Folk Music Mass Inculturation

The progressive degeneration of Catholic worship from the trivial to the blasphemous was highlighted in July 1972 by a "folk Mass" which took place in the Archdiocese of Cardiff. According to the Universe of 14 July 1972, there was "rock dancing and flowers galore." Like most of the congregation, the six concelebrants sat on the floor and after distribution of Communion under both kinds [bread and wine] "as the choir broke into a rock version of 'Day by Day,' many younger members of the congregation started dancing--accompanied by hand-clapping, foot-tapping chorus from the swinging congregation. The Mass (sic) ended with a rousing version of 'He's Got the Whole World in His Hands,' with the crowd (sic) linking hands in a joyful 'Auld Lang Syne' atmosphere before dancing out of the hall."

The priest who organised the Mass (sic) commented: "It was a successful weekend during which we showed young people the relationship between folk music and worship. We have tried to show that worship is not something that is miserable and sad but something that is joyful." Widespread indignation at this insult to Almighty God brought a mild reaction from Archbishop Murphy who said that in future all folk Masses must have his explicit permission but added: "I feel that we should do all we can to encourage youth to love the Mass. There are several ways of doing this, one of which is the folk-Mass where youith can participate in music and song adapted to their age."

The comments of both priest and bishop reveal an alarming ignorance of the nature and purpose of the sacred mysteries and of the style and atmosphere which should characterise its celebration. This widespread muddled thinking particularly among young clergy suggests that a careful examination of the basis of their confusion might be useful. This has already been done notably by Dietrich Von Hildebrand.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary explains that "celebrate" is a verb which means to "perform publicly and duly religious ceremony etc." In the celebration of Holy Mass, the Church teaches that it is Christ Himself who is our High Priest. The Mass in its essence is something that Christ does, an "actio Christi," and joining with Him in the perpetuation of the Redeeming Sacrifice of Calvary is the greatest privilege given to human beings in this life. It is a foretaste of that heavenly banquet with is the destiny of the faithful Christians.

Dom Bernard McElligot has explained that "real worship is the sincere inner acknowledgement of God's supreme and loving dominion over us. It is a going out of ourselves to God in adoration, meaning that we belong to Him and not to ourselves first." Dom Bernard makes it clear that Vatican II never demanded active participation in the normal English usage of that word, its equivalent in Latin "activus" not being used in the Council document. What was called for was "actuoso participatio" in which interior participation is the prime element but a participation which can be expressed in external gestures. What Dom Bernard rightly stresses is the valueless nature of external gestures without the correct interior dispositions.

The fallacious nature of Archbishop Murphy's contention that the Mass must be adapted to the age of the congregation now becomes apparent. Of course we want youth to love the Mass, but they can only do this by being brought to understand what the Mass IS. And this can only be done by an effective orthodox catechesis in the home, the school and the parish. Once they understand what Mass IS, they realise that they must adapt themselves to the Sacred Action rather than the other way round.

Their style of worship must conform to the nature of the liturgy, which is, to quote Dom Bernard again, "Christ's public religious work for the people, His ministry, His redeeming activity. The liturgy--and we are speaking particularly of the Mass--is what Christ does. He does it visibly now, through the priests of His Church, who offer it to Him, and so make it their own and their people's. But it is Christ who does it for our personal redemption and for the world...We do not do this redemptive work, but we are asked to join ourselves personally in mind and heart to what Christ is doing in His liturgy."

Von Hildebrand writes that the basic question to be answered regarding the style of celebration is "whether we better meet Christ in the Mass by soaring up to Him or by dragging Him down to our own pedestrian workaday world. The innovators would replace holy intimacy with Christ by an unbecoming familiarity. The new liturgy actually threatens to frustrate the confrontation with Christ, for it discourages reverence in the face of Mystery, precludes awe, and all but extinguishes a sense of sacredness. What really matters surely is not whether the faithful feel at home at Mass, but whether they are drawn out of their ordinary lives into the world of Christ--whether their attitude is the response of ultimate reverence: whether they are imbued with the reality of Christ."

It would seem hard to claim that hand-clapping foot stamping, and Auld Lang Syne atmosphere, and a rock version of Day By Day really do constitute "the response of ultimate reverence." Incidentally, lovers of genuine folk-music are only too aware of how far from the genuine article is the pseudo-pop style music masquerading under the name of folk at these Masses. The attitude of reverence and holy fear should characterise the participation of a Catholic in the renewal of Christ's Sacrifice is manifest throughout the Eastern liturgies. It has been well described by St Cyril, who urges us to be filled with holy fear and hold our hearts raised high to God and turned no longer to earthly things, a disposition which he insists the awe-inspiring liturgy evokes in the angels themselves. They adore, they glorify, with fear they sing continuously mysterious hymns of praise to God.

The folk Mass style of celebration has precisely the opposite effect. It turns our hearts to earthly pleasures rather than raising them high to God. What has happened, as is so often the case with the "new theology" and the "new catechetics" is that attention is focussed on Mass rather than God. The criteria upon which the style of celebration is to be based is not whether it fits the purpose of the worship of the divine majesty, and is fitting to the dignity of the great High Priest with Whom we offer it, but whether the congregation will "enjoy."

