The St. Louis Jesuits are going to record again!!! Somebody please make the bad men stop…
(Catholics with decent musical taste who are horrified at the thought more Jesuit dreck should head to the Society for a Moratorium on the Music of Marty Haugen and David Haas. Don't let the name fool you. They don't like the St. Louis Jesuits either. If you like SMMMHDH, you might also like Adoremus Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy.)
On a related side note, Jeff "Curt Jester" Miller recently discussed a potential correlation between tastes in liturgical music and orthodoxy.
Funky Dung
Comments 3
I don't hate all their music, but once I learned about their lifestyle choices and liberal religious views, I felt more than a little queasy.
Thanks for the warning. I'll brace myself.
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Posted 08 Jun 2005 at 3:17 pm ¶Hmm, in the picture of the St. Louis Jesuits, not a collar or cassock in sight. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.
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Posted 08 Jun 2005 at 4:20 pm ¶I guess they just have to bolster the quickly-fading bad liturgical music industry.
To me, there seem to be a few ways to spot bad liturgical music. The first major hallmark is the use of first-person speech of bible verses. For instance: "I, the Lord of sea and sky/ I have heard my people cry". I can't remember what tune it's from; it suffices to say it's a bad one. Anyway, putting the Lord's words in the laity's mouths is simply goofy. Why do it? There's no element of worship to it, and none of praise. And it's not at all catechetical, either. (Then again, I wouldn't really want the people who write these hymns trying to be catechetical.)
Secondly, bad hymns typically have vague titles that don't convey much of anything. For instance, my home parish is fond of David Haas and Tom Booth, who has put out such classics as City of God (which has nothing to do with St Augustine, if you were wondering). I can't think of others off the top of my head, but I'm sure flipping through an Oregon Catholic Press hymnal would yield a few doozies.
Lastly, it seems to me that modern hymns employ symbols that are unfound in tradition, whereas traditional hymns typically utilize metaphors and symbols which are found in Scripture.
It's really sriking to go and find an old hymnal, and compare it to the modern schlocktastic crap. At Mater Ecclesiae chapel, where I go to Mass when I'm visiting home, they have the New St. Basil Hymnal (1958), and the SSPX hymnal, both of which employ Gregorian notation for certain hymns, and have hymns that are specifically designed for each liturgical season or feast type, whereas modern hymns don't seem to have specific themes or purposes.
My problem with appropriating popular musical forms is that religion would be simply requisitioning forms that are completely secular in their history and past purpose, whereas traditional hymnody is inherently religious and has evolved as such without a change in purpose.
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Posted 13 Jun 2005 at 4:38 am ¶Post a Comment