Catholic Sensibility

Mark Sullivan, host of the fine site, Irish Elk asks: "That (a video of Michael Joncas music performed to the side of the gutted sanctuary) is presented as a highlight underscores what may be an unbridgeable gulf between those who embrace the Vosko-Haugen-Haas program and those who view it as anathema. Is there, ultimately, any ground for compromise between the camps? I'm not so sure there is, but I welcome perspectives from Todd ..." I like Mark's blogging style: his quick wit and quirky perspective presents an obvious love of the best of high and pop culture as expressed in Church and in secular society. But he trips up on the same error to which so many elitists fall prey: they can't contain and focus their displeasure with the Way Things Are. His post on Sacred Heart Church in Portland, Maine is a case in point. Mike Joncas is not David Haas. Or to be more precise, David Haas is no Mike Joncas. Whatever the perceived faults/advantages of either composer (the influence of American musicals versus the influence (some might say imitation/plagiarism) of other liturgical musicians) putting everybody who's written music for the Mass since 1965 in the same basket, along with everyone who's taken out a pre-Vatican II altar just doesn't convince me their argument is serious enough to engage. In this instance, it's not bad enough to criticize architecture, but musical choices, instruments, rain on Opening Day, and anything else going wrong with the world gets tossed into the fray. Mark and my regular readers know well where I think the danger lies: with those who minimize the importance of putting beauty and quality into sacred art, with those who complain that it's too expensive to build a church, buy a pipe organ, hire a real church musician, or find an artist to craft real statues or icons. (Let's just give the kids new uniforms and computers; let's keep up with the public schools.) We've had this attitude in the US for decades before Vatican II. It was the main thing liturgical reformers struggled against before and after the council. The traditionalists mostly ran and hid after Vatican II, at least in my home parish. The fallacy that many Catholics buy into is this timeline: 1. From time immemorial we had a uniformity of good music, art, and architecture. 2. From 1963 onward, people allowed these good traditions to be dismantled. Some poor Catholics suffered this in silence. Some ran away, hence our declining Mass attendance. 3. The good stuff was replaced by iconoclasm and poor music. 4. Only now are people starting to realize what was lost, and traditional Catholics, bolstered by a JPII clergy and curia, are starting to reclaim Catholic tradition. My American timeline is as follows: 1. The United States was mission country for centuries, and immigrant Catholics brought a patchwork of traditions from their European homelands. Sometimes it didn't get remembered right, or it was based on weaker examples. Sometimes finances caused some cutbacks. Sometimes different architectural and artistic styles were all mixed in together because the individual items seemed good. A few places had their act together. But almost all didn't, which was why Vatican II was embraced with such enthusiasm in the 60's. Reformers finally had a blueprint and Father's permission. 2. Sometimes the tools and resources to implement Vatican II liturgy just weren't there. People tried to build penthouses on foundations of sand with no intervening floors. Going from warbly sopranos singing Arcadelt to teens singing Ray Repp and Joe Wise was, believe it or not, an improvement. Sometimes the musicians doing this new music were better than the ones in the choir loft. Sometimes it stayed stuck in first gear, sometimes it got a lot better. I'm not personally aware of any pre-conciliar choirs getting the boot directly. But I'm sure it happened in some places. That was unjust and wrong. But choirs and directors were put in a difficult position: retool everything you've ever done, plus include the pew people in the singing. I knew some musicians who gladly adapted and found great spiritual benefit for the 1970 Rite. And some didn't. 3. Many parishes made slow and logical progressions: a. Repp to Wise to Landry to the Jesuits to Haugen and OCP and now to LifeTeen music plus other styles and composers. The music written today is more demanding of musical skill, and if parish musicians have missed some steps or stayed in a lower gear, that's not a fault of the liturgy or its reformers. It's a problem with leadership and vision. Without a skilled church musician, you're not going to get people improving. And if you're paying someone to keep you in a rut, shame on you. b. Iconoclasm started as a pragmatic approach in the 40's, not the 60's. Build cheap. And when a thrifty pastor and committee get a chance to use one room for church, for sports, and as a cafeteria all in one, well, American ingenuity rules and it must be Good, right? Here, too, some parishes made progress: four walls and a roof gave way to thoughtful design, carpet gave way to good acoustics, studio pianos and vacuum tube organs gave way to real instruments, painted plaster gave way to icons and real statues. Again, some people got stuck on the driveway, but that's not the fault of liberals. Blame comfortable pastors and parishes for not doing the hard work that was necessary. Traditionalists and their mouthpieces, Adoremus, EWTN, the Latin Mass Society, and the like are Johnny-come-lately's to liturgical reform. Many of them picked up their toys and went home in a sulk in 1970. I feel far more for those who didn't, and who stuck with the Church and with what they believed in. I might not care for rococo or baroque liturgical music, but I can appreciate tenacity in advocating for it. Tenacity is a common virtue, I'd say. (But one or two former pastors might question the "virtue" portion there.) Getting to the gulf ... I think every artistic-minded Catholic must assess and differentiate between matters of personal taste and the more important issue of quality. We must all realize, for example, that when it comes to music: 1. You can play good music well. 2. You can play good music poorly. 3. You can play poor music heroically. 4. You can botch poor music. In order, most people prefer options 1, 3, 2, and 4. Most preconciliar parishes were using options 4, 2, and 3, with a very small dose of 1. If your parish is at #3, that's good news if you began in #4, and bad news if you began at #1. Regardless, anyone in options 3, 2, or 4 still has work to do. And any serious musician will tell you that it takes continued effort to maintain yourself at #1. I think reformers have to pick and choose their battles wisely. I speak from experience. When I was a firebrand in my twenties, I complained about everything: music, non-inclusive leadership, lack of spirituality, loss of mission, clericalism, narrow-mindedness. And that was in a liberal parish among like-minded liberals. I see in retrospect it was very hard for people to take me seriously. People like myself who complained about everything were never satisfied. And if a person can never be satisfied, complaint becomes an exercise in personality, not prophecy. I began to lens my activism through one consideration: the spiritual benefit of the people I serve. And I discovered that I could live with my dissatisfaction in a more positive way. I could appreciate the people who were stuck and didn't want to move. I would just be patient. The image I often use when mentoring people is that of a doorway. The minister can point to the doorway, like Mary pointing in iconography. We can show the way, invite people through the door, but their choice remains if and when to go. It will not help to badger them with the seventy-seven reasons why they need to get the lead out. Just open the door, point the way, and wait. Waiting in patience works for God; why should we reformers think we have a better idea? Once the lens of spiritual benefit is in place, I focus on one big task at a time. If I'm on my musical soapbox, I don't forget about architecture. If I'm working against abortion, I don't get sidetracked by gay marriage. If I'm correcting my child's carelesness around moving cars, I don't confuse her with folding her own laundry properly. One thing at a time. That will bridge the gulf.