St. Michael's Catholic Church in Auburn, Alabama

The Blueprint: Sacred Music in Your Parish
by Arlene Oost-Zinner and Jeffrey Tucker

In large parishes in major urban areas, parishioners can often choose between liturgical styles based on which Mass they attend. This situation may not be ideal—it is hardly conducive to parish unity—but it usually allows for one or solemn and serious liturgies rooted in Catholic history. These liturgies sometimes include Gregorian chant, the normative music of the Roman Rite, along with vernacular hymns and even some polyphony (the stylistic descendent of chant).

But this is not usually the case in small and medium-sized parishes (30 to 500 families). Here, the practical obstacles to introducing chant and polyphony are immense. Too often, the treasury of sacred music has all but disappeared from these parishes. Efforts to restore it are thwarted by a sense of hopelessness, faction fighting, or political divisions. Faced with such obstacles, the tendency in small parishes, in suburbs, small towns, and even urban areas, is toward the comfortable but uninspired mix of the “contemporary” hit songs that, as Thomas Day says, “died a few years ago—from sluggish tempos, overexposure, and the indifference of bored congregations” but somehow “are among the few musical ‘traditions’ that many parishes are permitted to keep.”[1]

The practical obstacles to introducing chant and polyphony in the smaller parish setting—something completely new and foreign in many parishes—are cultural, musical, pastoral, political and technical. But with enough drive and patience, and attention to avoiding certain errors, these obstacles can be overcome. The urgency of undertaking the effort is more pressing than ever, as the generation that can recall certain elements of the chant tradition are passing sixty years of age, even as the Vatican is becoming more emphatic about the need to reintegrate music and text into a unified presentation that is in keeping with the seriousness of the event.

What follows are some insights and observations—not an infallible plan—drawn from our experience in which a small parish, in the course of two years, went from having five contemporary or mixed Sunday liturgies to permitting one of them to offer the full range of chant and polyphony on a consistent basis, along with selective propers done in accordance with the Roman Gradual, and doing so with evident approval from those who choose to attend. The presence of just one liturgy per week where traditional sung prayer is employed, and all sounds and sensibilities associated with contemporary praise music is carefully excluded, has quietly but dramatically, over time, impacted the entire culture of the parish.

Cultural Obstacles and Solutions

In seeking to introduce sacred Catholic music into parishes, one must first deal with the stark reality that our heritage in music and Latin language has evaporated in practice.  Three generations have been raised in the faith without the sounds of chant, and very few people under a certain age can conjure up the first notes of any popular chant from the past. In many parishes, thirty plus Pentecosts have come and gone without the “Veni Creator,” and thirty plus Lents without a single “Parce Domine.” The “Ubi Caritas” is unfamiliar, unknown to most. The Marian plainsongs of “Ave Maria,” “Regina Caeli,” and “Salve Regina” have no meaning, musically or textually. Not even the “Tantum Ergo” has made it into the hymnbooks in most common use. When the St. Anthony Messenger surveyed its readers in 1996 on their favorite Catholic hymns, the top three answers were startling: 1. “Be Not Afraid” (contemporary song and the bane of all who seek traditional music);  2. “Amazing Grace” (protestant traditional); 3. and “How Great Thou Art” (protestant traditional). Of the top twelve picks among readers, only two were traditional Catholic (“Holy God, We Praise Thy Name” and “Panis Angelicus”).[2] It is not that the survey takers were rejecting traditional Catholic music; most likely, it is just not known to them.

Not having exposure to solemn music at Mass, a common reaction among people is to regard it as depressing and exclusivist. This is, once again, a reflection of the reigning pattern of liturgical socialization that has taken place for so many decades. The purpose of most Catholic music written since about 1970 has not been to draw from the chant tradition but to break from it with the goal of bringing people together in a spirit of community praise. Under the right conditions, chant can accomplish the same, but that is not its primary purpose, and so long as people are looking for community uplift as versus holiness, chant will not win out. It takes time to attract people into a new sense of what it means to worship and what Catholicism can and should sound like.

There is very little discussion of the intent of music in liturgy in parishes. Academic debates having limited if any impact in this venue. Deeply ingrained is the opinion that music at Mass should be drawn from popular idioms, should be exuberant, and should produce a feeling of community togetherness. The attempt to revive music of the full range of Catholic history will necessarily require an explanation that music of a more traditional pedigree can be exuberant and bring people together but also achieve higher ends: it can facilitate prayer and internal refection and preparation.

