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April 11, 2004

Why Catholics Can't Sing - Thomas Day

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When my brother John first told me about Why Catholics Can't Sing, I nearly fell off my chair laughing. Someone had actually written a book about this phenomenon? Every since I started going to church again after a several year absence I have been complaining to all who would listen about the atrocious music sung in Catholic masses these days. It's not that Catholics can't sing, it's that they don't. Who wants to sing unremarkable music? I love to sing and I rarely do in mass. The reason is that most of the music is some 70s holdover sappy pop folk stuff that hurts my ears to hear, especially when accompanied by guitar strummers. Whatever happened to the music I loved as a little girl in the early 60s? Faith of our Fathers, O Santissima, Holy God We Praise Thy Name? When I asked my mother why our music was so bad, especially compared to that of the Episcopalians, she replied that 1) we believe that the music should not detract from the mass, and 2) that great church music sounds too much like Protestant music and we need to be different. Not that she believes either of these reasons to be sufficient justification for bad music, it's just that these are the reasons that are typically given.

Detract from the mass? What is more of a distraction than poorly sung bad music? Try to be different from the Protestants? Why? We have the most beautiful, glorious music in our Catholic heritage and no one is growing up knowing it.

Now Thomas Day has gone and written a whole book about the subject - Why Catholics Can't Sing - The Culture of Catholicism and the Triumph of Bad Taste. As the chair of the music department at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island, Day delivers a well researched and scathing criticism of today's low musical standards and compelling hypotheses of how we got to this deplorable state. Day takes his criticism a little far I think in condemning priests who say "Good Morning" to the assembled congregation. But he takes care in painting a pretty full contextual picture of how the mass and liturgy have changed since second Vatican council in the late 50s when Catholics around the world abandoned the Latin Mass and how these fundamental changes have affected the music. One trend he notes is the new music's emphasis on the individual experience and the individual singing as if she were the voice of God, rather than on the glory of God. My mother recalled that singing in the Latin mass was always a sung prayer, not a song "about" goodness, but an actual prayer. Day draws an amusing caricature with the description of the enthusiastic music director who drowns out everyone else with his mic-ed and over amplified performances. It is a shame that our church leaders, both cleric and lay, have rejected so much of our beautiful, inspiring musical heritage in favor of pop-folk. It's as if we are catering to the lowest common denominator rather than recognizing the power of great music to lift up and inspire everyone. Well done Mr. Day.

Posted by elise at 10:53 PM to Non-fiction



4 Comments

don't forget that old childhood favorite from church, "Gladly, the Cross-eyed Bear." If you don't get it, read the title out loud.

Posted by: mvestrich on April 23, 2004 8:57 PM

Hmmm... after seeing this book review I went to amazon.com and looked at the other reviews there...

I have to say that personally, I find the review done by "Nick Alexander" (this is a link to all his reviews, the only way I can seem to point to that one.. but at this time he only has two up, this one is the review that is further down the page) to be a _far_ more accurate assessment of the current state of American Catholic music and 'culture' than what the review here and others at amazon.com report and otherwise lead me to believe this book itself says.

Posted by: Alice on August 24, 2004 8:35 AM

Alice - have you actually "read" the book? In the review that you mentioned, Nick states "Because all Catholic songwriters have a gift (from, ahem, Almighty God ) to be shared. And for those who DO wish to write for the liturgy, their songs must be considered. " I completely disagree. Just because someone is inspired doesn't mean they have any compositional talent.

Posted by: elise on August 24, 2004 9:47 AM

I've read Dr. Day's book several times and I think he really hits the nail on the head when it comes to why things are the way they are in countless Catholic churches. Publishers like Oregon Catholic Press, who have self-proclaimed themselves as the offical publishers of Catholic music (when did any Bishops Committee say that was so?), have killed Catholic music with some of their offerings. I agree with Alice that inspired people with no compositional talent have no business submitting music to be used in church. My personal pet peeve are these self-congratulatory songs like "We Are the People of God" or "We Are Companions On the Journey" (a particularly profound piece of trash) that pat the singer (Man) on the back instead of actually offering a sung prayer to God. Also, Dr. Day's assessment of the Irish dominance in the Liturgy speak volumes. I firmly believe that had the dominating Catholic nationality in this country been German, French, Italian, or English, and not the Irish, not only would parishes be singing great music, but society as a whole would be different. I think people would have had a much better spiritual and intellectual attitude towards the Church, and perhaps they would carry that attitude out into the world. It's hard to use the words "spritual" or "intellectual" with music that is the lowest common denomiator both spiritually and intellectally (and might I add theological. We sing: "Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me." Shouldn't we be singing "let it begin with Christ!"). My personal advice for those who are frustrated with the manner most parishes conduct their music programs to "shop around" and try to find a parish where things are done in the way it was meant to be done. I have been blessed to have this option, but I know many people aren't as lucky.

Posted by: Tom Glorioso on October 15, 2007 10:33 AM

I apologize for the inconvenience, comments are closed. ~Elise