What's Latin for "ditto"?

I'd probably go with "concurro," which is more like, "I agree"

There is one in our hymnal titled, "Ashes" that I would never use.

But that's what it says.

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear -- (ie, to realize that God was real and should be paid attention to)
And grace that fear relieved. -- (ie, allowed him to trust as well as fear)
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed. -- (ie, in the hour he first believed, he realized the preciousness of all the graces that had been showered upon him to allow him to believe)

If that's what all the huhu is about, they're not reading all that closely. The whole song seems to be about the primacy of grace, perhaps to such an extent as to discourage little things like repentance and reparation among certain strands of Christianity in the US. I thought that was what people were freaking out about, actually.

"Heresy" is a word with a real meaning. So the only actually heretical hymns I know of would be by Arius.

Point taken, Kathy. Conry's intellect and insight aren't at a primary level of Repp, Wise.
I was speaking of the union of his text with an unusually banal melody also from his pen. Conry had/has? a fascination with the Kurt Weill minimalist/populist approach to artful tunes. Unfortunately, "Ashes" as a tune isn't anywhere near the ideal of Mack the Knife, much less his own "Anthem" or "I Will Lift Up my Eyes."
I would venture to say that even Haas has wedded music to text better with this thematic content.

Salieri- These past Sundays, I have scheduled 'Songs of Thankfulness' Salzburg. In Ritualsong,the last phrase has been changed to God in 'flesh' made manifest, which I absolutely refuse to sing. s loud as I can, I sing out 'man'
I wondfer if we will see corrections in the coming months as hymnals are revised?
Donna

Thanks for your replies. I'm not just looking to identify songs that are formally heretical (which seem to be few), but also songs that lead to heresy.

Are there theological criteria from papal documents (or *cough* USCCB documents) that outline the principles for proper liturgical music or hymnody for the divine liturgy? There have to be criteria someplace that could be used to decide musical selections that are suitable. I recall seeing a document which states one of the options for liturgical music can be chosen "1. blah blah, 2. blah blah, 3. blah blah 4....or some other suitable music". How do we know what is and is not suitable? I'm sure it's not just personal taste.

At my parish, the music seems to be: pieces the director already knows, or pieces that suit her taste. I'd like to know, what are the proper criteria for choosing music? Without a document, it will appear to people that I want what I like rather than what the director likes.

“liturgical songs must never be permitted to make statements about faith which are untrue.”

And I will grant there are MANY of those, ranging from anti-transubstantiation to "we are us we we weeeeeeee" texts. Each and every one needs to be avoided.

Not only does it take poetry and a strophic tune to make a hymn a hymn. Properly speaking, a hymn is addressed to or is about the deity; it has solid theological content and its purpose is to extol and teach. Thus, songs that are 'I' and 'we' centred are just that: songs, not hymns. Amazing Grace is certainly not a hymn, this aside from whatever (extra-liturgical) devotional value it may have for some. If it isn't praise directed to God, while extolling or expressing dogmatic or theological truths, it isn't a hymn. This is not to suggest that songs that aren't hymns have, ipso facto, no value - even liturgically. But they do need more than a little scrutiny. And, popularity is not among the criteria.

.

Um, the whole of "Amazing Grace" _is_ hymning praises of God. If you can sing praises of the "Precious Blood" or the Five Wounds and make the part signify the whole, you can't claim that singing about grace isn't singing about God. You can't whack little chunks off and sell grace in the store, now can you? It's an activity of God's, not a particle or a wave.

I love people and all, but it's fairly clear that nobody really learns about poetry and figures of speech any more. (Except the logic and rhetoric majors, and they insist on using Greek terms for everything on every occasion. Which scares me.)

Just say that you think the tone of "Amazing Grace" is more devotional than liturgical, and that this is a command decision on your part; or that you don't feel like singing some 18th century evangelical song; or whatever you want to say. The more people strain for reasons on this one, the less they manage to explain their intuitions and taste. When it comes to hymns, "Because I don't like it" or "It rubs me the wrong way" is a perfectly valid criterion.

Which cannot be dismissed easily as an integral component of why we aggregate together to praise God. If Newton's little missive helped him adhere to the life of a reformed soul steeped in sin, it can't be wholly untenable that it can't find a place in "liturgy."

Maureen makes an appreciable point. But, when I contemplate a real, unmitigated example of hymnody, such as St John Damascene's Welcome, Happy Morning, or Salva Festa Dies, or Praise to the Holiest, or All Hail Adored Trinity, or, or... then lesser songs rather pale as paeans of praise - no matter what. Many of our most beloved 'hymns' are really prayers (i.e., Come Down O Love Divine), not hymns - and there's nothing wrong with that. Others are really more about the experiences and needs of I, Me, and Us (i.e., Amazing Grace) than they are about the God who gets honourable mention (and, that may be one reason that they are so popular!).

