From Fr. Z -- A Few Suggestions For Singing Chant, Psalms, Etc.

In no particular order.

• Try to soften your volume a bit at the ends of phrases so you leave the impression that you are not really trying to holler.
• Soften the high notes a bit, so you don’t hammer them.
• You can start a phrase a bit softer and then increase your force during the middle part of the phrases, but rein yourself in at the ends.
• Don’t race and don’t plod.  It is hard to describe the right rate.  Each genre of chant has its own purpose.  Remember that all chants are actual texts.  They are language.  Too slow and you lose the sense of the language.  Too fast and you don’t respect the content.  Keep it moving.  Psalms are quicker than other chants, but don’t race.  There is no prize for the first to finish.
• Don’t sing in different octaves.  Get everyone on the same pitch… no really.  You can do it.
• I don’t like mixed chant, that is male and female voices singing together.  I just don’t.  I think there should be a schola for men and a schola for women.  I love chant sung by women!  When it is good, it has an ethereal quality that men can’t accomplish.  Segregation, I say.  Separate but equal.
• Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  At the same time, if someone can’t hit the pitch… really can’t… is really tone deaf… be diplomatic, but find them some candle to carry even as you remove the book from their hands. If you know you aren’t singing well… can’t get those notes, perhaps there is another way in which you can help.  There are lots of cool things to do during Vespers and Mass.  Necessary things.
• When you are singing in a group, for the love of God, LISTEN TO EACH OTHER!  Look UP once in a while to be sure you know what is going on!
• Be careful when singing psalms not to drift flat.  This is pretty common when people AREN’T LISTENING or paying attention to each other or to the cantor(s), who will usually have a good sense of pitch.  LISTEN.   Going flat is excruciating to people who have to listen.
• You are not Caruso.   You are not Renee Fleming.  You are not Jussi Bjorling.  Sing with everyone else, for PITY’S SAKE!  You (WE) don’t want to hear YOU.  We want to hear you merged with, singing with, every one else, singing exactly the same thing, at the same time, on the same pitch, with the same force.  If you are not designated to sing a solo bit, then get a grip!  This isn’t about you, anyway.

DEBATE ON VATICAN II “Neither Left nor Right: why the Council must be seen in the light of tradition ...”

From my buddy John Paul Sonnen over at Orbis Catholicus Secundus

by Alberto Carosa (for “Inside the Vatican", January 2011, pp. 10-11)

One debate intensifying in Rome as Benedict XVI's pontificate nears the end of its sixth year is over the Second Vatican Coúncil (1962-65).
Benedict has stressed that he believes it is of great importance to clarify that Vatican II was not a "rupture" with prior Church tradition. He has made this one of the central principles of his papacy.

But making this "continuity" clear is turning out to be quite a difficult and delicate task, in part because forces on both sides of the "progressive/traditional" divide seem intent on clinging to the idea that the Council represented a "break," for good or for all, with prior Church history and belief.

The "progressives" claim the Council "rightly" broke with "hide-bound" and "out-of-date" beliefs and practices, and they defend the Council's right to do so.
At the same time, the "traditionalists" claim that the Council "wrongly" and "unacceptably" broke with prior teaching — and this leads them to reject the Council's authority and legitimacy.

Thus, the Pope has found himself without allies on the "left" or the "right" as he attempts to build support for a "center" position regarding the Council: that it was not a "rupture" with prior Church teaching, but an organic development of that teaching. This effort is arguably now the key task of this pontificate, in doctrinal terms.

Benedict is seeking to win broad support for his position that Vatican II taught no new doctrines. His desire is to persuade both "left" and "right" to find a way to "reintegrate" the allegedly "new" teaching of Vatican II back into the changeless "tradition" of Church faith and practice derived from the depositum fidei ("deposit of the faith") handed down in the Scriptures and taught unanimously by the apostles.

From December 17 to 19, a symposium entitled "The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council —A Pastoral Council: Historical, Philosophical, Theological Analysis," sponsored by the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate in the Istituto Maria Santissima Bambina just next to St. Peter's Square, addressed these questions. Msgr. Brunero Gherardini was the keynote speaker.

