Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog

Pope's homily focuses on the Holy Spirit, supernatural virtue of hope

The Holy Father's homily, given today in Washington, D.C., from the USCCB's Papal Visit site:

In today's Gospel, the risen Lord bestows the gift of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and grants them the authority to forgive sins. Through the surpassing power of Christ's grace, entrusted to frail human ministers, the Church is constantly reborn and each of us is given the hope of a new beginning. Let us trust in the Spirit's power to inspire conversion, to heal every wound, to overcome every division, and to inspire new life and freedom. How much we need these gifts! And how close at hand they are, particularly in the sacrament of Penance! The liberating power of this sacrament, in which our honest confession of sin is met by God's merciful word of pardon and peace, needs to be rediscovered and reappropriated by every Catholic. To a great extent, the renewal of the Church in America depends on the renewal of the practice of Penance and the growth in holiness which that sacrament both inspires and accomplishes.

"In hope we were saved!" (Rom 8:24)." As the Church in the United States gives thanks for the blessings of the past two hundred years, I invite you, your families, and every parish and religious community, to trust in the power of grace to create a future of promise for God's people in this country. I ask you, in the Lord Jesus, to set aside all division and to work with joy to prepare a way for him, in fidelity to his word and in constant conversion to his will. Above all, I urge you to continue to be a leaven of evangelical hope in American society, striving to bring the light and truth of the Gospel to the task of building an ever more just and free world for generations yet to come.

Those who have hope must live different lives! (cf. Spe Salvi, 2). By your prayers, by the witness of your faith, by the fruitfulness of your charity, may you point the way towards that vast horizon of hope which God is even now opening up to his Church, and indeed to all humanity: the vision of a world reconciled and renewed in Christ Jesus, our Savior. To him be all honor and glory, now and forever. Amen.

Read the entire homily.

I didn't see the Mass on television. Life is a bit crazy here at the Olson household at the moment, so I'm catching most everything after the fact, focusing on reading what the Pope has said. But it sounds as though there has been a lot—a lot!—of discussion about the music played at the Mass. Amy Welborn is clearly annoyed by what she heard:

The core problem with this liturgy was that it had such a heavy performance vibe to it. Commenters have called it a “review” and I think that’s apt. I don’t want to make the multiculturalism the center of any critique myself. I don’t think that’s the point. The point is that, for example, after the Holy Father intoned the Doxology at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer, what happened next? A solemnly chanted “Amen” fitting in with what he had just done?

No - we get freakin’ trumpets - the same trumpets that preceded all three of the Mass parts used from the Mass of Creation.

There was a bombastic, almost frenzied sensibility, as various musical styles were pulled in, Cantor A was replaced by Cantor B and every Mass part had to be introduced by overwhelming musical stylings of someone.

I am not sure how, exactly, one could pull of a Mass in a stadium with 50,000 or so people without making it big in this sense. I don’t know if there is a bigness possible that would pull everyone present into the ritual while at the same time respecting the fact that this is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, not Talent Night At St. Hippodrome’s. Someone can, perhaps enlighten me on that score.

She writes more here. The New Liturgical Movement blog has this to say (and Fr. Z. offers commentary here):

In the name of "multiculturalism," the Pope was subjected to music more suitable to dingy dance halls than Churches. The Psalms of David were distorted to the point of ear-splitting dissonance. The congos, pan flutes, meringue rhythms, the jazz and blues and rock, the swaggering vocals, the puffed-up soloing, went beyond even the most pessimistic predictions.

And the Sacred Music for the  New Millennium blog offers an apology to the Holy Father.

The Washington Post has a rather curious piece about the music and the reaction to it; it ends with this comment about "guitar Masses":

In defense of guitar Mass, was it really so bad? It was the soundtrack of a lot of social justice efforts. The St. Louis Jesuits stuff conjures up, for many, memories of food banks and felt banners, of youth group carwashes and, more nobly, martyred nuns and priests in Central America. Maybe that was the problem for some churchgoers? The groovier music really was of its time, and came with an agenda?

