Why is contemporary liturgical music so terrible?

[peregrinator]

Perhaps if it had not been for Pope Paul VI, GIA would still be the Gregorian Institute of America

[Doom]

Another heretical hymn is "City of God", which, like "All Are Welcome" and "Anthem", imagines the Church as a completely human institution founded by, and for, man.

"Let us build the City of God", we don't build the City of God, God alone does

[Highlander]

Perhaps if it had not been for Pope Paul VI, GIA would still be the Gregorian Institute of America

For one ignorant, please explain.

[Doom]

Perhaps if it had not been for Pope Paul VI, GIA would still be the Gregorian Institute of America

For one ignorant, please explain.

The way I interpret it, he is blaming the Novus Ordo for all the banality and bad music that has plagued us in the last 50 years.

This claim is problematic because it essentially claims that all the problems in the modern Church burst forth ex nihilo from Vatican II. It is far from the case that the pre-Vatican II had no problems.

All the stuff that went viral after Vatican II already existed before World War II. Anyone who doubts this need only watch the 1944 film "Going My Way" starring Bing Crosby. It is a story about a parish run by an elderly fuddy-duddy priest, who gets a new assistant priest, who will soon take over the parish, played by Bing Crosby, who is hip and trendy, and whose casual, informal approach offends the elderly priest.

The message: the Church needs to update itself, stop taking itself so seriously, and get with the times.

Going My Way is the Spirit of Vatican II, 20 years before Vatican II.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Pope St. Paul VI had terrible taste in art.

[Doom]

Pope St. Paul VI had terrible taste in art.

Paul VI Hall is the ugliest building in Rome, but he isn't responsible for the decline in liturgical music, which was already well underway under Pius XII.

[Highlander]

What I can't grasp with Catholic music is the difference between the incredibly beautiful and uplifting tradition of Church music ... say, in chant and Palestrina ... and what sounds like "She'll Be Comin" Round the Mountain" in every parish I've been in.

I will except the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Santa Fe. There, at least, recorded chant is played throughout the day. One can sit, ignore the tourists, and reflect.

And, St. Peters in Rome, where a choir was singing during my visit.

[Doom]

I think that, except when it is done for ideological reasons, i.e., hatred of tradition, the main reason Church music is terrible is a combination of a low budget and a lack of volunteers who have any musical knowledge or ability. They can't afford to pay professional musicians, and the few who are willing to volunteer have limited talent.


Pipe organs are very expensive, and the number of people who know how to play them is few. Pianos are much cheaper, and you can't swing a dead cat without finding someone who took piano lessons as a child. They can't play well; no one is going to mistake them for Jerry Lee Lewis or Liberace, but at least they can play.

And guitars, every college dorm room has a half dozen passable guitar players who want to be a folk signer, guitar players are easy to find in any college town.

[peregrinator]

Perhaps if it had not been for Pope Paul VI, GIA would still be the Gregorian Institute of America

For one ignorant, please explain.

The way I interpret it, he is blaming the Novus Ordo for all the banality and bad music that has plagued us in the last 50 years.

I'm not blaming the novus ordo, I'm blaming Paul VI. He said most Gregorian chant would go away with the new Mass and that's exactly what happened. I didn't even mention Vatican II.

[peregrinator]

Pope St. Paul VI had terrible taste in art.

Paul VI Hall is the ugliest building in Rome, but he isn't responsible for the decline in liturgical music, which was already well underway under Pius XII.

It's true that Pius XII was also a liturgical vandal.

[peregrinator]

Paul VI:

It is here that the greatest newness is going to be noticed, the newness of language. No longer Latin, but the spoken language will be the principal language of the Mass. The introduction of the vernacular will certainly be a great sacrifice for those who know the beauty, the power and the expressive sacrality of Latin. We are parting with the speech of the Christian centuries; we are becoming like profane intruders in the literary preserve of sacred utterance. We will lose a great part of that stupendous and incomparable artistic and spiritual thing, the Gregorian chant.

https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/librar ... olate-8969

[Doom]

Pope St. Paul VI had terrible taste in art.

Paul VI Hall is the ugliest building in Rome, but he isn't responsible for the decline in liturgical music, which was already well underway under Pius XII.

It's true that Pius XII was also a liturgical vandal.

But 90% of what happened had nothing to do with anything Pius XII or any other Pope did. The collapse of the liturgy would have happened regardless of Papal leadership, because it was a revolution from the ground up, not top down. Sure, Paul VI probably made the situation worse, but it would have happened anyway, because support for Traditional liturgy was already dying among the laity by at least 1944 when "Going My Way" made the case for a new, hip, and trendy Church mainstream.


