"The congregation for divine worship wants to put itself in the lead of the rebirth of great sacred music. Here is its program, made public for the first time by one of its officials. But the secretariat of state has its own musicians, and is putting on the brakes".

The Church spoke – Ferrer noted – but lacked "a concrete intention to have the discipline in effect applied by those who had responsibility in the matter."

So then, in regard to this sin of omission attributable in large part to the congregation for divine worship of which he himself is part, Ferrer has announced that it is being remedied.

And this is being done at the prompting of a recent motu proprio of Benedict XVI, "Quaerit semper" of August 30, 2011.

In the specific field of sacred music, specific relations at the institutional level will be reestablished with the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music, as also with the Abbey of Saint-Pierre of Solesmes and other associations and institutions that work in the field of music for the liturgy, from the scientific point of view, from the academic point of view, and in the perspective of the creation of new music or of pastoral practice.

At the level of immediate objectives or challenges, I will point out a few that certainly appear evident:

a. To realize and complete the series of musical books for the liturgy in the Latin language, including the holy Mass, the divine office, the sacraments and sacramentals. Having reached this goal, it will probably be appropriate to realize a complete and more easily usable edition of many of these materials in the form of a sort of "liber usualis."

b. It seems just as urgent to recompile and clarify the different norms and the guidelines of the most recent pontifical magisterium on sacred music in order to offer a foundational text for a directory of chant and music in liturgical celebration for the use of the different conferences of bishops, to which is entrusted the task of elaborating directories and repertoires for their respective countries.

Such a directory, as far as Gregorian chant is concerned, will have to overcome the disputes between purely paleographical and pastoral criteria, as also, in relation with the competent dicastery, to pose the problems of the use of Gregorian chant according to editions from before 1962 in the so-called "extraordinary form" of the Roman rite.

c. With the help of the competent academic and pastoral institutions, it will be necessary to promote, at least in the principal or most widespread modern languages, in harmony with the criteria presented in an appropriate directory, models of new compositions which may help to verify the theoretical proposals and discern them at the local level.

There remains the doubt of what may be the best strategy for reaching such a result. For the moment, the wait continues for the new organisms within the congregation, members and consultants, to confer on these matters, from the edition of repertoires for international celebrations to the organization of international awards or competitions of composition, to courses for composers, conductors, and performers, and to many other concrete proposals to be evaluated.

Someone ought to write a novel about this... And maybe one about an albino monk who kills cardinals on the Eve of the Big Conclave. It would surely be a commercial success.
Kindly send your profits to Phoenix so I can get a pipe organ. Thanks.

Isn't it odd that an unknown of somewhat questionable orthodoxy was elected pope?

Isn't it odd that some days it appears that no one is in charge?

Doesn't odd mean "otherwise than usual," and not "otherwise than I'd prefer?"

This is why it is very important to observe the essential criteria of the Constitution on the Liturgy, which I quoted above, including when one celebrates according to the old Missal! The moment when this liturgy truly touches the faithful with its beauty and its richness, then it will be loved, then it will no longer be irreconcilably opposed to the new Liturgy, providing that these criteria are indeed applied as the Council wished.

Different spiritual and theological emphases will certainly continue to exist, but there will no longer be two contradictory ways of being a Christian; there will instead be that richness which pertains to the same single Catholic faith. .

So, what's wrong with the NO? Take away some 'this or similar words' rubrics, add some 'do this' rubrics and scratch the choices, then celebrate it the way it might be celebrated at Walsingham or by an high church Anglican and it would be the gift it was meant to be.

Today more than ever before the Church should take its stand in the world. Indeed it must do this with confidence and joy. But the Church must not be of this world, if it will remain true to the divine mission to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. The Church must be open to the world but must not equate itself with the world. The more hectic the outward mode of living becomes, so much the more do men need the Church as the place of quiet and of final rest. In the Church eternity reaches down into time, and all that the Church says and does, most
especially in divine services, must remain transparent, because its being is founded in the super-terrestrial. In church music, we have in the service of praise and of prayer neglected the latter aspect of transparency for the super-terrestrial. Indeed, we have forgotten it. One might well imagine that the church music of the future together with future hymns may have to go out in search of this again. They will have to try to strike a note that is related to the soaring clarity and eloquent silence of Gregorian chant and thereby lead us anew to adoration. We have already noted that the Reformation hymn was the new song of that era. This was true precisely because it left the all too super-terrestrial, meditative and other-worldly sound and descended to the earthly which was the final consequence of taking seriously the Incarnation of the Divine Word. We have, however, all too long and too one-sidedly become fixed in this optimistic activity which has been joined with the pharisaical noise of confessional prayer. Now at last we have to search for a wholesome completion in the transcending of secularization.

If in spite of the clear, historical tradition of the Lutheran Church and the musical problems that confront that body today, someone may still try to seek for a solution to the problem of singing prose texts in the vernacular by turning to a kind of vernacular Gregorian chant, then he might well consider the study prepared by Johannes Hatzfeld.22 As early as 1953, Hatzfeld, who was
a recognized authority on congregational song in the Catholic Church, prepared a memorandum for the German episcopal conference meeting in Fulda on the subject of various experiments in this area. He spoke out unequivocally against them.23 In addition, there are other studies in the matter.24

____

The footnote on 22 is this:

Cf. Hubert Jedin, "Kirchengeschichte und Kirchenkrise," Anzeiger fur die \atholische Geistlich\eit (1968), Vol. 77, p. 535 f. On p. 537, the author comes to the following conclusions among others: "It is only with the greatest reluctance that I speak about the liturgical crisis . . . I fear that it will not be long until one will not be able to find a Latin missal in many places, until our children no longer know what a Gloria or a Credo is, and until one must go into the concert hall to hear the immortal creations of our church music. Catholic worship is both mystery and proclamation. As mystery it is impenetrable by our understanding, and must remain so. Translations of texts into the vernacular can do nothing to change this."

I guess I'll put a hold on my copies of the Magnus Liber I just ordered form the Paris scriptorium.

Good: I'll sent Maitre Perotin an e-mail tomorrow.

Only one thing will satisfy heaven. Nothing else. The request of Our Lady of Fatima. Otherwise, there is no reversing anything.