"What about silence?" wonders Day, the music professor, 18 years after he wrote "Why Catholics Can't Sing."

If he has any prescriptive at all for Mass music, he says, "it would be to cool it. Pick plain, simple music. Plain, square hymns with reasonable accompaniment. And listen to silence occasionally."

Yet another reason I am thankful to be able to attend a Byzantine Catholic parish. We don't have fights about who plays guitar, or how many people should be in the orchestra. There are no instruments. And there is not place for that weird nostalgia that informs the "guitar Mass" movement (if that's the right term for it). Personally, I don't like going to Mass or Divine Liturgy and hearing '60s guitar music, or '80s drumming, or 21st-century rock licks. And one simple reason—apart from the significant theological issues involved—is that I can hear that stuff anytime and anywhere; it is the soundtrack of our culture. Going to Mass should be different because it is should be clearly distinct from cruising in the car, dancing at a wedding reception, or attending a rock concert. Okay, so I'm talking the choir; enough of that for now. I'll just leave this brief quote from then-Cardinal Ratzinger:

On the one hand, there is pop music, which is certainly no longer supported by the people in the ancient sense (populus). It is aimed at the phenomenon of the masses, is industrially produced, and ultimately has to be described as a cult of the banal. "Rock", on the other hand, is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship. People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the experience of being part of a crowd and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their defenses torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental force of the universe. The music of the Holy Spirit's sober inebriation seems to have little chance when self has become a prison, the mind is a shackle, and breaking out from both appears as a true promise of redemption that can be tasted at least for a few moments.

• Music and Liturgy | Joseph Ratzinger | From The Spirit of the Liturgy
• Cardinal Ratzinger on Liturgical Music | Michael J. Miller (July 2000; Homiletic & Pastoral Review)

I really like listening to jazz. But a Baptist "jazz Mass"?

This is, I think, a bit strange:

Wynton Marsalis will be turning the House That Jazz Built at the Time Warner Center into the House of the Lord when he premieres his first jazz Mass, which blends the gospel and jazz traditions in a celebration of the 200th anniversary of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church, New York State's oldest African-American congregation.

The 100-plus Abyssinian Baptist Church Bicentennial Choir will lift their voices in song as they make their way through the Rose Theater in the traditional Processional to join forces with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra to perform Marsalis' "Abyssinian 200: A Celebration," a 19-part piece based on the liturgy found in many African-American Baptist churches.

I've been in several Baptist churches in my time (admittedly, none of them black Baptist churches), and I've never heard about a Baptist liturgy and Mass. Worship, yes. Services, yes. Mass, no. On the contrary, as this article in the New Georgia Encyclopedia explains, such notions are quite foreign to black Baptist communities:

Baptists, like the state's numerous white Baptists, are thoroughgoing Protestants. The sermon is the centerpiece of the worship service, and the minister's central task is to preach the Word, or Gospel message of Jesus Christ, which calls for a distinctly individual, inward response. In keeping with this requirement, Baptist churches receive an individual member only when that person has made a commitment of faith in his or her own right. The ritual of baptism, whether in a church font or in a body of water, is the critical outward marker of the new believer's entry into membership in the church. Also, in keeping with the inward focus, Baptist churches are typically unadorned, and the worship service has none of the liturgy found in Catholic or Episcopal churches.

The composition of "jazz Masses" is not common, but a couple of such compositions do come to mind: Mary Lou's Mass, composed by the brilliant pianist Mary Lou Williams (who converted to Catholicism in 1957 at the age of 47), and To Hope, composed by legendary pianist Dave Brubeck (who became Catholic in 1980). Although I have several albums by both Brubeck and Williams, I've never heard those pieces; I have around 2500 jazz CDs, but I don't like the idea of hearing jazz at Mass, just as I cringe when I hear Palestrina music in car commercials. (However, if push came to shove, I'd far prefer a "jazz Mass" to a "folk Mass." I've experienced the latter, and it was painful.)

