Yes. You've nailed it.

I will obviously have to rev up my game, and my next topic will be much better than this, but yes. This is THE PROBLEM.

Adam:

It was easier to rewrite your suppositions in the light of how I believe mother Church sees it.

The Church is RIGHT about the liturgy and the nature of the sacraments. The Mass really is the memorial AND a re-presenting act of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of God's Only Begotten Son. It is the source and summit of our lives as Christians. It actually is supernatural and really (not metaphorically) the divine appearing before us.

Intrinsic to the Mass is that it teaches and informs us about God and Christ, and also makes us into a worldwide community of love and unity, a revolutionary force to stand up against the greed and corruption of the world, and to care for the poor and downtrodden of the earth. I believe this happens on a supernatural and mysterious level through experiencing and participating in the rite and probably less on an intellectual level. Imagine you are at the scene of the crucifixion. Not much talking there, was there? They were certainly participating in the event, however, even in stunned silence and tears.

I do not believe it is primarily instructive and cultural. There is no "magic" but there is actual supernatural efficacy. It supersedes, absorbs and takes into itself cultural and artistic practices that have been meaningful to previous generations and it then transforms those elements into a universal norm. That is what the TLM is, and the Divine Liturgy, and other ancient rites that have evolved in the Catholic Church. "Religion" is simply the term some use to describe the imperfect practice that we as human Christians strive for in manifesting the epiphany of the one true faith, who is Christ himself.

At any moment, the Second Coming is going to happen, and we are in SERIOUS danger of eternal damnation, and we need to understand just how small and sinful we are, how worthy we are of hell, and that only by God's completely incomprehensible grace do we have any hope (no matter how small) of escaping the fiery furnace. However, God is also requiring us to take responsibility through free will and the efficacy of the sacraments, because Faith alone will not save us. Each of us in the end will decide our fate to be with God or without God forever.

The REAL DANGER is that we fall for the myth that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (and moreso, the Catholic Faith) is simply one more among the world's naturally-occurring religions and that the purpose of religion and ritual is to conform our psyches to the collective mythos so that we can function as healthy and productive members of society.

The one true faith allows the human person's relationship with an inhospitable world to be like Christ and embrace the world without being a part of it, leading others to know Christ and in doing so, we bring about the Kingdom of God in our midst.

JT's got it precisely.

To answer #3, a traditonal repertoire is abandoned when one wants to fundamentally abandon one's traditions in order to pursue a new course.

When one thinks a new church can be and/or should be sung into being a major way one does that through abandoning the old and rushing to fulfil their view of how things should be.

And, sadly, this stark abandonment of traditional repertoire and practice demonstrates the identity crisis within the Church in our times. It is, among other things, a problem of ecclesiology.

It seems that Adam's point was not well-understood. I think Jeff Tucker sums it up well.

Common parish practice does not do anything to aid the traditional view of Catholicism. It does not do anything to aid the progressive movement, either. It's just garbage.

However, I would venture to say that most of the faithful can't differentiate between what is "silly songs" and what is not. And if we continue to be a generation of "cafeteria" Catholics, then making stuff up is not stupid because it's just the next step from picking and choosing. The best argument, of course, for better music is for better catechesis. Until the faithful are truly knowledgeable in their faith and are understanding of its principles, will they begin to see that silly songs and making up stuff truly is "stupid".