Dear Editor: George Weigel (“He’s Not ‘Turning His Back to the People’” (Sept. 3) seems to think that returning to the “Ad Deum” (a.k.a. “Ad Orientem”) mode of celebrating the Mass would be a panacea for the supposed loss of faith among contemporary church-going Catholics. As one who has devoted most of my adult life to the ministry of liturgical music (now semi-retired), please allow me to say that the number one priority for restoring and rejuvenating the spiritual life of the worshipping faithful is: get rid of the pig-slop music!
Go into almost any church in the United States, and you will find books – both hardcover and throwaway paperbacks – brimming with “composers” such as Marty Haugen, David Haas, Dan Schutte, Scott Soper, Paul Inwood, and numerous others whose musical talent and training are somewhere between doubtful and non-existent (Haugen does not even know how to read music). Add to this the proliferation of guitars (both acoustic and electric), pianos (particularly electronic keyboards), tambourines, and drums of all kinds, and the recipe for pig-slop music and pig-slop liturgy is soundly in place.
The solution? The adoption of a standard hymnal which eschews all of the dreck described above. Only one such volume is currently in print: the St. Michael Hymnal Fourth Edition, currently in use at the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph and perhaps one or two other parishes in the diocese. I have the good fortune of attending the Holy Sacrifice at that noble church (despite a two-hour trek from my residence) on most Sundays, and have been blessed with the opportunity of serving as substitute organist on occasion. This book should be immediately adopted by the USSCB as the standard hymnal for this country. Not only are the hymns theologically and musically sound, but the service music is replete with a plethora of Gregorian Chant Mass settings, and the vernacular settings of the Gloria are all through-composed: that is, without the all-too-prevalent repeating refrains.
Adopt the SMH as the official hymnal, and the faith life of the laity will be nourished and will grow and prosper. Continue with the commercial pig-slop, and the community of churchgoers will be disevangelized, regardless of which direction the priest-celebrant faces. It is that simple.
JOSEPH A. LINDQUIST
Flushing