While jazz draws from a wide range of sources, and has traditionally been rooted in the blues and gospel music, there are only a few jazz artists, as far as I know, who have explicitly referred to or used sacred choral music in making non-liturgical music. One of the more interesting—and best-selling—of those efforts was Jan Garbarek's 1994 album, Officium, in which the Norwegian saxophonist (one of my favorite horn players) improvised haunting lines over medieval chant sung by the Hilliard Ensemble; a sequel, Mnemosyne, came out in 1999. Anyhow, back to Wynton Marsalis and his new composition:

Before composing the music, Marsalis spent hours talking with Butts about the significance of each part of the prayer service. He further drew upon his diverse influences: his music professor father's lessons about traditional spirituals, hymns and gospel music; his own experience as a classical trumpeter playing the religious works of Bach, Handel and Palestrina; and his encyclopedic knowledge of all styles of jazz dating back to its roots in his native New Orleans.

Marsalis also highlighted the common links between jazz and the African-American religious rite by including call-and-response patterns and leaving room for improvisation.

I am curious about the music, especially since Marsalis is a fine player and composer (however, I tend to prefer the work of his brother, Branford, whose work has a less affected, didactic quality and more emotional immediacy). And I am quite curious as to why he calls his composition a "jazz Mass." Is it simply to give it a more dignified, traditional name (as opposed to "jazz church meeting music")? Is it meant to emphasize the meeting of jazz and classical that apparently takes place in the composition? Are there any theological beliefs being purposefully emphasized? Is Marsalis himself a Catholic? If I had to guess at the answers to those four questions, I would say, in order: Yes, yes, no, and no. If you know or think otherwise, leave a comment.

This self-indulgent moment in musical excess brought to you by...

...iTunes and the music I've added to that nifty music-delivering device over the past six months.

Yes, that's right, this is another award-winning (well...), nationally-recognized (not really...), incredibly entertaining (absolutely!) edition of the "Random iPod/iTunes Playlist" game, which I haven't indulged in since November 2007. (I did give my picks for the best music of 2007, but that was not a game—no, that was super serious stuff.) I've decided to focus on the past six months since it will provide an illuminating glimpse into the music that forms the soundtrack of my life, lights up my life, pumps me up, chills me out, blah, blah, and clichés galore. If, however, lists of music aren't your thing, here is a more religiously oriented "top twenty" list to check out.

Here goes: I have selected shuffle, am pushing the play button and, with sparkling commentary, present you with the twenty tunes (out of 1300 possible) that appear:

1. "27 Ghosts III", by Nine Inch Nails, from Ghosts I-IV. First time I've ever heard it. Really. No joke. Rather industrial. Thankfully there isn't any "singing."
2. "Rusty Cage", by Soundgarden, from A-Sides. Now that is some singing! And some fine driving music.
3. "Dark Tabla", by Kaya Project, from Elixir. Some Indian-flavored electronica. Perfect for those moments when guests start to complain about hearing nothing but NIN and Soundgarden...
4. "Obelix," by Hanne Hukkelberg, from Rykestrasse 68. Quirky Scandinavian alt-pop. Or is it neo-electonica-soul? Or just plain old post-modern urban folk? I'm not sure.
5. "Agitation" (Stadhalle, Karlsruhe, Germany), by Miles Davis Quintet, from Winter In Europe 1967. One of the greatest jazz line-ups of all time at the peak of their powers. Superb.
6. "Beautiful Calm Driving", by Sia, from Some People Have Real Problems. An uncanny channeling of early Tori Amos. Overall, a really good album.
7. "As If Love Was A Sword", by Steven Delopoulos, from Straightjacket. My favorite Greek Orthodox folk rocker, once the lead singer for the now defunct Burlap to Cashmere.
8. "Little Cream Soda", The White Stripes, from Icky Thump. Goodness, how does this stuff wind up on my computer?! Not my favorite White Stripes tune.
9. "Cardinal Rule", by Michael Brecker, from Pilgrimage. One of last year's best jazz albums, from the late, great saxophonist. Featuring Brad Mehldau on piano.
10. "Left Behind" (feat. Jose Gonzales), by Zero 7, from The Garden. This song has nothing to do with the Left Behind novels, as is evident from the high quality of the music.

