Sing to the Lord

The American Catholic Bishops released a document entitled "Sing to the Lord" in November, outlining their views on music in worship. In the upcoming issue of Sacred Music magazine, Stanford professor William Mahrt provides a critical view of the document.

There are distinct improvements over the previous document, most notably, that it takes seriously the existing liturgical legislation. There are copious citations from major sources of liturgical law.[4] Yet these citations often seem to be imposed upon a document already written without them, and some authoritative statements, after being cited, are ignored in subsequent discussion.

Mahrt is, of course, a cheerleader for Gregorian chant who presents all-chant services (Scripture readings and all, in Latin) on a regular basis, and he refers to Vatican II's acceptance of "alius cantus aptus" (other suitable songs) as "the anthrax in the envelope."

I have consistently maintained and continue to maintain that this fundamental participation is achieved in a far better and more profound way when they hear a gradual or Alleluia beautifully sung than when they are asked to repeat a musically impoverished refrain with similarly impoverished verses. I concur with the notion that these parts should be sung, but I maintain that their simpler forms are only an intermediate step in achieving their singing in the authentic Gregorian forms...

Still, he has some very interesting things to say, especially about the process which led to the creation of a document which isn't binding, mainly because they couldn't agree on anything.