This conference came just after an intense debate, also in December, over a book on the Council by Italian historian Roberto De Mattei, generally thought of as a "traditionalist": Il Concilio Vaticano II: Una storia mai scritta ("The Second Vatican Council: An Unwritten Story"). A review of the book by Catholic author and sociologist Massimo Introvigne appeared in the Italian bishops' conference daily, Avvenire, on December 1.

Introvigne criticized De Mattei's book for promoting the idea that Vatican II must be seen as a rupture with the previous tradition of the Church. De Mattei concludes his book by referring "with reverence" to "His Holiness Benedict XVI, whom I recognize as that successor of Peter to whom I feel inextricably bound".
But Introvigne says De Mattei actually upholds the very "hermeneutics of rupture" Benedict decried as "harmful" to the Church in his famous speech to the Roman Curia on December 22, 2005.

"The Magisterium teaches that its (Vatican II's) documents must be first and foremost read (many who talk about them have in fact never read them), and then allegiance given to their essential teachings," he said.
Introvigne notes that on July 24, 2007, during his vacation in the Italian Alps, the Pope said that a "hermeneutics of rupture" is upheld by both the progressive faction and the opposite end of the religious spectrum, the anti-conciliarists.

Both claim that Vatican II has broken with tradition: the former to rejoice in this rupture, and the latter to deplore it.

The Vatican expert of Italy's conservative daily Il Giornale, Andrea Tornielli, in his review of the De Mattei book (Il Giornale, December 5, 2010) also argued that De Mattei, paradoxically, ends up siding with the liberal-progressive lobby, whose most prominent exponents are Giuseppe Alberigo and his successor Alberto Melloni of the so-called "Bologna School." Alberigo authored Breve storia del concilio Vaticano If' ("Brief History of the Second Vatican Council," 2005) in which he hailed Vatican II as a "historic breakthrough." "The pattern of Christianity still dominant in Europe, and through Europe, in worldwide Catholicism, was superseded on December 8, 1965," he wrote.

In his own review of De Mattei's book in Corriere della Sera (December 12). Mellor, after criticizing alleged errors and shortcomings in the work, suggested that he appreciated the chance to include among his "fellow-travelers" this author, whom he described as "the most subtle intellectual of Italian traditionalism."
Fabio Bernabei, president of Centro Culturale Lepanto, a leading lay organization of traditionalist persuasion, also entered the fray.

"The Professor De Mattei of today," he wrote, "in distancing himself from the pontifical magisterium in his book, seems to be far from the Professor De Mattei of yesterday, when, as editor of Cristianità, he cited Paul VI approvingly when Paul said: `All that is taught by Vatican II is related in full harmony with the preceding Magisterium of the Church, of which it is a just continuation, explanation, and enhancement. In fact, just for this purpose the Council was convened".

Tornielli wrote on Christmas Day: `Being with Peter and the bishops in communion with him means to be Catholic. Otherwise I could say that I consider Pius X a modernist — how many reforms did he introduce? and what if I did not like them, or consider them inappropriate to the times and not in line with the liturgical teachings of Gregory XVI and Leo the Great? — and I want to stop at Vatican I and Pius IX...

This is `Protestant' traditionalism”.

This is a great viewpoint...

Assisi III...More Are Talking....and It is Still a Bad Idea

On January 11, Catholic Italian journalists and academics caused to appear in Il Foglio a supplication to the Pope, begging him not to go to Assisi next October. Here are some of the most significant extracts.

Most Holy Father,
Holy Father Benedict XVI,


We are some Catholics who are extremely grateful for the work that you are performing as Pastor of the universal Church in recent years. We are grateful for your great assessment of human reason, for having given us the Motu proprio "Summorum pontificum", for your profitable relationship with those Anglicans who are returning to unity and for many other things as well.

We take the liberty of writing you after having learned, precisely during the massacre of the Coptic Christians (Ed. in Egypt, December 31, 2010), your intention of convening in Assisi, in October, a large inter-religious assembly, 25 years after “Assisi 1986”.

We all remember this event that took place so long ago.

An event like few others in the media, that, independently of the intentions and declarations of he (those) who convened it, had an undeniable repercussion, relaunching in the Catholic world indifference and religious relativism.

