"... with guitars and popular songs."
So says the famed film composer, Ennio Morricone, in an interview with ZENIT:
We turn to the subject of another keen musician: Pope Benedict XVI.
Morricone says he has a "very good opinion" of the Holy Father. "He
seems to me to be a very high minded Pope, a man of great culture and
also great strength," he says. He is particularly complimentary about
Benedict XVI's efforts to reform the liturgy -- a subject about which
Morricone feels very strongly.
"Today the Church has made a big mistake, turning the clock back 500 years with guitars and popular songs," he argues. "I don't like it at all. Gregorian Chant is a vital and important tradition of the Church and to waste this by having kids mix religious words with profane, Western songs is hugely grave, hugely grave."
He says it's turning the clock back because the same thing happened before the Council of Trent when singers mixed profanity with sacred music. "He [the Pope] is doing well to correct it," he says. "He should correct it with much more firmness. Some churches have taken heed [of his corrections], but others haven't."
"Today the Church has made a big mistake, turning the clock back 500 years with guitars and popular songs," he argues. "I don't like it at all. Gregorian Chant is a vital and important tradition of the Church and to waste this by having kids mix religious words with profane, Western songs is hugely grave, hugely grave."
He says it's turning the clock back because the same thing happened before the Council of Trent when singers mixed profanity with sacred music. "He [the Pope] is doing well to correct it," he says. "He should correct it with much more firmness. Some churches have taken heed [of his corrections], but others haven't."
Gives new meaning to The Good (Gregorian), The Bad (Guitars at Mass), and the Ugly (Liturgical Pop Music).
Here is a selection from Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's
The Spirit of the Liturgy
The Challenge of Popular Music
After the cultural revolution of recent decades, we are faced with a challenge no less great than that of the three moments of crisis that we have encountered in our historical sketch: the Gnostic temptation, the crisis at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modernity, and the crisis at the beginning of the twentieth century, which formed the prelude to the still more radical questions of the present day. Three developments in recent music epitomize the problems that the Church has to face when she is considering liturgical music. First of all, there is the cultural universalization that the Church has to undertake if she wants to get beyond the boundaries of the European mind. This is the question of what inculturation should look like in the realm of sacred music if, on the one hand, the identity of Christianity is to be preserved and, on the other, its universality is to be expressed in local forms. Then there are two developments in music itself that have their origins primarily in the West but that for a long time have affected the whole of mankind in the world culture that is being formed. Modern so-called "classical" music has maneuvered itself, with some exceptions, into an elitist ghetto, which only specialists may enter--and even they do so with what may sometimes be mixed feelings. The music of the masses has broken loose from this and treads a very different path.
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. (The Spirit of the Liturgy, pp 147-8)
After the cultural revolution of recent decades, we are faced with a challenge no less great than that of the three moments of crisis that we have encountered in our historical sketch: the Gnostic temptation, the crisis at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modernity, and the crisis at the beginning of the twentieth century, which formed the prelude to the still more radical questions of the present day. Three developments in recent music epitomize the problems that the Church has to face when she is considering liturgical music. First of all, there is the cultural universalization that the Church has to undertake if she wants to get beyond the boundaries of the European mind. This is the question of what inculturation should look like in the realm of sacred music if, on the one hand, the identity of Christianity is to be preserved and, on the other, its universality is to be expressed in local forms. Then there are two developments in music itself that have their origins primarily in the West but that for a long time have affected the whole of mankind in the world culture that is being formed. Modern so-called "classical" music has maneuvered itself, with some exceptions, into an elitist ghetto, which only specialists may enter--and even they do so with what may sometimes be mixed feelings. The music of the masses has broken loose from this and treads a very different path.
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. (The Spirit of the Liturgy, pp 147-8)
Speaking as someone who is a youth minister and who has a youth mass for his parish, I agree that especially for the youth, there needs to be a greater appreciation for Chant and Sacred Music, and not just praise and worship music. If we are trying to form "Lifelong Disciples" and not just "High School Disciples" then the recovery of the full tradition of the Church's liturgical practice needs to occur particularly in youth group settings.
Although Ratzinger in Spirit of the Liturgy makes a distinction between music that is Beautiful and music that is Useful. I know plenty of people will argue with me on this, but I find that some praise & worship, some hymns, etc., can serve "utilitas". I know one praise & worship type musician that is trying to use that music to cultivate chant among the young congregations. And it works. He uses a lot of unaccompanied chant when he leads music for the Mass.
The hilarious thing is that while many Catholic youth ministers (though definitely not all, mind you) are ditching our Church's traditions, many post-modern Protestant churches and ecclesial communities are adopting them fully. Things like "prayer beads" (they still aren't ready to embrace Our Lady and her rosary yet, but they are close), Gregorian chant, liturgies, Divine Office, Lectio Divina, icons and sacred art, candles, incense, bells and whistles (ok, not whistles...). One of the biggest thing they are doing is recovering the silent, contemplative, and mystical tradition of the Catholic Church.
See 'Contemplative Youth Ministry' or 'Downtown" by Mark Yaconelli for some of this emergent-church, post-evangelical ministry.
Peace,
AMDG
Posted by: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=144901506 | Saturday, September 12, 2009 at 10:50 AM
Martin Luther created hymns out of bar songs.
Posted by: Chris | Saturday, September 12, 2009 at 10:51 AM
People learn to praise in the way that they are taught to praise and see others doing so. As a worship leader then you should teach Christian Praise as you feel led to. Don't expect others to follow your preferences, just lead in such a way that others will see your good works and follow.
If change is what you seek, then be a leader of that change.
Posted by: Christian Praise | Saturday, September 12, 2009 at 05:23 PM
...as you feel led to.
Ah, yes, feelings: the most objective, balanced, perfect, and exalted guide to everything good, holy, and Godly. Ahem.
Posted by: Carl E. Olson | Saturday, September 12, 2009 at 05:39 PM
I think there was a mistranslation above: Renaissance era Church music mixed profane and sacred music, which is not the same as "profanity."
Posted by: Sandra Miesel | Sunday, September 13, 2009 at 07:56 AM
I am confused and a little disappointed that there is a constant refrain concerning guitars and the Mass. Why is the organ seen as some sort of necessary religious instrument? The guitar more closely resemble the biblical instruments for liturgy while I am told that the organ was actually a pagan instrument used for entertainment while the Christians were being slaughtered in the arena. No I am not opposed to the organ, I appreciate its contribution to sacred music. I just don't get why strings and seen as deplorable and is looked down on by those in the know.
Posted by: Larry | Sunday, September 13, 2009 at 08:53 AM
Larry: Part of the answer, I think, is that guitars can be used to play many types of music, ranging from rock to jazz to folk to classical, but it seems that most of the guitar music used in Masses is rather banal folk/rock in nature. And, as regular readers of this blog know, I like a lot of different types of music (outside of a liturgical setting), including guitar-based rock, jazz, etc., but I don't think the guitar music used in many liturgies is conducive to contemplation, prayer, and reverence. It is, put simply, pop/rock music—and often of second or third-rate quality at that. It is true that most Eastern Catholic churches don't use organs (or any musical instruments) because the organ was played in ancient Rome while Christians were being killed in the Coliseum. But most organ music used in churches is, I think, religious in nature; in other words, you don't often hear the organ played at Mass in the style of The Doors; the organ has never been much a pop/rock instrument, so there is a different dynamic at work. While it is interesting to discuss/debate different instruments, the larger issue is really one of style and purpose.
Posted by: Carl E. Olson | Sunday, September 13, 2009 at 04:57 PM