[Intermission....]

11. "Hey Mr. DJ", by Van Morrison, from The Best Of Van Morrison, Volume 3. A pleasant, mellow tune by one of my five favorite pop/rock artists. The standout song on this collection is "Shenandoah."
12. "Tutu," by Enrico Rava, from The Words And The Days. Beautiful playing from the Italian trumpeter on yet another perfectly produced ECM release.
13. "The Suffocating Silence," by Redemption, from The Origins Of Ruin. I think Deacon Harold is going to like this one. For fans of Dream Theater.
14. "Table for One," by Tal Wilkenfeld, from Transformation. The twenty-something Australian is a phenomenal bass player, but her set of fusion jazz is a bit sterile and bland for my taste.
15. "Confianzas", by Gotan Project, from Inspiracion-Espiracion Remix. This ain't your parent's tango. Hit and miss for me.
16. "Standing On The Corner", by Dean Martin, from The Greatest Hits Of Dean Martin. My first listen. Fun.
17. "There Goes I," by Martin Sexton, from Live at the WOW Hall, 2007. Twas nice of someone to post this concert, which I attended in October 2007. A great show. I don't think Sexton can put on a poor or even mediocre show.
18. "Your Tender Loving Care", by Dwight Yoakam, from Dwight Sings Buck. What? You don't own this CD? How can you live with yourself? Pure twangified bliss.
19. "Airborne," by Jaga Jazzist, from A Living Room Hush. Some very inventive, mesmerizing electronica-jazz from Norway.
20. "Then I Defy You, Stars," by The Receiving End Of Sirens, from Between The Heart And The Synapse. Ultra-earnest emo. Not bad, but I prefer the wider-ranging music of The Dear Hunter, formed by RDOS's singer/keyboardist Casey Crescenzo.

Taken to the woodshed

• John McCain, by Peggy Noonan ("Get serious!" she says)
• Faithfulness and fidelity, by The New York Times (hey, you can trust The Grey Lady!)
• Senator Obama, by Shelby Steele ("What could he have been thinking? Of course he wasn't thinking.")
• Brain-dead liberalism, by David Mamet (in The Village Voice of all places.)
• Rowan Williams, by the editors of The New Criterion ("And why should an archbishop of the Church of England reserve all his doubts for religious matters?")
• Black liberation theology, by Rod Dreher ("This is racist idolatry.")
• Black liberation theology (again!), by Spengler (It is "ethnocentric heresy".)
• Franky Schaeffer, by Christopher Blosser (he "dishonors his father [yet again] for Obama)
• Franky Schaeffer, this time by Os Guinness (this trip to the shed is devastating)
• Heterosexuality, by Michael Stipe of R.E.M. (First he loses his religion...)
• Bad NBA teams and players, by Basketbawful (A slam dunk!)
• Vantage Point, by the critics (bummer, I was hoping it was worth seeing.)

By the way, if you ever want to build a woodshed, this page will get you started.

Carl's Completely Objective "Best Music of 2007" Picks

It hasn't been quite a full year since I last indulged in the sort of objective, knowledgeable, and noteworthy musical recommendations that have the staff of Rolling Stone magazine quaking for fear of being shown up. Of course, that's not a legitimate concern, mostly because Rolling Stone no longer has articles about music, instead focusing on leftist politics, starlets, harlots, teen fashion, and rap.

