Okay, I stole that headline. Mea culpa. Anyway, Pope Benedict XVI has harshed on guitars in Mass, according to various media reports. I don’t see why you need the Pope to tell you that if you walk into a sanctuary and see a drum riser where the altar should be that you may want to get the heck out of dodge, but I guess some of us do need a bit of guidance.
Not that I have any opinions on the worship wars.
I was really curious what the Pope actually said about guitars and contemporary styling in Mass. Turns out that what he said and what was reported were about as similar as the police blotter in your local fishwrapper and an episode of The Sopranos. Related, but not quite the same thing. Here’s a typical media report. UPI devoted five paragraphs to the issue:
Pope Benedict XVI is calling for an end to guitars and a return to traditional choirs in the Catholic Church… .
The Pope’s supporters say that the music played during mass is a vital part of the communion between worshippers and God, and that medieval church music creates the correct ambience for perceiving God’s mystery, the newspaper said.
But Cardinal Carlo Furno, grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, said it was “better to have guitars on the altar and rock and roll masses than empty churches.”
Because, as we all know, bad guitar playing brings the masses into the Masses. Anyway, Catholic News Service quotes Benedict saying that he supports new liturgical music. He just thinks it should be connected to the democracy of the dead, as they say:
“The latest musical compositions of the 89-year-old former director of the Sistine Chapel Choir demonstrate how new liturgical music can be created without ignoring the centuries of church music that came before it, Pope Benedict XVI said…
Pope Benedict said, “An authentic updating of sacred music cannot take place except in the wake of the great tradition of the past, of Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony.”
The pope said that in music, as in art and architecture, the church promotes and supports “new expressive means without denying the past — the history of the human spirit — which is also the story of its dialogue with God.”
I mean, I wish he would have used one of his fancy edicts to ban the guitar in Mass, but what he said was much more moderate. In general I’ve noticed that Benedict’s statements thus far tend to focus on the rationale behind big ideas rather than condemnations or pronouncements from on high. Yes, this makes headline and story writing more difficult and less dramatic, but it’s something that reporters should probably get used to.
Having said that, worship wars — as Terry notes — contain ginormously contentious isues. So rather than flighty stories about the Pope banning the guitar, a reporter could use the Pope’s comments as a hook to discuss local church issues.
Photo via Flickr.
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Comments (20) |
June 30, 2006, at 2:18 pm
Unrelated to the main issue at hand, but UPI rips other media organization’s stories all the time. It’s very frustrating because they’ll essentially take a story we’ve written, cut and paste it, change a few words here and there, and site our Web site with no link. Very uncool.
June 30, 2006, at 4:17 pm
Great read. I just wish most churches would have good music period.
June 30, 2006, at 6:48 pm
Every Sunday when I hear the choir and congregation sing at our church, All Saints’ in Beverly Hills, I am thankful for the amazing music. Great music sure helps make the worship experience more meaningful.
June 30, 2006, at 10:00 pm
It would be nice if the Pope’s edict did some good, but of course the American church has a long-standing habit of ignoring whoever’s sitting in St. Peter’s Chair.
Perhaps he can put some resources into developing good music that appeals to modern audiences. The mediocre (stuff) is adopted under the guise that contemporary audiences demand it, when really most of them don’t know what they want other than something singable. (Of course, they could be taught to love the classics but that’s another story).
The majority of the post-1970 stuff is not very singable because the authors act as though they’ve never heard of voice leading, harmony, or any of the other musical rules developed since the days of Palestrina. The best-selling pop (and country) songs of the past 50 years largely adhere to these rules because that’s what makes for a “catchy tune.”
June 30, 2006, at 10:18 pm
Well, yes, there is enormous value and heritage in the music “of the past” and in that form/style/genre. But I must say, standing in a church I once attended, listening to BAD organists hammering out Bach-on-meth hymns while attenders yawn and look at their watches, you begin to wonder what value some of that heritage presents.
Then I look at my current church, with the dang drums mind you, and I look around at 100’s of folks worshiping….with heart mind and soul, the God who made them, at times with hands raised, and I find myself flinching at your comments deriding our contemporary music styles.
And I also see 100’s of High School youth seriously committing to their faith (its theirs, not their parents) because the church “stooped” to their culture to reach them.
There’s a place for both/all in the church. There also will be, always, a vast array of quality. Perhaps the one has much more inherent beauty and meat…but the other has power.
July 1, 2006, at 5:38 am
I hope Benedict (or some Catholic scholar) will one day undertake the task of examining the differences in the lyrics rather than musical style. THAT’s what I find so appalling about “praise” music — the “me, me, me, me, me” lyrics. I wouldn’t mind something more modern in worship if it most of it wasn’t so theologically and artistically thin. Taize, at least, uses some of the classic texts (most of which are Scripture-derived), which puts it on a plane above the usual “praise chorus” drivel.
July 1, 2006, at 10:17 am
[…] Here’s Get Religion’s take on the B16 comments about music in mass. […]
July 1, 2006, at 11:31 am
[…] Pope demands end to crappy church musicGetReligion, DC - 21 hours ago… The Pope s supporters say that the music played during mass is a vital part of the communion between worshippers and God, and that medieval church music … […]
July 1, 2006, at 11:43 am
I’m not Catholic, I think liturgy is a beautiful expression of worship, and yet like “Jeff” above, I also see that there is great power in bending the instruments of culture to the praise of God. Don’t knock music that makes connections with people just because you don’t like it.
