Posted on 03/02/2015 8:03:50 AM PST by Alex Murphy
....One additional failure I would like to point to is the failure of Catholic schools. Catholic school all my lifeI was never taught how to sing. If the liturgy is the source and summit of the Christian life and if we are beckoned to active participation then shouldnt singing be something that is as important to teach as the Catechism? (Yeah, yeah, we dont teach the Catechism either, youre right.)
But it actually goes even deeper than that. The great failure of Catholic schools, going back to the 19th century, is that they have swallowed wholesale the erroneous Cartesian-Lockean metaphysical view of human nature, which is the master framework of modern schooling. The mind and the body are separate, so classrooms have chairs and desks so that the body can be turned off while the mind works. Children are blank slates on which knowledge is imparted by the teacher.
Also I'm pretty sure my singing voice was cast out of heaven pretty early on. If I were part of the heavenly host I would be given a triangle to hit about once every third song.
Our priest sings literally like a booming Broadway star. The first time I heard him I was blown away. Of course, the rest of us are barely audible, like usual. LOL
When I was a young fellow I had a parish priest that could sing like a booming Broadway star. It always impressed me. And when he belted out the Nicene creed there was no doubt that he believed every word of it.
A few years back I was googling some things and found that he had met his wife when they were both opera singers in New York. That explained a lot!
I was raised in the Catholic church, and I get constant compliments on my voice at any Protestant church I attend, and am a worship leader at our Protestant church. We attend a service at the Assisted Living Center where my FIL lives, also, and the elderly folks there make sure to save a space so they can hear me. Catholics sing just fine, thank you.
What a crock of hooey. Our Catholic choir is awesome. We sing all through mass.
Bonus points awarded for the use of "hooey" in a sentence.
I grew up with that album.
Catholic school was the worst two years of my young life. Catechism classes up through Jr. High ranked pretty low along with the priest who bad mouthed us at every turn. The nuns who outright lied to the testing class for application to Catholic HS was the last straw.
Sounds to me that you are making a case for ex-Catholics singing just fine.
Looks like Jon Lovitz' character from The Critic:
“Catholic liturgical singing is like plaintive squeaks from depressed marmosets”
You might like to hear a mass for Knights of Columbus members.
You will hear strong, booming masculine voices singing with courage and conviction.
A Priest I know goes out and tells the congregation “Belt it out like you’re Baptists!”
I have no problem singing during our services, and I’ve often been “complimented” for singing at all. I don’t pretend to sing well, but I have no problem doing so, esp. if it gets others to sing along to drown out my bellowing.
Perhaps - but I learned how at a Catholic elementary school, and a Catholic college.
I agree. Keep switching-up with new songs for which nobody knows the lyrics, and participation will plummet.
Likewise, my priest. But we all sing and LOUD!
One of the bad things about the Internet is that every self-absorbed yutz who thinks he’s better than others also seems to believe he’s a writer.
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