It is this event that caused to take effect among the Christian people the idea that the secular teaching of the Church, “one, holy, Catholic and apostolic”, concerning the unique character of the Savior, was in some way to be banished to the archives.

We all remember the representatives of all the religions in a Catholic sanctuary, the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, lined up with olive branches in hand: as if to signify that peace does not come through Christ but, indistinctly, through all the founders of any credo whatsoever (Mohammed, Buddha, Confucius, Kali, Christ…)

We remember the prayer of the Muslims in Assisi, the city of a saint who had made the conversion of the Muslims one of his objectives. We remember the prayer of the animists, their invocation to the spirits of the elements, and of other believers or representatives of atheistic religions, such as Jainism.

The effect of this “praying together”, whatever its goal may be, like it or not, is to make many believe that all were praying to “the same God”, only with different names.

On the contrary, the Scriptures are clear: “Thou shalt not have false gods before me” (First Commandment), “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life: no man cometh to the Father but by me” (John 14:6)

Those who write here (the authors of this letter -- CAP) in no way contest a dialogue with each and every person, whatever his religion may be.

We live in the world, and every day we speak, discuss, love, even those who are not Christian, because they are atheists, indifferent, or of other religions. But that does not keep us from believing that God came down to earth, and let Himself be killed to teach us, precisely, the Way, the Truth, and not just one of many possible ways and truths. Christ is, for us Christians, the Savior; the only Savior of the world.

We recall with consternation, going back 25 years, the chickens beheaded on the altar of St. Claire according to tribal rituals and a statue of Buddha placed on the altar in the church of St. Peter, above the relics of the martyr Vittorino, killed in 400 AD to bear witness to his faith.

We remember the Catholic priests at the initiation rites of other religions: a horrible scene, for, if it is “ridiculous” to baptize into the Catholic faith an adult who does not believe, just as absurd is it for a priest to undergo a ritual of which he recognizes neither the validity nor the utility. By doing this, one ends up just spreading one idea: that rites, all rites, are nothing but empty human gestures. That all the conceptions of the divine are of equal value. That all moralities, that emanate from all religions, are interchangeable.

That is the “spirit of Assisi”, upon which the media and the most relativist milieus of the Church have elaborated, sowing confusion. It seemed to us foreign to the Gospel and to the Church of Christ that had never, in two thousand years, chosen to do such a thing. We would have liked to rewrite these ironic observations of a French journalist: “In the presence of so many gods, one will believe more easily that they are all equal than that there is only one that is true. The scornful Parisian will imitate that skeptical collector, whose friend had just made an idol fall from a table: ‘Ah, unhappy one, that may have been the true God’.”

We therefore find comfort for our perplexities in the many declarations of the Popes who have always condemned such a “dialogue”.
Indeed, a congress of all religions has already been organized in Chicago in 1893 and in Paris in 1900. But Pope Leo XIII intervened to forbid all Catholics to participate.

The same attitude was that of Pius XI, the Pope who condemned Nazi atheism and Communist atheism, but deplored at the same time the attempt to unite people in the name of a vague and indistinct sentiment, without religion, without Christ.

Pius XI wrote thus in Mortalium Animos (Epiphany 1928) concerning ecumenical encounters: “We see some men, convinced that it is very rare to meet men deprived of all religious sense, nourish the hope that it might be possible to lead peoples without difficulty, in spite of their religious differences, to a fraternal agreement on the profession of certain doctrines considered as a common foundation of spiritual life. That is why they begin to hold congresses, reunions, conferences, frequented by an appreciably large audience, and, to their discussions, they invite all men indistinctly, infidels of all kinds along with the faithful of Christ and even those who, unfortunately, have separated themselves from Christ or who, with bitterness and obstinacy, deny the divinity of His nature and of His mission. Such undertakings cannot, in any way, be approved by Catholics, since they are based on the erroneous opinion that all religions are more or less good and praiseworthy, in the sense that all equally, although in different ways, manifest and signify the natural and innate sentiment that carries us towards God and pushes us to recognize with respect His power. In truth, the partisans of this theory fall into a complete error, but what is more, in perverting the notion of the true religion, they repudiate it, and they fall step by step into naturalism and atheism.”

