An interesting perspective.

In our parish, we do not include vernacular hymns within the mass, only hymns in Latin, taking up your idea that it must be universal. We do include vernacular hymns before and after mass. Do you have any further thoughts on this approach? Does your article address the TLM, the Novus Ordo or both?

Where does Faith of our Fathers fall in your categorization scheme: Liturgical, Devotional, or Non-Catholic?

“Faith of Our Fathers” is a hymn that many Catholics know well, and it has been sung across Christian traditions for more than a century. In the framework I’m using, it falls into Category C3, which includes hymns that come from the broader Christian repertoire rather than from distinctly Catholic liturgical or devotional sources.

The original Catholic editions—such as Fr. Faber’s Oratory Hymns—did include explicitly Catholic stanzas, including the verse invoking Mary’s prayers. But in American parish life, the hymn was transmitted largely through ecumenical and Protestant hymnals, and the Catholic stanzas were often omitted.

For that reason, it wasn’t part of the core repertoire at St. Mary’s, which drew more directly from the classic Catholic hymnals of the early twentieth century. Even so, it remains a sound and prayerful expression of Christian faith, suitable for certain devotional or patriotic settings, even if it does not occupy the same place as the distinctly Catholic hymns that shaped the parish’s identity.”

It may also help to remember that a hymn’s author does not automatically determine its category. Some hymns written by Catholics—Faber included—were embraced across many Christian denominations and gradually took on a more general devotional character.

When a hymn no longer carries the distinctly Catholic themes, imagery, or sacramental worldview that mark our liturgical and devotional tradition, it fits more naturally into Category C3, even if its origins were Catholic. This simply reflects how the hymn has lived in the Church over time, not a judgment on its beauty or spiritual value.


On another note, I just update the Parish Hymnody Study to clarify where the hymns from St. Mary's originated from. In the section "Hymns We Lost" I added "The repertoire of hymns used at St. Mary’s was drawn largely from the popular Catholic hymnals that shaped parish life throughout the first three quarters of the twentieth century — especially the St. Basil’s Hymnal, the Sunday School Hymn Book, and the St. Gregory Hymnal.”"

"Souls of men, why will ye scatter?"

The entry in hymnary.org cites John Julian's 1907 article on this text:

https://hymnary.org/text/souls_of_men_why_will_ye_scatter/

Thanks to everyone for the thoughtful engagement. I want to clarify one point of intent and then summarizing what the primary sources show.

First, that’s a helpful clarification, and I agree with the distinction that was raised earlier. I didn’t mean to suggest that Faith of Our Fathers was “reintroduced” from Protestant sources in terms of origin. Historically it clearly wasn’t, and its presence in hymnals like St. Basil’s and St. Gregory’s confirms that. My point about ecumenical transmission was descriptive rather than genealogical — a way of explaining how the hymn functioned in American parish life over time, where many Catholics encountered it in a form normalized across denominations and often without the explicitly Catholic stanzas.

Turning to the related case under discussion: the text beginning “Souls of men, why will ye scatter” does not appear in Oratory Hymns (1854), at least not in my copy. It appears instead as part of a longer, unified hymn titled “Come to Jesus” in F. W. Faber’s later collection Hymns (1861) and Faber's Hymns Illustrated (1894). That original hymn consists of many stanzas intended to be read or sung as a whole.

From that single hymn, later editors extracted shorter centos. Both “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy” and “Was there ever kindest Shepherd?” are selections drawn from Come to Jesus, not independent original compositions. Over time, those extracted stanzas circulated far more widely than the parent hymn and came to function as self‑contained hymns, often detached from Faber’s original missionary and devotional framework.

Biographical sources suggest that Faber himself was not always happy, as a poet, with how some of his hymns were shortened or rearranged, but he accepted this pastorally for the sake of wider devotional use. That tension between original intent and later reception is part of the hymn’s historical reality.

For that reason, in the terms outlined in What Is a Catholic Hymn? and The Pastoral Hymns We Sing, this hymn falls squarely into Category C3 — not because of questions of authorship, which are not in doubt, but because of how it actually came to live in the Church’s sung repertoire over time. Its later function as a broadly Christian, ecumenically normalized hymn is a matter of reception rather than origin.

I appreciate the careful and substantive engagement from everyone. It’s been a genuinely helpful exchange.

Again, I'm coming back to the three categories:

Liturgical Hymns
Devotional Hymns
and the third is

Non‑Catholic Hymns
Texts originating outside Catholic tradition or expressing non‑Catholic theology.
May contain ambiguity, incomplete doctrine, or ideas inconsistent with Catholic teaching.
Require careful discernment before use in a Catholic liturgy.
Not automatically excluded but must be evaluated for doctrinal clarity.
Should never replace liturgical texts or obscure Catholic identity.

But there is clearly a fourth category of hymns originating within the bosom of Catholic tradition, and expressing Catholic theology, which are neither liturgical in origin nor devotional in object. In here you find many venerable hymns such as the ones mentioned above (There's a Wideness, O God of Earth and Altar, Faith of Our Fathers).

The problem with introducing a fourth category is that you now need to distinguish between Catholic and Non-Catholic hymns by quality rather than category, but that is indeed the rub, let's not shirk from it. Catholic author, approval for worship, customary use in Catholic worship, nihil obstat, imprimatur, etc. - these all may work pre-conciliarly but not post-conciliarly due to legitimate and praiseworthy reforms and theological developments. Whatever one may say of Faith of Our Fathers on these accounts, one might also say of "Hear I Am Lord", yet our hearts (rightly I presume) rebel against equating the two.

So I have a criticism of your scheme but not a perfect or neat solution.