An attempt to restore even the slightest bit of chant or polyphony will be treated as a radical project, one that must bear the burden of proving to be useful and/or popular in liturgy, or at least not an invasive imposition. Those favoring chant are not “conservatives,” strictly defined as those who favor the status quo over change, but people who favor upsetting what is most likely a settled order of mediocrity and tedium. It is the chant and polyphony partisans who are the innovators, the people seeking to upset the established order of things. There is little rhetorical advantage that comes with the demand for “traditional music” in any case. One must be prepared to make the argument for new music and new approaches.

As for singers themselves, there are fewer and fewer Catholic with musical training in smaller parishes. The decline in musical competence has been so precipitous. The biographies of most great American singers include warm reflections on their early years singing in Church choir, and being raised up through the ranks to eventually become an important voice within the worship life of their hometown church. Today, however, children’s choirs are not common in Catholic parishes. And where they do exist, they are not singing the kind of music that educates people in the basics of reading music, hearing pitches, staying in tune, or singing in parts.

The longer this situation prevails, the fewer and fewer people there are within the parish who are in a position to read music, much less sing it with competence, and even less to distinguish quality music from pop refuse. This also means fewer people who can serve in leadership positions by directing a children’s choir, playing piano or organ, or rehearsing and directing a piece of serious polyphony.  The loss of musical knowledge feeds on itself. The congregation becomes less and less interested in authentic hymnody. There are fewer singers to sing stand-alone choral pieces. Already in 1977, it was said that in typical parishes that "one hears only unison singing"[3] and all these years later, the lack of music competence has become ever more widespread[4]. 

What’s more, many small parishes are not likely to have more than one choir, and that choir will be unfamiliar with anything but the standards at the main Sunday Mass. These groups are excessively dependent on electronic enhancements and tend to resist any new material. As for the few people who may openly long for chant or polyphony, they are not typically involved in the parish musical efforts at all. Their main posture is non-involvement, attending Masses without music whenever possible and otherwise merely enduring the well-intended but misguided efforts of the musical insiders.

This is an understandable reaction but it is not constructive. It takes more than opposition to the status quo and a longing for the past to institute a positive program of musical innovation, within the framework of tradition, that can be sustained. All efforts must begin small and those involved must be prepared for many setbacks and many years of work.

There are no shortcuts. It is no solution, for example, to persuade the pastor to hire a full or part-time director of music with a salary (as versus just paying an organist or pianist). Given parish hiring guidelines, the pastor will need to hire someone with middle-brow musical credentials as well as experience in the world of Catholic liturgy. This can be a fatal step. Those who qualify come with agendas taught to them by the Catholic music establishment, which has been tightly wedded to a liturgical agenda that excludes chant and polyphony or uniformly solemn worship experiences. Once they are hired, it becomes impossible to dislodge them from their seats of power.

Neither will one win friends and influence people in the parish by agitating against guitar players and jazzy piano players. Such efforts might be seen as personal campaigns and could tend to diminish personal capital in times when principled stands for quality are neither understood nor appreciated.

Rather than negative campaigns, the efforts most likely to produce fruit are those narrowly focused on gaining a new approach to music that goes beyond hymns, introduces a special focus on solemnity, and reclaims the ancient Catholic musical heritage, the goal of which is to revive a form of music that links all generations of Catholics in a unified song.  

Choosing the right words are not a magic bullet for success but doing so can avoid many pitfalls of parish politics that might otherwise doom the effort to introduce chant and polyphony. One can cite the documents of Vatican II, as well as the many papal statements since the Council, in defense of the project, but there is little sense in insisting that such music is the only kind that orthodox Catholicism should ever permit. After all, it is well known that contemporary music, and even raucous rock music, is employed in every diocese in the country, and its defenders can be found in every sector of Catholic opinion. To claim that the Latin repertoire is the only true path to Catholicism is to set oneself up for being refuted by example. 

In any case, the purpose here is not to (in the first instance) to convert people to orthodox Catholicism or persuade people of a historically rooted theological outlook. The goal, at least short term, is to improve the liturgy, period, and every step in that direction should be counted as success. As for the other goals, lex orandi, lex credendi.[5] The belief in the doctrinal infrastructure underneath this music is more likely to be accomplished once the music is in place. Opponents are more likely to be placated and those in the middle won over if one’s agenda is seen as narrow and focused rather than broad and threatening to widely held theological assumptions.