But I digress. What follows is a compilation, with some commentary, of music that I've enjoyed listening to this past year. Many (but not all) of CDs listed here were produced in 2007. As you will see, my tastes run toward jazz, rock, more jazz, electronica, even more jazz, and some country and classical. In fact, I do listen to a lot of classical, but don't tend to buy much new stuff, being quite content to return repeatedly to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and Co.

My methods of evaluation are, I think, just as scientific as anything ever written by Darwin or Marx and are nearly as rigorous as anything employed by NFL or NBA teams in evaluating draft picks. For those tech-heads out there, I listen to most of my music via iTunes on a Mac with some $40 speakers that sound like they are $57 speakers.

Here goes:

Benedict's musical revolution

Malcolm Moore, in The Telegraph, writes, "The Pope is considering a dramatic overhaul of the Vatican in order to force a return to traditional sacred music."

The Pope has recently replaced the director of pontifical liturgical celebrations, Archbishop Piero Marini, with a man closer to his heart, Mgr Guido Marini. It is now thought he may replace the head of the Sistine Chapel choir, Giuseppe Liberto.

The International Church Music Review recently criticised the choir, saying: "The singers wanted to overshout each other, they were frequently out of tune, the sound uneven, the conducting without any artistic power, the organ and organ playing like in a second-rank country parish church."

Mgr Valentin Miserachs Grau, the director of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music, which trains church musicians, said that there had been serious "deviations" in the performance of sacred music.

"How far we are from the true spirit of sacred music. How can we stand it that such a wave of inconsistent, arrogant and ridiculous profanities have so easily gained a stamp of approval in our celebrations?" he said.

He added that a pontifical office could correct the abuses, and would be "opportune". He said: "Due to general ignorance, especially in sectors of the clergy, there exists music which is devoid of sanctity, true art and universality."

Mgr Grau said that Gregorian chant was the "cardinal point" of liturgical music and that traditional music "should become again the living soul of the assembly".

In The Spirit of the Liturgy, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger had this to say about sacred music:

In the West, in the form of Gregorian chant, the inherited tradition of psalm-singing was developed to a new sublimity and purity, which set a permanent standard for sacred music, music for the liturgy of the Church. Polyphony developed in the late Middle Ages, and then instruments came back into divine worship--quite rightly, too, because, as we have seen, the Church not only continues the synagogue, but also takes up, in the light of Christ's Pasch, the reality represented by the Temple. Two new factors are thus at work in Church music. Artistic freedom increasingly asserts its rights, even in the liturgy. Church music and secular music are now each influenced by the other. This is particularly clear in the case of the so-called "parody Masses", in which the text of the Mass was set to a theme or melody that came from secular music, with the result that anyone hearing it might think he was listening to the latest "hit". It is clear that these opportunities for artistic creativity and the adoption of secular tunes brought danger with them. Music was no longer developing out of prayer, but, with the new demand for artistic autonomy, was now heading away from the liturgy; it was becoming an end in itself, opening the door to new, very different ways of feeling and of experiencing the world. Music was alienating the liturgy from its true nature.

And:

Whether it is Bach or Mozart that we hear in church, we have a sense in either case of what gloria Dei, the glory of God, means. The mystery of infinite beauty is there and enables us to experience the presence of God more truly and vividly than in many sermons. But there are already signs of danger to come. Subjective experience and passion are still held in check by the order of the musical universe, reflecting as it does the order of the divine creation itself. But there is already the threat of invasion by the virtuoso mentality, the vanity of technique, which is no longer the servant of the whole but wants to push itself to the fore. During the nineteenth century, the century of self-emancipating subjectivity, this led in many places to the obscuring of the sacred by the operatic. The dangers that had forced the Council of Trent to intervene were back again. In similar fashion, Pope Pius X tried to remove the operatic element from the liturgy and declared Gregorian chant and the great polyphony of the age of the Catholic Reformation (of which Palestrina was the outstanding representative) to be the standard for liturgical music. A clear distinction was made between liturgical music and religious music in general, just as visual art in the liturgy has to conform to different standards from those employed in religious art in general. Art in the liturgy has a very specific responsibility, and precisely as such does it serve as a wellspring of culture, which in the final analysis owes its existence to cult. (The Spirit of the Liturgy, pp 146-7)