In retrospect, we can say that Pope Pius XI was right, even on the level of the simple opportunity: in reality, what has been the effect of “Assisi 1986”, in spite of the just declarations of Pope John Paul II, aimed at forestalling such an interpretation?

What is the message relaunched by the organizers, the media, and even the many modernist clerics desirous of overturning the tradition of the Church?

What came across to many Christians, through the images, which are always the most evocative, and through the newspapers and television, is very clear: religious relativism, which is the equivalent of atheism.

If all pray “together”, many have concluded, then all religions are “equal”, but if this is the case, that means that none of them is true.

At this time, you, cardinal and prefect of the Congregation of the Faith, with Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, and several others, were among those who expressed serious doubts. For this reason, in the following years, you have never participated in the replicas proposed each year by the Community of Sant’Egidio. (…)

Actually, as you wrote in “Faith, Truth and Tolerance. Christianity and the religions of the world” (Cantagalli, 2005), when really criticizing an ecumenism that is colored by indifference, the Catholic “should understand that there are no ‘religions’ in a general sense, that there is not a common idea of God and a common faith in Him, that the difference is not only one regarding the interchangeable pictures or conceptual forms but concerns the same last choices".

You perfectly agree then with Leo XIII and with Pius XI on the danger of contributing, with events such as “Assisi 1986”, to syncretism and religious indifference.

There is a risk highlighted also by the Council fathers of Vatican II when in Unitatis Redintegratio they asked for prudence against ecumenism, not against other religions, but against other “Christians”: “Still the communication of sacred things should not be considered as a means to be used indiscriminately for the restoration of Christian unity…” These past years you have taught, without always being understood, even by Catholics, that dialogue has its place, and can take place, not between different theologies, but between different cultures, and not between different religions, but between men, in the light of that which distinguishes us all: human reason.

Without recreating the ancient pagan Pantheon; without the integrity of the faith being compromised by a love for theological compromise; without Revelation, that is not our own, being modified by men and theologians in the aim of reconciling the irreconcilable; without placing Christ, “sign of contradiction”, on the same level as Buddha or Confucius, who, besides, never said that they were God.

This is why we are here to expose to you our fears.

We fear that, whatever you may say, television, the newspapers, and many Catholics will interpret it in the light of this past and of the present indifferentism; we fear that, whatever you may claim, the event will be read as a continuation of the manipulation of the figure of St. Francis, transformed by today’s ecumenists into an pacifist, a syncretist without faith. It is already the case.

We are afraid that whatever you may say to clarify things more, the simple faithful, of whose number we are, everywhere in the world will see but one fact (and that is all that will be shown, for example, on television): the Vicar of Christ not only speaking, debating, dialoguing with the representatives of other religions, but also praying with them. As if the manner and the end of prayer were indifferent.

And many will think mistakenly that the Church has henceforth capitulated, and recognized, in the line of the New Age way of thinking, that to pray to Christ, Allah, Buddha, or Manitu is the same thing. That animist and islamic polygamy, hindu castes or the polytheistic animist spiritualism, can go hand-in-hand with Christian monogamy, the law of love and pardon of the One and Triune God.

However, as you have written, in the book cited: “With the lack of differentiation of religions and the idea that they are all discernible and at the same time equal, we do not get anywhere”. Most Holy Father, we believe that with a new “Assisi 1986”, no Christian in the Orient will be saved: nor in Communist China, nor in North Korea or Pakistan or Iraq… on the contrary, many faithful will not understand why in these countries, people still die martyrs for not renouncing their encounter not with just any religion, but with Christ. Just as the Apostles died.

In the face of persecution, there exist political, diplomatic means, personal dialogues between States: may they all take place, and as well as possible. With Your love and Your desire for peace for all men.

But without giving those who wish to sow confusion and to augment religious relativism – antechamber of all relativisms –, an opportunity, for the media included, as appetizing as a second edition of “Assisi 1986”.


With our filial devotion,

Francis Agnoli, Lorenzo Bertocchi, Roberto de Mattei, Corrado Gnerre, Alessandro Gnocchi, Camillo Langone, Mario Palmaro

(Sources: messainlatino.it, in italian. The bold print is from this edition – DICI 228, Jan. 20, 2011)

Four options regarding continence and married clergy in the West

From Ed Peters, JCD...