Me immundum munda tuo Sanguine:
Cujus una stilla salvum facere
Totum mundum quit ab omni scelere.

All-sufficient merit.

It's not that grace is God's helping hand that gives us a shove that helps us climb to heaven. It's that the operation of grace is such that when God's necessary and sufficient grace enables us to perform a meritorious action, by the cooperation of our will, that act really becomes our own act, as well, as do the merits accrued.

But the merits of all the saints are also the merits of Christ Himself, won by His operation, by and through his Body.

RachelR - I think this entirely orthodox statement says the same thing

"For the presence of the Saviour in the flesh was the price of death and the saving of the whole creation" St Athanasius (Ep. ad Adelphium, vi)

The verse gives no such impression that we do not cooperate with grace. The worst that could be said about it is that it's not explicit about free cooperation with grace or condign merit. The verse doesn't exclude free cooperation with grace or condign merit, both of which are dependent upon the all-sufficient merit of Christ's sacrificial death according to Catholic doctrine and theology. I think free cooperation with grace and condign merit can be understood to be implicit in the verse. Both our free cooperation with God's grace and our meriting salvation condignly are wholly dependent upon the merits of Christ and caused by God's grace.

If everything about Catholic faith had to be spelled out explicitly in every text, not even the Nicene Creed would pass muster.

CCC 2008 The merit of man before God in the Christian life arises from the fact that God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace. The fatherly action of God is first on his own initiative, and then follows man's free acting through his collaboration, so that the merit of good works is to be attributed in the first place to the grace of God, then to the faithful. Man's merit, moreover, itself is due to God, for his good actions proceed in Christ, from the predispositions and assistance given by the Holy Spirit.

"Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church."

There was a song we were slated to sing a couple years ago "Christ has no body now but yours". Which I raised concerns and objected to when I was cantor. I believe it was based on a quote from one of the saints. The idea of singing a song that "Christ has no body" is most unsettling. Thankfully, we never did sing it.

Thanks to all for offering your thoughts. I am simply a member of the choir, so I have alerted our director that he may want to ask Father to double-check the theological appropriateness of this piece.
Again, I am so grateful to all those who commented, it has been very helpful!

Although there are some hymns that are quite obviously heretical, or at least lean way too much in that direction, I think that there can be a tendency to "look" for heresy in hymnody. There should be (in my mind) a tendency towards assuming charitably so that even if the authors intention was to go against Catholic doctrine it would be easily modified to fit back into church use. Too often we look for conflict and pick at tiny details because of some think in our own thinking. Although, is the devil in the details?

Since it was completely out of copyright we decided to "mod" this particular one for our use. I see that as no different than someone changing the words in a hymn to fit a specific rhythm.
;) https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4L7cTmcIRVEV1JiLWxPRGZES1U/view?usp=sharing

This discussion always reminds me of a passage from Msgr. Hayburn's invaluable tome. He quoted a report from Frid. Nausea Blancicampianus, bishop of Vienne, France, to Pope Paul III two years before the Council of Trent.

"Not a few of these [German Protestant songs] are hymns which go contrary to the authority of the Supreme Pontiffs, the Mass, the good works, and the established customs of religious people on the one hand and praise their new rites and dogmas on the other."

If a hymn does not mention God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, or Mary, or if they are mentioned in a way that contradicts Catholic teaching, I don't allow it. If I am superseded by my pastor, that's another story.

The only problem I see with Amazing Grace is in the first verse. "Amazing grace! how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!" I have not researched this hymn at all, so someone chime in to educate me. It looks like there are a few things that are questionable. Is 'amazing grace!' some acclamation said in response to a particular event? Is it a prayer with the power to save the intended listener? What exactly would the listener be saved from? Does it imply eternal salvation of his soul or immediate physical salvation? The rest of the hymn seems sound, as others mentioned previously. I'm of the mind that poetic license needs to be checked when it starts causing theological confusion and division.

I heard a Unitarian pastor say that getting hymns into the UU hymnal was very difficult. He said that when a hymn was aired, there might be one person singing while the rest were looking ahead at the text to see if they could find something to object to.

The full text is : "We are marching in the sight of God"
This is repeated, and repeated, and ... until the song leader changes marching for another word, such as praying, ...
I would not call it a hymn. It could I suppose be appropriate for an outdoor procession, if you call that liturgical. I would restrict it to extra-liturgical events such as Services for Christian Unity.
It enjoyed a vogue in the 90s, I haven't heard it for years, even at Ecumenical events.

"Siyhamba" was used in middle school choral festivals in 1990s. I am so sorry that it crept into hymnody. Not that I dislike it. I just do not want it sung in my parish.