Plainchant joke

On 22nd November 1903, St Pius X issued Tra le Sollecitudini, an instruction on sacred music.

The ancient traditional Gregorian Chant must, therefore, in a large measure be restored to the functions of public worship, and the fact must be accepted by all that an ecclesiastical function loses none of its solemnity when accompanied by this music alone.

Today, 9th July 2012, I reckon it is a safe bet that in most parishes you will never hear Gregorian Chant. And this is not because they are getting by on a diet of Palestrina and Mozart. (Nor because it isn't Sunday). Tra le Sollecitudini seems to be wasted ink. The Vatican website does not even have an English version.

For those unfamiliar with the terminology of Catholic liturgical books, the parts of the Mass to be sung by the people (or by the choir on behalf of the people) are printed in a book called the Roman Gradual.

Q: Why is it called the Roman Gradual?
A: Because it is being implemented slowly.

(A post on The Chant Café warned me I might have to assert copyright to this joke, which I have been making for a few years now).

A man who once met a woman who had known Beethoven has just died

George Isserlis (father of the cellist) died on 25th June 2012. From the Telegraph obituary:

Thus, in 1923 George Isserlis landed in Vienna — where he met a 102-year-old hausfrau who had known Beethoven when she was a little girl (and hated him).

Mme Calment (the oldest human who ever lived, patriarchs excepted) said she once saw Van Gogh buying paints in her uncle's shop in Arles in 1888. Nor did she think much of the famous artist.

Our friends the Cane Toads

As a rule of thumb I don't watch online videos over ten minutes and from four minutes onwards I am less and less likely to click play. I also am not a big fan of ad hoc debates where at least one of the parties has barely a clue, nor do I particularly like watching ambushes.

But this is a really good job. Some ladies in support of the feral US Nuns* were holding a protest outside the Cathedral Church of St Augustine in Kalamazoo, Michigan. One of them has two theology degrees and 16 years teaching experience (only some of it?) at collegiate level. With a video camera running (held by a friend of hers) she begins a discussion with the Parochial Vicar. It lasts 18 minutes.

He doesn't make mincemeat of her. He's too gentle. But it is quite a show. I found it at What Does the Prayer Really Say? so in case the video after the break dies you may find a replacement from links there.

*So far as I know this is an Australianism. You know what feral animals are like, good things gone wild in a new environment?  - a great metaphor for whacky sisters.

Charles Cole

I was at school with Charles Cole, who was in my older brother's year.

NLM on Cathedral Liturgy

When I lived in London I used to visit Westminster Cathedral regularly.  One afternoon I heard Gregorian chant coming over the speakers. It was not piped music but actual live singing of the Divine Office. A friend of mine who knows these things remarked that (a) all Cathedrals are supposed to have public recitation of the Divine Office and (b) Westminster is pretty much the only Cathedral in the world that does. When in Rome I have attended Vespers at the Basilica of the the Holy Cross in Jerusalem* and again at the Basilica of the Floating Ceiling. In the former case it might only have been happening because I turned up on the Feast of the Triumph of the Holy Cross. The point is that my friend is pretty much right.
*(Despite the name this church is in Rome.)


Anyway the New Liturgical Movement blog has an essay on the subject.

I have said this several times in the past, but most American cathedrals are essentially overgrown parish churches, and this paradigm has so ensconced itself in our liturgical consciousness that many bishops see their cathedrals as model parish churches for their diocese.

It's one of those rules nobody keeps.

(I am pretty sure New Liturgical Movement can be translated by something better than Novus Liturgicus Motus).

Mankowski: Silk Purses & Sow's Ears

(I am sure the apostrophe in the title is misplaced)

Arguing with inclusive language loonies, the best I could come up with is that they never seem to worry about the gender of Satan, all his works and all his empty promises. For a better essay see "Silk Purses & Sows' Ears: 'Inclusive Language' Comes to Mass" from Women for Faith and Family viii.4 & ix.1, by Fr Paul Mankowski sj.

This is one of those essays when you want to keep cutting and pasting (funny that, considering the first paragraph). But here is a line of argument that had not already occurred to me:

ABC bias on euthanasia

A while ago somebody sent me a post on the MercatorNet blog, Careful! - a blog on euthanasia. It contained a video interview with Bishop Anthony Fisher op. The blog describes him as being "interviewed by a right-to-die activist." I suppose the post writer simply went by the content of the questions and drew the obvious conclusion. The interviewer, Quentin Dempster, is a journalist with the ABC and presumably has pretensions to neutrality. This was not extra-curricular activity. The interview was part of regular ABC programming. 

Bishop Fisher does a very good job dealing with the questions. Dempster is someone who describes obedience to the Fifth Commandment as hardline but as the folk at Careful! say, Bishop Fisher hits the questions right out of the park (in Australia, since you ask, we would say "hits them for six").