 

I think most people are understandably going directly to the webpage wherein the Four Options are spelled out. I added "Summary" sections to the four points for easier reading.


This post is a bit too long, I think, for normal blogging purposes, so I am offering here only excerpts from a longer discussion of these four options at my website, available here.
There are, I think, ultimately only four ways that the question of continence for married deacons and priests in the West can be settled.
1. Deacons and priests, even if married, must observe perfect and perpetual continence.

This is, I have argued, the way Western canon law actually reads now and is the way it has read for at least a millennium. Acknowledgement of this position would require no changes in the law and would occasion no modifications in or repudiation of the canonical expectations long made on married clerics and their wives.

Given, however, that thousands of married men have been ordained to the diaconate and that hundreds have been ordained to the priesthood, without them or their wives having been informed of the obligation of perfect and perpetual continence attached to the clerical state, some accommodations for their situations would obviously have to be made.

This accommodation for current married deacons and priests could occur in a couple of ways: . . .

2. Canon law requires priests, but not deacons, to observe perfect and perpetual continence.
There is virtually no support for drawing this sort of distinction between deacons and priests in Western canonistics, but as a canonist I cannot conclude for or against the idea as a possible development in the theology of holy orders, to which theological development canon law would then have to defer. Such an understanding would represent a modification, but not a complete repudiation, of the Western tradition of clerical continence (in regard to deacons), but it would occasion no need to change the law in regard to priests because they are already bound, as above.

If this distinction between deacons and priests were found to be authentic, the exemption from Canon 277 that was originally proposed for married deacons could simply be reinserted in the law, or an authentic interpretation or an instruction in forma specifica could be issued exempting married deacons from the obligation of continence. . . .

3. Canon law requires priests (and perhaps deacons, mutatis mutandis) to observe only periodic or temporary continence in regard to the celebration of the Eucharist.

There is virtually no support for this possibility in Western canonistics, but as a canonist I cannot conclude for or against the idea as a possible development in regard to the theology of holy orders, to which theological development canon law would have to defer. If this development, which seems essentially to mirror an Eastern approach, were found appropriate for the West, various canonical and liturgical laws would need to be modified in its wake. . . .

4. Neither deacons nor priests, if married, need observe any sort of continence.

This position is the de facto assumption of nearly all current married deacons and priests in the Roman Church, but it finds no support whatsoever in Western canonistics, and for that matter, it fails to match even mitigated Eastern practices in regard to continence for married clergy. . . . The formal acknowledgement of this position would represent a complete repudiation of the Western (and probably even of Eastern) tradition in regard to clerical continence, but it could be achieved as above (e.g., authentic interpretation, instruction in forma specifica).

Some observations

1. . . . Western married deacons and priests, despite belonging to the Church that has unquestionably held with nearly absolute consistency for a celibate (and, even if married, a completely continent) clergy, have---doubtless for lack of direction---adopted an approach to continence that, not only has no support in Western law or tradition, but fails to satisfy even the mitigated continence expectations of various Eastern Churches. Some people are not struck by the fact that, with no express approbation or endorsement by ecclesiastical authority, such a dramatic abandonment of Western expectations regarding an important area of clerical life has occurred in so short a time. But, as I said in my Studia article, I think it very important, both for the operation of law and for the stability of the faith community, that such a complete change in clerical practice be formally recognized in law if it is genuine, or be reasonably but firmly removed from practice if it is not. . . .

 I think that Ed might be on to something here...what do you think?  Honestly, I think that it is the only way that a permanent deaconate can be effective.

Pope: Marriage is not an absolute right

From the AP....

