First things first. If you want something to give you a working knowledge of the Latin Mass, read the “Psallite Sapienter” http://www.scribd.com/doc/7848318/Psallite-Sapienter-A-Musicians-Guide-to-the-Extraordinary-Form. I wish someone would have pointed me to this when I started out as it would have saved much time, questions and bafflement.
There is a discussion about rock music at Mass at the MusicaSacra forums, and contributers are linking good material worthy of having at the fingertips.
Why Praise and Worship Music is Praise, But Not Worship Revd Fr Christopher Smith
On Music and the Priestly Life Fr. Gary Selin
Contemporary Music in Church? Dr. Peter Kwasniewski
A report on the state of Catholic church music Peter Jeffery
And a quote from Cardinal Ratzinger that I haven’t sourced yet:
On the one hand, there is pop music, which is certainly no longer supported by the people in the ancient sense (populus). It is aimed at the phenomenon of the masses, is industrially produced, and ultimately has to be described as a cult of the banal. “Rock”, on the other hand, is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship. People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their defenses torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental force of the universe. The music of the Holy Spirit’s sober inebriation seems to have little chance when self has become a prison, the mind is a shackle, and breaking out from both appears as a true promise of redemption that can be tasted at least for a few moments.”
From Pius X (courtesy of Ruth Lapeyre):
Most recently an article by Dom Leon Robert in 1954 about Pius X. Within the article I found an interesting quote from the then Patriarch of Venice, “Without remarking that pleasure alone has never been a criterion for judging sacred things, and that we are not to second the wishes of the people in bad things, but to raise them up.” Of course Cardinal Sarto was speaking about theatrical music used during Mass and the clerical excuse for allowing it: because it makes the people happy.
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