The confused young priest in Cardiff (or even the so-called Polka Dot Priest in Ohio) who organised the folk Mass claimed that "worship is not something that is misewrable and sad but something that is joyful." He is of course quite correct in this. His error lies in imagining that reverence, awe, piety, a truly Catholic sensus supranaturalis are identical with being miserable and sad. It is possible to feel joy, a holy joy in particular, without leapeing about in time to moronic rhythms of our current pop "culture," waving flowers, and grinning inanely at evryone present. Scolastic philosophy speaks of a "pleasure" proper to every human activity. "Pleasure" denotes the effect that a particular activity can be expected to produce and for which we perform it. There is a pleasure derived from eating proper food or drinking good wine. There is pleasure proper to performing such corporal works of mercy as bringing material comfort to the deprived or solace to the bereaved. In the first instance, the pleasure is of an essentially sensual kind, and in the second of a moral or spiritual kind. There is a pleasure to be derived from a piece of work well done, from reading a good book, from the happiness of a child or a parent. Each of these effects or pleasures is said to be proper to a specific form of human activity.

The basic error of the advocates of folk-Masses is in imagining that they have achieved their purpose when the congregation express enjoyment through deriving the pleasure proper to rock or pop music and not the pleasure proper to a solemn and sacred act of worship...one of wonder and holy fear, of piety, adoration and surrender to God. It is not however a pleasure accesible only to an educated let alone elderly elite.

From The Trojan Horse in the City of God by Von Hildebrand: "In all men who have a longing for God there is also a longing for the sacred and a sense of the difference between the sacred and the profane. The worker or peasant has this sense as much as the intellectual. If he is a Catholic, he will desire to find the sacred atmosphere in his church."

Without conducting a lengthy discussion into the precise nature of the pleasure or the effect produced by rock music, it is clearly of a sensual nature, evoked by its rhythmical patterns and most certainly contains an erotic element. It definitely comes within the scope of the ban on profane music contained in an official directive sent to the bishops of this world from the post-Conciliar Liturgical Council in January 1966 and still binding on all the bishops: "The sacred character and beauty that make church music different from any other type of music must remain intact in the singing as well as in the instruments used in our churches. Everything with a worldly connotation must be banned from the church. An example is jazz music, which simply may not be used in any church service." It needs to be made clear that when the Vatican refers to "jazz" it is a blanket term for the pop and rock genre rather than the music technically known as jazz, which can possess good musical qualities. But even jazz in the correct sense of the term has nop place in the liturgy of the Mass.

Dr von Hildebrand insists that all such music "is not only inadequate but antithetical to the sacred atmosphere of the liturgy. It is more than a distortion: it also draws men into a specifically worldly atmosphere." If we are to worship in the spirit advocated by St Cyril, filled with holy fear and with our hearts raised on high to God and no longerv turned to earthly things, then there can be no place for rock or pop music in any Mass at any time. Such music is the very epitomisation of all that is most profane in contemporary society. Any priest who allows the use of such music in the Mass is a cause of scandal, not least to the little ones who take part, and any bishop who knowingly permits such profanities in his diocese is a party to the scandal.. Apart from the insult to Almighty God implicit in such celebrations, apart from the scandal of turning the liturgy into a means of leading youth away from rather than towards an encounter with Christ, there is a most distasteful arrogance in the idea the the men of the present decade can replace the handed down beauty and wisdom with the ephemeral trivia of their own narrow culture.

Dr Von Hildebrand writes: "Certain Catholics today express the desire of changing the external form of the liturgy by adapting it to the style of life of our desacralized age. Such a desire indicates a blindness to the nature of the liturgy, as well as a lack of reverence and gratitude for the sublime gifts of 2,000 years of Christian life. It betrays a ludicrous self-assurance and conceit to believe thatb these traditional forms can be scrapped for something better." Those who take the trouble to consult Vatican II's Constitution on the Liturgy will find it insisting that: "The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of immeasurable value, greater even than that of any other art...to be preserved and fostered with very great care...the Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as proper to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services."

How many bishops in the English-speaking world are making the least attempt to implement this specific and unequivocal instruction from a General Council? In a sermon delivered on 24 September 1972 Pope Paul quoted St Pius X: "Sacred music must...possess in the highest degree the qualities that are characteristic of the liturgy , namely holiness, excellency of forms, and...universality."

Those who believe that the liturgy really is concerned with supernatural realities wil celebrate it accordingly. Those who are coming to see it as little more than a convivial gathering of local residents at their community centre, at which a good time is to be had by all, will regulate their style of worship to this outlook. It can be stated on excellent authority that a good tree cannot bear bad fruit. And the only tangible fruits of current liturgical policies are drastic and unprecedentedc declines in Mass attendance. As long as those in authoiry continue to allow or to enforce the secularisation of Catholic worship, this trend will continue. At present they seem unwilling or unable to face up to reality. By Owen Roberts