Originally published at crisis magazine
Auguste Meyrat’s article “How to Save the Music at Mass” rightly sounds a clarion call for restoring better music at Mass through taking the entire question of music seriously to begin with (which includes paying at least some of the musicians what their knowledge, training, and ability justly deserve). As one who has been singing in and directing choirs for decades, I can only say, “Hear, hear!”
I take issue, however, with a significant component of Meyrat’s argument. He noted that he once attended the traditional Latin Mass and reveled in the “exquisite music [that] lifted the souls in the congregation.” Yet, he later judged it better to go back to his local parish, to the “Mass of the Boomers” with “frequently cheesy” music, because “there’s something to be said about going to Mass with one’s actual neighbors.” And, with a lot of work, one might eventually achieve “suitable music at Mass.”
In a spirit of fraternal conversation, I’d like to suggest that this path may, in fact, be not only difficult but dangerous and that families should think twice before pursuing it.
Orthodox. Faithful. Free.
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