To the editor:
Some thoughts on the first Rebuilding Catholic Culture article:
1. To call the folk style music a “fad” is interesting — most fads don’t last 40+ years.
2. Most of the songs Sister Joan mentions are songs that involve the laity in singing; because she doesn’t like or approve of them doesn’t mean they aren’t prayerful. And people actually sing them, rather than sitting quietly listening (or not listening as the case may be) which was pretty much the pre-Vatican II experience.
3. Sister Joan is certainly entitled to her opinion, but she seems to be saying that anyone who holds a different idea has no musical taste because they enjoy singing “tripe” and that they are not singing meaningful, prayerful, comforting, or joyful songs but are participating in “noise.”
4. Lastly, calling it “tragic” that the role of the organist is minimized because of changes in instruments is ridiculous; the Holocaust was tragic, 9/11 was tragic, the civil war in Rwanda was tragic. Changing from the organ to piano or guitar is just change, and change is natural and inevitable.
A church filled with people singing their praises to God and their joy to be in His Presence, with songs that are singable and that strike a chord with the singers — this seems to be to be a lovely way to please God and “make His face to shine upon us.”
Chris Thomas, Oregon