This brings us to the issue of diversity and tolerance—two watchwords of the current cultural milieu in nearly every Catholic parish in the country. As objectionable as much popular contemporary music may be, it is not going away soon. No matter how much success one has in introducing chant and polyphony, it will continue to exist side by side in most parishes with other styles.

The best approach will be to find one Mass during a weekend Mass schedule that is open to accommodating a different approach. Most likely, this will be the early Mass on Sunday morning, which is typically the one that attracts older people. There is no reason to be in a rush. A polyphony choir or chant group should take any available spot, even if it is a daily Mass. The opportunities for singing in more prominent liturgies will come later.

No claim is being made that the following blueprint will work in every parish, only that it is one path to making success more likely than failure. There are several factors that can doom chant from the outset . For example, one can have a pastor who is a hard-core opponent of the genre. This is the type who has made himself clear that he will tolerate no Latin and no chant under any circumstances. There is little one can do to get past such dogmatism, but one can at least prepare for the future by laying the necessary groundwork outside the official liturgical structure. Nothing prevents laypeople from establishing singing groups and choosing their own repertoire.

A word of caution, however: do not be quick to conclude that the pastor is a dedicated opponent of traditional music. Such a case would be highly unusual. It is far more likely that he just needs persuading that traditional music is not incompatible with his ministerial responsibilities, from his own point of view or from the point of view of the chancery, which he knows can be put on alert by signs of “reactionary” liturgical trends in any parish. Moreover, from seminary through current-day priest retreats, many priests work within a clerical setting in which old-church practices are relentlessly caricatured and disparaged, while all new practices and trends are praised as pastorally sound and popular with the people. It may be that he has a bias that can be overcome with a carefully crafted demonstration project.

Step One: Sing in Private

The first step toward parish renewal is to quit complaining and start singing. This should begin as an individual project. This step requires a serious sense of purpose and some degree of private study. This is the time to stock up on hymn books and CDs and learn the basic chants of the faith, from the Marian hymns to the major chants of each liturgical season. It is impossible to teach chant to others if one does not know it oneself, and one must know it well enough to sing the full line of music comfortably, and not falter or stutter over the Latin. Even if one goes not further than to take this first step, it provides a spiritual benefit to all Catholics to undertake this private discipline. Do it for the children and grandchildren.

There is no need to become a scholar or to be ready to answer every objection to the effort to revive the treasury of sacred music. To begin, all one needs is the ability to sing the basic Latin hymns and chants with confidence enough to produce compelling versions for others, preferably by memory. It need not be beautiful, only competent. To test one’s ability to teach, approach friends and family members to be used as test cases. There is no better way to learn chant than to teach to it forgiving students.

Step Two: Charity

Most parishes have factions, and music can often a play a role in parish divisions, with one camp of activists calling for a full lurch into “Life Teen Masses” and the other still regretting the loss of the preconciliar Roman Rite. These disputes become personal and can last for years. A battleground of this sort is not a likely setting in which innovative steps toward traditional music are going to take root. One might consider making personal amends with any music staff that one might have offended over the years and sincerely seek out common bonds. Not only is this a good practice in its own right; it makes strategic sense in the parish for one’s likely opponents to not have their guard up against those working for sacred music in liturgy.

Vast chasms separate people with sacred vs. popular musical sensibilities. One believes that the primary purpose of liturgical music is to involve people in joyful worship through singing various pleasantries with a popular feel[6], while the other believes that the purpose of music at liturgy is not to draw attention to music but away from all individual actors, whomever they may be, and toward the primary focus of the altar, so that the community gathered might better comprehend the transcendence.[7] And yet there is one bond: an appreciation of music itself. This alone can serve as the basis of civility and peace, two prerequisites to progress in parish life.

Step Three: Form a Group

It may at first seem counterintuitive to form a group of singers before the pastor has granted any approval for new chants to be sung, or for the director of music to open up a Mass for the possible use of Latin. But there are several important reasons why putting together a schola of any size, whether 2 or 20 people, before approaching the pastoral team is very important.