• "The Spirit of the Liturgy" website
• Music and Liturgy | From The Spirit of the Liturgy
• Cardinal Ratzinger on Liturgical Music | Michael J. Miller (Homiletic & Pastoral Review)

Push "random." Then "play." Enjoy.

It's been nearly two months since the last episode of the "Random iPod/iTunes Playlist" game, which is a musical interlude that occasionally interrupts the brilliant (er...), witty (um...), and humble (ha!)  posts that grace this blog. Last time I explained why the songs—randomly selected by iTunes from a possible 14,453 songs—were on my iTunes. This time I subjectively rate the songs, with "1" equally rotten, "5" being mediocre, and "10" coming in as sheer, must-have musical genius. Here goes!

1. "Polo Towers" by John Scofield, from Überjam. Rating=7.5. Funky, fun jazz-fusion.
2. "The Razor's Edge" by Dave Holland Big Band, from What Goes Around. Rating=9. I saw this fabulous big band in concert a couple of years ago and was thoroughly impressed.
3. "For All We Know" by Brad Mehldau, from The Art Of The Trio Volume 3: Songs. Rating=9. Mehldau's "Art of the Trio" series contains some of the finest jazz piano of recent years. Also stunning in concert.
4. "Adoramus Te" by Our Lady Of Good Counsel Choir, from Sacred Music of Our Church. Rating=9. Heavenly.
5. "Working for the Weekend" by Loverboy, from Get Lucky. Rating=4. Not so heavenly. "Turn Me Loose" is much better.
6. "Why Not! [Live]" by Michel Camilo, from Live At The Blue Note [Disc 2]. Rating=7. Lively live jazz piano.
7. "Dancing In The Dark" by Frank Sinatra, from Come Dance With Me! Rating=10. Toe-tapping, brass-slinging genius.
8. "Take A Bow" by Muse, from Black Holes And Revelations. Rating=8. Solid song from a really good album.
9. "Kissing A Fool," by George Michael, from Faith. Rating=7. Far better than some other songs on this disc. My favorite George Michael CD is Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1. It's been downhill ever since.
10."Parting Gift" by Fiona Apple, from Extraordinary Machine. Rating=7. Haven't heard this one in a while. "Not About Love" is the best cut on the CD.

Okay, that was fun. How about another round? No? Tough. Here goes.

11. "A Principled Man" by Steve Taylor, from I Predict 1990. Rating=5ish. I never listen to this stuff. Taylor usually annoyed me, although his group/album Chagall Guevara was fun.      
12. "It Gets Lonely Early" by Frank Sinatra, from September Of My Years. Rating=6. Not among my favorite Sinatra. A bit too...nostalgic, or something. 
13. "I Like It" by Moby, from Hotel (Disc 1). Rating=4. My first time hearing this song in full. Whatever. Hotel was rather disappointing.         
14. "Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered" by Brad Mehldau, from The Art Of The Trio Volume 3: Songs. Rating=10. Jazz trios don't get any better. Superb.
15. "The Dress Looks Nice On You" by Sufjan Stevens, from Seven Swans. Rating=7. I really want to like Stevens' music, but it doesn't capture or hold my attention.
16. "Magic Man" by Heart, from Swingers Too! Soundtrack. Rating=5. Not the best Heart song, that's for sure. Bearable.
17. "Deep River" by Denyce Graves, from Angels Watching Over Me. Rating=5. She's surely a technically gifted singer, but her tone gets on my nerves after a bit.   
18. "I Fall In Love Too Easily" by Miles Davis Quintet, from Winter In Europe 1967. Rating=10. Miles, Carter, Williams, Herbie, and Shorter—wow! Some of the greatest jazz ever. Period.
19. "The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You" by Bryan Adams, from The Very Best Of MTV Unplugged, Vol. 1. Rating= -1. Sheer dreck. Why couldn't it have been Seal, Sting, or Chris Isaak? Sigh.
20. "Kontakion and Oikos, Tone 8", J. Michael Thompson, Director, from Matins of the Resurrection. Rating=10. Glorious Pascha music. Heaven on earth.

