Long overdue, but very welcome!
One of the unintended and tragic consequences of Vatican II was the disappearance of almost the entire corpus of church music from the Catholic Church, replaced by really really really cheesy drivel. Badly written(most of the 'poetry' never scans, therefore is unsingable), badly sung, accompanied by out-of-tune guitars with a vocabulary of four chords.
Joseph Ratzinger is attempting to set things straight, by encouraging the return of choral and organ music, and all the arts, back to the church.
Sandro Magister, covering this week's events, offers this insight:
Among the arts to be represented in the Sistine Chapel next Saturday, November 21, at the highly anticipated meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, music is perhaps the one that has suffered the most from the divorce that has taken place between artists and the Church.
The distress in music has been the first to afflict the Church. Because while the masterpieces of Christian painting, sculpture, and architecture still remain accessible to all, even if they are ignored and misunderstood, great music literally disappears from the churches if no one performs it anymore.
Again: Great music literally disappears from the churches if no one performs it anymore.
And it disappears from cultures as well. It has faded so rapidly from our culture, in great part, because it disappeared from the churches, all the churches, beginning in the 1960's
It is good to see the Pope take the lead on this matter, because so much more is at stake than just music, and he gets it!
Green Shoot Nominee!
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