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI told priests Saturday to do a better job counseling would-be spouses to ensure their marriages last and said no one has an absolute right to a wedding.
Benedict made the comments in his annual speech to the Roman Rota, the Vatican tribunal that decides marriage annulments. An annulment is the process by which the church effectively declares that a marriage never took place.
Benedict acknowledged that the problems that would allow for a marriage to be annulled cannot always be identified beforehand. But he said better pre-marriage counseling, which the Catholic Church requires of the faithful, could help avoid a "vicious circle" of invalid marriages.
He said the right to a church wedding requires that the bride and groom intend to celebrate and live the marriage truthfully and authentically.
"No one can make a claim to the right to a nuptial ceremony," he said.
Benedict has used his annual speech to the Rota to impress on its members the indissolubility of marriage and that they should avoid the temptation of granting annulments on a whim. Last year, he urged the tribunal to work harder to encourage couples to stay together and not confuse "pastoral charity" with the need to uphold church law.
On Saturday, Benedict said priests had an important pastoral job to discern whether would-be spouses are prepared and able to enter into a valid marriage.
"The church and society at large place too much importance on the good of marriage and the family founded on it to not make a profound commitment to it pastorally," Benedict said.
The Vatican's concern about marriage annulments is largely directed at the United States, which in 2006 had more annulment cases launched than the rest of the world combined.

From a young writer over at Sub Tuum....

This is her first real sware into the Traddy world via writing, so it's a little raw, but the sentiment is there...

Traditionalism, the curse of the modern world, the embarassment of modern Catholics. So often is the word "traditional" spat out with distaste, like wine which has turned. Why is it that when a person identifies themselves as a "traditionalist", people automatically add schismatic, heretic, throw back, antiquated, outdated, pre-conciliar to it. They writhe in distaste at the sight of a chapel veil, obviously ignorant of the sacredness it symbolizes, the mystery of femininity, the veiling of that which is pure and holy. When the so called "dead language" of Latin is quoted from, or prayers of old are recited in it, a translation is screamed for, and an inclusive one at that, lest some one be offended. Gone are the days of a Sacred language, which people often associate with Catholics, oh, pardon, traditionalists. Beautiful customs and rubrics of the extraordinary form of the Mass are ridiculed, and the Most Sacred of Presences is profaned, because after all, Jesus is our buddy, and it's unsanitary to have a priest who's hands have been consecrated by the Shepherd of the Church place the Body of Jesus Christ, Son of God into one's mouth. It's considered uninclusive to have the priest face the same direction as the faithful, rather than fac the people. And because Rossini, Bach, Kodaly, and so many others are old, we need to borrow music from Baptists, Protestants, in general, anyone who is not traditional. And when a person whishes with all their hearts for some of the beauty of old, the incense, the vestments, the reverance, the music...they are belittled, they are titled prideful, pharisee, TRADITIONALIST.
Why? Because, they are of course inferior to those who desire are trapped in the heresy of Modernism, something that takes little effort to understand. Modernism, which is completley devoid of all mystery, all beauty and indeed it is a heresy condemned in the 20th century. It is a sanitary imitation of something Divine. Modernists don't want to think of God as just their friend, as well as their Saviour, their King, their Beloved, their Master, their ALL. They want to take away the Divine pedestal, and make him their buddy.
Is it perhaps considered unfaithful to the Pope to be traditional? That would be airing on the side of just plain bizarre. After all, our beloved Pope Benedikt is encouraging latin in the Mass, cassocks and cottas, and a tip of the birettas. So perhaps the Modernists have it all backwards, perhaps they are confused, perhaps they are backwards. Because,you see, the truth is that Latin is the new modern. TRaditionalism is the new radical. Hymns from such musical geniuses like Palestrina and Mozart are the new cutting edge. Whether or not all the backward people who admire Marty Haugen and adore little girls in surplices like it or not, there's a new wind blowing.
And this wind which is blowing with the force of the Holy Ghost is giving us handsome young men in cassocks with collars giving it all to Christ, beautiful women in habits, calling Christ "beloved" and eagerly giving everything up for He Who Is,and bringing by the truckful fallen away Catholics. These young people want to go the whole league for Christ, no more half stepping modernistic things for them. The Summorum Pontificum has been written, the Traditional Latin Mass has been emanicipated. Wake up and smell the incense, whether you go to the Traditional Latin Mass or the New Ordinary Mass, you will have smells, bells, and tradition. We are traditionalists, and we are the New Radical.

Not too bad...the polish will come...

A New Message Board to Check Out

Sub Tuum Praesidium

Check it out...it's a good place to go if you're traddy.

It's new, but growing....