And what am I listening to on a non-random basis these days? Glad you asked:

• System by Seal. Very "clubby," but quite good.
• Takes On Pasolini by Antonio Farao. Really fine Italian jazz pianist.
• The Best of Van Morrison, volume 3. Lots of hard to find nuggets, including a great reading of "Shenandoah."
• Dwight Sings Buck by Dwight Yoakam. What? You already have it? Of course—as you should.
• The Pan Am Connection by LeisureCo. In the tradition of Thievery Corporation. My sister sings the title cut.
• In Rainbows by Radiohead. Some of their most beautiful and accessible music since OK Computer.
• Playground by Manu Katché. Gorgeous ECM jazz by accomplished drummer.
• Georgia Hard by Robbie Fulks. Alt-traditional country with serious bite.
• Down On The Upside by Soundgarden. Often overlooked, but full of great tunes.
• Shock Value -- Live at Smoke by Jeremy Pelt. Fusion jazz by excellent young trumpet player.
• Rossini Overtures by Zagreb Festival Orchestra. Downloaded it for my daughter and have rediscovered the joy of Rossini.

The Mystery of Horrible Hymns

Fr. Dwight Longenecker has a fine post today about hymns, specifically bad, modern American hymns sung (or, as is often the case, performed) in Catholic parishes:

I'm having some problems with music in Catholic America. Part of it is my problem. I spent fifteen years in the Anglican Church with the New English Hymnal--which is probably the finest hymnbook ever published in the English language. Musically and liturgically it was the best that traditional Anglicanism had to offer.

Catholic music in England--well we won't even go there. Apart from a few islands of decent church music the Catholic church in England was a wasteland.

I am discovering that in the USA it is not much better. My problem is that I am actually unfamiliar with most of the music in American Catholic Churches because I have lived abroad for so long.

However, what I do experience is not encouraging. Who on earth is writing these hymns, publishing these hymns and choosing to buy, prepare and perform these hymns? Doesn't anybody know what a hymn is for?

Read the entire post.

• Music and Liturgy | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

How low will Britney and her handlers go?

This low, according to the Indo-Asian News Service:

Spears photo shoot will anger church

Tuesday, October 30, 2007: (London) :

Troubled pop superstar Britney Spears is sure to anger the Catholic church with her controversial 'confession' photo-shoot for her new album Blackout.

She appears in a very short skirt and reveals her fishnet stocking-clad legs as she sits in the confessional box while a handsome priests listens to her confession, mirror.co.uk reported. In another picture, she sits on his lap in the cubicle.

Spears is working on her comeback after having suffered numerous career and personal setbacks.

And I say: "Yaaaaaawwwwwwwwwn." Boring. Stupid. Whatever. Next.

Sure, this is insulting and rude. But the suggestive headline is, I think, even worse: The Britney Machine and the Celebrity Obsessed Hack Media think that Catholics are cerebral-challenged prudes who can be manipulated with this sort of digital dung. Just as telling is the calculated belief that such soft porn will titillate millions of mindless consumerists, ages, what?—ten to fifteen?—and build up confidence in the Britney Brand. This is how bad Ms. Spears has become: she almost makes "Madonna" look like a mature adult. Now that takes some manipulation.