The collapse of the liturgy was a revolution from the ground up, like all revolutions. And it didn't appear out of nowhere. Pope John XXIII, calling for an ecumenical council, was like Louis XIV calling for a meeting of the Estates General or the ascension of Gorbachev in the Soviet Union.

Neither Pope John nor Louis XIV nor Gorbachev desired anything like a radical revolution and destruction of the Old Regime. All they wanted was modest, incremental reform, which would do little more than put a new coat of paint and the removal of the barnacles on the Ship of State, soup it up a little with a modest tune-up so it would run better and last longer.

But in introducing modest reforms, they inadvertently unleashed a tidal wave of people demanding more and bigger reforms, and the reforms demanded gradually got more and more extreme, until it resulted in the complete collapse of everything.

But the tidal wave didn't come from out of nowhere; it was there from the beginning, it existed for decades, unbeknownst to those at the top. The small, modest reforms only created excitement, which led to a demand for more, and when "more" wasn't forthcoming, the result was rage and revolution.

The difference between the Soviet Union and the French monarchy, which completely collapsed and disappeared forever, and the Church, is that the Church is a divine institution, so while great harm was done by the Revolution, the Church survived, and even as the generation that created the revolution and getting old and dying off, the effects of the revolution are starting to wash away. It may be another century before full renewal is guaranteed but the path is certain.

[peregrinator]

Paul VI Hall is the ugliest building in Rome, but he isn't responsible for the decline in liturgical music, which was already well underway under Pius XII.

It's true that Pius XII was also a liturgical vandal.

But 90% of what happened had nothing to do with anything Pius XII or any other Pope did. The collapse of the liturgy would have happened regardless of Papal leadership, because it was a revolution from the ground up, not top down.

Nonsense, it was totally top-down.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

I agree with peregrinator. There was no grass-roots movement for liturgical reform, and certainly not for anything on the level of what actually happened.

BTW, it's harder and harder to find pianists. If you know any in central Illinois, please send them my way.

[anawim]

Having lived through that era, I can tell you it was a both/and. The change came from the top, but the reception from the bottom was a combination of welcome and oblivious.
Some liked the change, and the rest were just accepting, because that's what we as Catholics did. We saw the church as knowing what they were doing, and if there was change, it must be right. We didn't question their decisions. We were 'sheeples'.

I guess you could say, 'we didn't expect the Inquisition'.

[aussie_aussie_oi_oi]

Some of the older folk in my parish (now around 80) were very happy with the end of the latin mass. Their hostility still makes me jump as they say that they hated the mumbo jumbo latin that they did not understand. With that attitude they are the people who like all the corny songs, hugs and kisses at the sign of peace etc.

[anawim]

Some of the older folk in my parish (now around 80) were very happy with the end of the latin mass. Their hostility still makes me jump as they say that they hated the mumbo jumbo latin that they did not understand. With that attitude they are the people who like all the corny songs, hugs and kisses at the sign of peace etc.

Those of us who went to Catholic School Pre-Vat II definitely knew what the Latin meant. The nuns made sure of that. It was only the public school students who were uninformed. We also knew the meaning of all the Latin in the hymns as well.

Served me well years later on the vocabulary portion of the SAT test. I knew the meaning because the English words were similar to the Latin words.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Some of the older folk in my parish (now around 80) were very happy with the end of the latin mass. Their hostility still makes me jump as they say that they hated the mumbo jumbo latin that they did not understand. With that attitude they are the people who like all the corny songs, hugs and kisses at the sign of peace etc.

They were taught that they should hate it. They were told it was outdated. Etc. etc.

[peregrinator]

Some of the older folk in my parish (now around 80) were very happy with the end of the latin mass. Their hostility still makes me jump as they say that they hated the mumbo jumbo latin that they did not understand. With that attitude they are the people who like all the corny songs, hugs and kisses at the sign of peace etc.

That sounds almost like they're just repeating what they were told at the time of the changes.

[peregrinator]

Having lived through that era, I can tell you it was a both/and. The change came from the top, but the reception from the bottom was a combination of welcome and oblivious.
Some liked the change, and the rest were just accepting, because that's what we as Catholics did. We saw the church as knowing what they were doing, and if there was change, it must be right. We didn't question their decisions. We were 'sheeples'.

I guess you could say, 'we didn't expect the Inquisition'.

Of course, lots of people also became embittered (Evelyn Waugh hated the changes - and keep in mind he died in 1966 so didn't even see the changes in 1967, 1968, or the new Mass in 1969/70).