No to # 2 -- it's contemporary schlock from GIA, and who wants to support them anyway? I have been uncomfortable for some time with # 5 because the text was written by a Unitarian. While the words are OK, there are much better options.

The only one that I would use immediately adjacent to the Liturgy would be "What Child is This". I'd use it for immediately before or after Mass or the Office, but that is in the context of the EF, where we don't use English hymns during Mass anyway. The rest don't have enough of a serious Liturgical mood for me to even want them next to the Liturgy, but I do like Silent Night for singing at home or various gatherings throughout the festive season (though I often prefer to sing it in German). Some of the other ones could be used as carols too, but I wouldn't miss them if we sang a hundred other carols but left those ones out.

And like Liam said, What Child is This is better with the unique refrain for each verse.

Probably also in most parishes in the USA. It's a thin text IMO, but I know it's not a hill to die on because it is so beloved and carries so many liminal memories for Catholic people. (Away In A Manger can't compare in that regard, by contrast.)

We do Silent Night for the procession at midnight, and I am going to make sure to program everything else that I like in other spots. I plan to do choral carols and chant or polyphony of Advent and Christmas pieces before the Mass so I get more in.

Edmund Sears was not the kind of Unitarian we associate with current and later Unitarianism. I would not program ICUAMC for Mass, but the author while certainly heterodox was not at all a later 20th century Christ-free ethical humanist, as it were:

In this context that's almost a distinction without a difference, sorry.

Well, the very best way to do OHN is to stick to the French original text, which is so much stronger!

Then again, in Greater Boston upward into northern New England, there are still many people of French Canadian ancestry (mobs of whom emigrated from Quebec to staff mills in the region...) who grew up with the French original at réveillon and Christmas Masses, and cannot abide the English quasi-paraphrase.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mxfmnk7l_pI

Richard

That's a valid opinion. No need for absolution! To my ear, it still hews closer to the piece than what others might have done to/with it, and I think it's respectful - and it's for a congregational hymn arranged as a choral anthem - because in the USA (even more so in American Catholic parishes) ITBM is not a core part of congregational repertoire, unlike in Great Britain (but it is beloved among many American Catholic choristers...). Whereas, to my ear, Darke's setting is more of a choral anthem from the get-go.

Matthew

I've rarely heard AIAM in New England Catholic churches (it's so far down the triage list of Catholic parish favorites in my experience*) - so, do you mean a third tune that is neither MUELLER nor CRADLE SONG?

I share your distaste for ST. LOUIS.

* My personal mission as a retired chorister turned pewsitter is to preserve Angels We Have Heard On High as a top-tier favorite. And, in my experience, Catholics still know it and sing it lustily, but over the decades I see it creeping down in frequency in programming. I prefer it over HTHAS as a recessional on Christmas night and day - it's specifically evocative of verses 17 and 20 of Luke 2, verses that tend to get ignored in preaching, but speak to the role of the shepherds as proto-evangelists:

16 And they went with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. 17 And when they saw it they made known the saying which had been told them concerning this child; 18 and all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart. 20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

[RSV]

@JazFenn
To evaluate these carols for the liturgy, we have to look past mere popularity and analyze their doctrinal density, liturgical alignment, and objective focus. In the Roman Rite, a text is most suitable when it acts as an extension of the liturgical action and the Paschal Mystery rather than just stirring nostalgic sentiment. I hope the analysis is helpful to you.

To help provide an objective standard for these kinds of discussions, I developed a four-fold classification system as part of my Parish Inheritance project (specifically The Parish Hymnody Study).

In a nutshell, this system categorizes texts from C1 (most liturgically robust) to C4 (unsuitable for Catholic worship) based on their theological weight and objective liturgical utility. By providing a standardized, objective vocabulary, the Parish Inheritance framework serves as an invaluable tool for musicians, pastors, pastoral councils, and liturgy planners to move past subjective debates over personal taste and ground hymn selection directly in Catholic dogma and liturgical theology. The classifications are based strictly on the lyrics and text of the hymns, not just the titles.

Applying the C1–C4 framework to your list provides a clear breakdown of why these hymns work—or don't work—within the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass:

Category C1: Fully Ideal for Liturgical Use
Texts that are dogmatically dense, structurally objective, and explicitly weave the Paschal Mystery into the liturgical action.

• What Child Is This?
Analysis: Highly suitable, provided you use the traditional varying refrains for each verse. As Liam noted above, the unique refrains explicitly link the Incarnation directly to the cross ("Nails, spear, shall pierce Him through / The Cross be borne for me, for you"). This moves the text from a static manger scene into the objective reality of salvation history, making it highly appropriate for the Mass proper.

Category C2: Suitable with Pastoral Discretion
Texts that may lean more devotional, narrative, or atmospheric, but remain doctrinally sound, Christocentric, and highly effective for communal prayer.

• Silent Night
Analysis: While the text leans more atmospheric and devotional than deeply dogmatic, it firmly proclaims core objective truths ("Christ the Savior is born"). It carries an immense weight of corporate memory and organic Catholic tradition that fosters deep communal prayer, making it a legitimate C2 pastoral inclusion for Midnight Mass or prefatory carol services.

• The Snow Lay On The Ground
Analysis: A narrative, folk-style carol with sound theology. It mentions the Virgin Mother, Joseph, and the angels. Because it is more descriptive and narrative than strictly liturgical, it is best utilized as a recessional or during a pre-Mass carol service.

