN ME!
Give you an idea of our diocese: priests have a convocation inwhich all Masses utilize chant in both vernacular and Latin. Out of same convocation a list of five diocesan priorities is forged. "LITURGY" is nowhere to be found in those articulated priorities, not even by association. These priorities will soon result in a Diocesan Congress (used to simply be a mini-CCD one day gig.) The only, ONLY workshop dealing with LITURGY? How to embed LIFETEEN into your parish's worship program. Oh joy!
I'm thinking retrogression now. To paraphrase an 80's tune: I'm thinking about "Walk like a Hassidic."
Anyways, Craig, thanks again.

Everyone was all too ready to whoop and cheer for Morlino banning "Gather Us In" (did that actually fix anything in his diocese or just make 2 or 3 ideologues happy?) but what has Morlino done positively?

I don't know. Are you in his diocese? He said he would be issuing some specific guidelines in the future. Did he, Gavin?

Until then, angry letters about The Issue Of The Day are just going to energize people outside your diocese and annoy everyone inside.

I may be remembering wrong, but I don't recall anything "angry" about what Morlino wrote at the time, I'm not even sure he "banned: the music he discussed I thought it was about general principles and used GUI as an example, and said a dialogue should be opened.