MTV News reports on the reaction from the Catholic League:

"This girl is crashing," League President Bill Donohue told New York's Daily News. "She's not even allowed to bring up her own kids because she's not responsible enough. Now we see she can't even entertain."

Kiera McCaffrey, the League's director of communications, told MTV News on Tuesday (October 30, the album's release date) that the group considers the photos a "cheap publicity stunt that is a way to get people to talk about Britney Spears' album without talking about her music, which is what they should be focusing on. All we see is how troubled this girl is now, especially with her family, losing her kids, with her career on a downward slide. And now she's put out this album and this is her tactic to promote it? She should be focusing on singing and dancing and trying to be an entertainer without mocking a Catholic sacrament."

The Britney Brand apparently holds to Ambrose Bierce's definition of entertainment: "Any kind of amusement whose inroads stop short of death by injection." But what about being bored to death...?

And now, let the music play...

...as I indulge in a quick game of "Random iPod Playlist", which we play here about every month or two (here is the last edition). The rules are simple enough that even someone without any musical talent (me!) can play with ease and enjoyment: I simply set my iTunes to random play and see which songs appear from among the 14,114 possible titles (yes, I've pared down a bit from last time). And this time I'll attempt to explain why each song is on my iTunes. Here goes!

1. "Vivid" by Thievery Corporation, from Sounds From The Thievery Hi-Fi. TC is perfect music for those mellow evenings when my kids are quietly and politely washing the dishes and my wife is pouring a cold Pepsi over the rocks while I sit and read a chapter from the Summa. Yeah, right.

2. "Dessert" by Jim Gaffigan, from Beyond the Pale. About the only comedy routine on my iTunes, and it is still funny after several listens. Gaffigan's "Hot Pockets" routine is extremely funny, especially if you've just eaten two or three Hot Pockets.

3. "Caravan" by James Carter, from JC On The Set. Carter is a very talented young saxophonist with chops to burn, and he puts his abilities to good use in this high energy reading of a classic Ellington tune.

4. "My Own Time (I'll Do What I Want)" by Asia, from Anthologia: 20th Anniversary Geffen Years Collection, 1982-1990 [Disc 1]. Uh. Um. Well. How about that John Wetton, eh?

5. "American Angel" by George Michael, from Patience. Oh my, this is going downhill fast. I fear that I'm going to get fired. Just so you know, I did buy the Asia album, but I didn't buy this George Michael album.

6. "Reiah Discerns the Times" by Atomic Opera, from Gospel Cola. A fine prog/hard rock group recommended by Chad. (Hi, Chad!)         

7. "Rebirth" by Stefon Harris, from The Grand Unification Theory. A young vibraphonist who is also an exceptional composer. Great album.

8. "Can't Stop Thinking About You" by Martin Sexton, from Live Wide Open (Disc 2). Great singer who puts on excellent live shows. In fact, I'm seeing him in concert in about two weeks.       

9. "Elegy (City Lights, Prayer, Procession & Ascension)", by Bob Belden, from Black Dahlia. A haunting, film-noir-like set from saxophonist/arranger/composer Belden, who has had a rather varied career, including albums of music by Sting and Prince.

10. "Beautiful Day", by U2, from All That You Can't Leave Behind. Big hit from the solid 2000 album. Haven't listened to this for quite a while.

And here is some of what I'm listening to these days when not pushing the random button:

• Anthem by Christian Scott
• Grand Pianoramax by Grand Pianoramax
• The Historical Conquests Of Josh Ritter by Josh Ritter
• Fellinijazz by Enrico Pieranunzi
• Tati by Enrico Rava
• Symphony #1 by Edmund Rubbra
• Lost Subject by Deceptikon
• Song For Anyone by Chris Potter
• One Cell In the Sea by A Fine Frenzy
• Temple of the Dog by Temple of the Dog
• Down on the Upside by Soundgarden
• Piano Solo by Stefano Bollani