Category C3: Devotional / Para-Liturgical Use Only
Texts that are doctrinally acceptable but "thin" or sentimental, lacking the theological gravity required for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

• Away In A Manger
Analysis: A charming, sentimental text, but it completely lacks theological weight or liturgical focus. It is entirely unsuited for the Mass proper. However, as Liam pointed out, it is an excellent choice for a para-liturgical action, such as a children's procession to place the Infant Jesus in the parish creche.

• In The Bleak Midwinter & O Little Town of Bethlehem
Analysis: Both texts rely heavily on romanticized, subjective poetic imagery ("A breastful of milk and a mangerful of hay") or anthropocentric focus ("How still we see thee lie"). They lean toward private, atmospheric meditation on the setting of the Nativity rather than the objective corporate worship of the Mystical Body of Christ. They are better suited as choral anthems than congregational Mass hymns.

Category C4: Unsuitable for the Liturgy
Texts containing doctrinal errors, severe ambiguities, or a total lack of liturgical/Christological focus that renders them inappropriate for Catholic worship.

• It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
Analysis: Written by the 19th-century Unitarian Edmund Sears, this text presents a fundamental flaw for Catholic liturgy: it entirely omits Jesus Christ. The text focuses heavily on horizontal human ethics, social peace, and a weary world, completely sidestepping the supernatural reality of the Incarnation and the Virgin Birth. It is an ethical poem masked as a Christmas carol.

• Night of Silence
Analysis: Agreeing with Diapason84 here—this contemporary text leans heavily into vague, therapeutic, and naturalistic metaphors ("Cold in the secret place, dark in the night"). It lacks the objective dogmatic clarity required for Catholic liturgy, operating primarily as a modern poetic mood-piece rather than breaking open the Word or the Sacraments.

@Liam,

I think that's a fair challenge, and those are precisely the passages that make In the Bleak Midwinter a far richer text than many people give it credit for.

The second stanza in particular contains a remarkable juxtaposition of Christ's divine majesty and His self-emptying in the Incarnation:

Our God, heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain ...
The Lord God Almighty —
Jesus Christ.

That's not thin theology. Rossetti is clearly contemplating mysteries that stand at the center of Christian doctrine: the Incarnation, the union of Christ's divine and human natures, and even the eschatological reality of His coming reign.

Where I would still distinguish the hymn from a Category C1 text is not primarily on the basis of doctrinal content, but on the basis of overall structure and liturgical function.
As a whole, the hymn operates as a contemplative meditation on the Nativity. It invites the singer to stand before the mystery and ponder it. By the final stanza, the focus has shifted from proclaiming who Christ is and what He accomplishes to the believer's personal response:

What can I give Him, poor as I am? ...
Yet what I can I give Him:
Give my heart.

There is nothing objectionable about that movement; indeed, it is one of the reasons the text has endured. My argument would simply be that it functions more as a devotional meditation than as a text that directly carries the corporate action of the Eucharistic liturgy.

So I would readily concede that In the Bleak Midwinter possesses genuine theological depth and is considerably stronger than many Christmas carols. My hesitation is not that it lacks doctrine, but that its dominant posture is contemplative and personal rather than explicitly liturgical. For that reason, I continue to see it as exceptionally effective as a carol, anthem, or aid to meditation on the Incarnation, even if I would not place it among the strongest congregational texts for the Mass itself.

edited---
I attach the complete hymn analysis of In the Bleak Mid-Winter.

It Came Upon the Midnight Clear. Note: "The" Midnight Clear.

Probably the most well known Christmas hymn that does not mention the birth of Christ.

I have registered my complaint with various publishes that use a version with imagry from Greek mythology, "the age of gold, " which smacks of premillennialism, which is specifficaly condemened in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Many, if not most, denominational hymnals have altered (!) the text to avoid that unfortunate phrase.

Some say ICUPtMC is their favorite "Christmas Carol." It is actually a hymn, and not a carol (if one cares to make the distinction). If used at all, it might serve at the Vigil mass, after checking carefully to see that the "age of gold" Is not included.

The recently published Revised English Hymnal has moved it to the Michaelmas section, but persists in retaining "the age of gold".

I decided to take a look at hymns suggested by oldhymns.

See Amid the Winter's Snow (Category C1): A theological masterpiece by Edward Caswall. The lyrics move far beyond standard manger sentimentality to explicitly define the purpose of the Incarnation ("To redeem the world from sin").

With Glory Lit, the Midnight Air Revealed (Category C1): This 19th-century American Catholic standard provides strong objective truths, particularly in stanza 3, grounding the Nativity in the continuous corporate praise of the Church and Christ’s divinity.

Sleep, Holy Babe (Category C2): Another Caswall text. While focusing on an intimate scene, it brilliantly foreshadows the Paschal Mystery ("Too quickly will thy slumber break, / And Thou to lengthened pains awake..."), making it a great Communion meditation.

Come to the Manger (Category C3): A beautiful traditional Catholic carol, but textually "thin." It primarily directs the imagination to the physical scene and is best reserved for pre-Mass carols.

The Birthday of a King (Category C3): Even when expanded into a full SATB choral arrangement, the lyrics remain purely narrative and sentimental. It functions safely as a majestic C3 recessional but lacks the objective theological depth required for the Mass proper.