Especially don’t knock music by a band that you likely have never seen before and know nothing about. The band in your picture is “Starfield,” some young men I had the personal pleasure of meeting a few weeks ago, and I personally witnessed a flame of passion for Christ ignited in the hearts of dozens and dozens of young people because of their music. You probably just found a “praise band” picture (according to the Flickr tags) and put it up, calling it crappy.
Deborah’s comment is well taken. I do some song writing, and I’m always taking care to make sure that the music I write is lyrically thick and not self-centered. But just because something can be done badly does not make every expression of it bad.
July 1, 2006, at 11:57 am
This also seems to be the difference between the liturgical denominations clinging to their Bach cantatas and the growning, non-liturgical, often non-denominational, churches who believe you can atract the faith by performing music written after 1945. When you look at church growth, it appears that a drum trap or a Starfield prerformance brings in a lot more new parishoners than a bad choir singing something from St. Matthew’s Passion.
Also, I wonder how the Vatican deals with Catholic churches from the Global South where there are a lot more drums and guitars and native instruments than there are organs and pianos.
July 1, 2006, at 8:17 pm
Wonder how the Pope feels about “Southern- style” Gospel music? I’ve seen that stuff bring even the most unrepentant sinner to his feet in ecstasy…
July 2, 2006, at 5:39 pm
[…] The Pope - he’s my kind of guy: Pope demands end to crappy church music. […]
July 3, 2006, at 8:36 am
The comments to this post are a fascinating example of how a misleading impression created by initial press reports can linger even in the face of more accurate reporting. The whole point of this post is that the initial press reports are wrong, or at least greatly oversimplified: the pope doesn’t want to ban modern music or newfangled electric guitars, he just thinks church music in general should take inspiration from what came before it.
And yet a number of comments here have been along the lines of “How DARE the pope suggest banning guitars??”
Makes you wonder what the value of corrections in a newspaper might be.
July 3, 2006, at 8:44 am
Another thing from the Telegraph story really bugged me:
“The Pope believes that if Latin Masses are reintroduced, more Catholics will learn the words to the Gregorian chants that he advocates.”
First of all, to present this statement without attribution is astonishing. Secondly, Latin doesn’t need to be “reintroduced” in Mass, since Mass can be said at any time in any place in Latin, which is the normative language of the liturgy.
Finally, where in the news story does the pope say he advocates Gregorian chant? The pope is a Mozart freak, for crying out loud! He’s clearly happy with instrumental music in church. How does “modern music in the liturgy should draw on the musical traditions of the church” become “We need to bring back the Tridentine Mass so people will start chanting again”?
July 5, 2006, at 11:54 am
In the previous post, Tom Breen states
“Latin doesn’t need to be “reintroduced†in Mass, since Mass can be said at any time in any place in Latin, which is the normative language of the liturgy.”
This is not exactly true. A priest or parish must first get permission from their local bishop in order to conduct a public Mass in Latin. Bishops in the US have tried to squelch the use of Latin since Vatican II, and there are only a small percentage that allow Latin even today. For a list of parishes that have permission, check out the webstite Unavoce.org.
July 5, 2006, at 2:31 pm
According to Vatican II documents, Gregorian chant has pride of place. Next comes polyphony. After that comes other stuff, and using no music is the least preferred option.
Singing or chanting Mass parts and prayers is to be done most of all, as they are the holiest bits; singing hymns is least important, as it’s just an option. The priest’s singing is most important; the choir and musicians act as the voice of the people, although letting the people sing along is also nice, especially on Mass parts.
Organ is the preferred instrument; other instruments come next. Nobody wanted to ban Segovia from playing for Mass or whatever.
But since we Catholics routinely ignore all this stuff, including the bit where all Catholic parishes are supposed to offer singing classes to all parishioners of all ages… well, the Pope likes to remind people every once in a while.
July 5, 2006, at 2:41 pm
Forgot to say that the human voice (a capella) is preferred over the organ, though you might infer that from Gregorian chant having “pride of place”.
And there’s really nothing stopping any parish from performing any music the pastor’s willing to let pass; you can compose new Masses all day long if you want. Hymnals have to be okayed by the bishops, but individual pieces don’t. (This is important to know with the new Mass translation coming out.)
We’re encouraged to use good judgement in picking something that’s actually fit to worship God and won’t distract the congregation from prayer, of course, and it would be stupid to ignore the thousands of years of public domain music available to us. (Choral Wiki is a good place to start looking.)
Also, singing in Latin is appropriate 24/7/365, since it’s the official language of the Latin Rite. (All this stuff is Latin Rite; the Eastern Rite churches have their own music regs.)
July 5, 2006, at 4:36 pm
Ask for it, Il Papa, you’ll get it. I am working on a revival of the religious rounds and dances done in the middle ages, accompanied by that damned guitar (lute actually), and DRUMS, the radtrads are coming for me!
July 7, 2006, at 7:58 pm
A priest or parish must first get permission from their local bishop in order to conduct a public Mass in Latin.
If I’m not mistaken, this only applies to a Tridentine mass, not the Novus Ordo. A Novus Ordo mass may be said in Latin anywhere, anytime.
July 28, 2006, at 11:47 am
“Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn’t!” George Bernard Shaw