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KANSAS CITY, MO (ChurchMilitant.com) - Catholics are pushing back at news that Dan Schutte, a former Jesuit and active homosexual, is offering a concert at a Catholic parish in Missouri. Schutte will be performing at Our Lady of Visitation in Kansas City on April 28. Tickets cost $20. Schutte composed a number of hymns that were included in the Gather hymnal, commonplace in Catholic parishes in the Unites States. Traditional-minded Catholics often criticize Gather for being sappy and secularized. Among his best known songs are "Here I Am, Lord," what some have described as the "gay anthem" of LGBT Catholics. The 70-year-old composer is himself widely believed to be an active homosexual...

While the head-scratching and hand-wringing continues over the "Ixnay Yahweh" decision, composer Dan Schutte is talking about what led him to write "You Are Near," and reveals that he's revising it. H/T to Catholic Sensibility. Here's what Schutte had to say: There certainly has been a flurry of discussion arising from the recent directive from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. And, as is evident on your website, much of it has been centered around my song, “You Are Near.” I suppose I should receive that as a compliment. I wrote this piece in 1970,...

"There are people," says Jesuit Father John Foley, with a hint of a smile, "who have complained that we wrecked the whole tradition of church music." "We" meaning the St. Louis Jesuits, whose collaborative composing efforts remain arguably the single greatest influence on contemporary liturgical music of the post-Vatican II era. Writing Scripture-based music (itself a revolution of sorts) in a style of music that was more in keeping with that of the secular world and thus more familiar to many ears (itself not just revolutionary but heretical, in the minds of some --- and nothing less than musical manna,...