Having something in place already removes the major objection from being invoked, namely, that there is no choir that can sing this material and no one in the current music program has an interest in this music. And it is certainly true that the technical aspects of singing the unfamiliar must be overcome. People besides the leader of the chant-movement need to be excited about the prospect of singing. If people can be persuaded to get together to sing just for the love of it, it is more likely that they will stick with the task should the opportunity present itself for singing in the liturgy.

The group (which need not be limited to Catholics) is best assembled by word of mouth rather than through the church bulletin. This path avoids unnecessary provocation and permits a greater degree of quality control. As for standards for singers, they should be able to read music, or at least not be steadfastly against learning how to read, and be willing to adopt a new approach. People who have never sung before can be excellent singers for liturgy because they lack vocal pretensions and typically eschew dramatic affects. Moreover, there is no need for an accompanist; not having one can even be an advantage insofar as reinforces the primacy of the human voice in liturgy. 

Apart from prayer (the group should adopt a patron saint), the main ingredient for success is enthusiasm leading to a sense of group purpose and cohesion[8]. The new group can meet in a home or, ideally, it would meet in the church social hall for one hour a week at a designated time. The advantage of the social hall is that it establishes a presence within the parish. Again, all of this should be done before the idea is broached to sing in liturgy. The goal for the first six months might be to master all the basic chants of the church, as found in the Jubilate Deo (available for free download) and also in hymnals like the Collegeville Hymnal and the Adoremus Hymnal. Even the Oregon Catholic Press includes a few Latin hymns in its Music Issue.

More in depth study can come from working through A Gregorian Chant Master Class (Abbey of Regina Laudis, 2003) by Ted Marier and Scott Turkington. From Solesmes, the following are indispensable: Liber Cantualis (the basic chant settings for every parish) and the Gregorian Missal (English and Latin, including propers).  These book are written in neumes, the square notes from the middle ages that are easier to read than modern notes (once one understands the method). Neumes also create the correct legato sensibility in the mind of singers and more accurately render the rhythm. Modern notation is also available in books such as Laus Tibi Christe from the OCP, as well as the chant books from Cantica Nova publications.

Two additional resources are essential: Ceremonies of the Liturgical Year and Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite, both by Peter J. Eliot, and both available through Ignatius Press. These books are essential for making sure that what the schola does is precise and correct as regards the demands of tradition and Catholic practice. Knowing the ins and outs of these matters will further establish the schola as something of a standard bearer for what should and should not take place during celebrations of particular feasts and throughout the year. The schola should know, for example, whether the sprinkling rite takes the place of the Kyrie, or in what circumstances Sequences are to be employed. The details should all be mastered by schola members.

As for polyphony, all the music that one will ever need is available for quick download at the Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL.ORG). It can be instantly and legally printed and distributed, and most of the music has sound samples. Tallis’s “If Ye Love Me,” Palestrina’s “Adoramus Te,” and Croce’s “O Sacrum” can be sung by any group in a few rehearsals. If the singers are not available in four parts, three- and even two-part settings of motets by Di Lasso or Byrd can be chosen.

In the early stages, it is a good idea to avoid large Mass settings, if only because the conviction that the assembly should participate in the singing of these is very intense in modern parish life. Instead, the focus should be simple settings of the Sanctus and Angus Dei, and the Kyrie. Motets for general use as offertories will constitute the basic repertoire of parts of the liturgy sung by the choir alone. As regards the propers, the most suitable beginning for any schola is to sing the Communios from the Gregorian Missal. They provide outstanding practice in reading neumes and are unfailingly beautiful. They can also be introduced with minimum disruption to the conventional musical structure of most liturgies.

Step Four: Build Support

An attitude of confrontation with the sensibilities of parishioners will doom any project of musical renewal. Support from parishioners who are not singers or musicians is essential. To gain this, it is essential to involve many people on the ongoing life of the newly founded schola. Here it is important to make no prejudgments concerning who will be supportive and who will not. Broad support can be done by having the group sing at private parish gatherings in homes. Invite the pastor to a schola party, and someone can casually suggest that the group sing a bit. Practicing in the social hall during the lunch hour is helpful. The group can sing for the sick, or otherwise assist in the ministry of the parish to the aging or those who are homebound.

Other ideas include finding a good acoustical space in which to make a recording and produce CDs which can be given away or sold to parish members. All of this establishes the schola as a burgeoning if informal ministry of the parish—and it can all be done without having to seek any kind of official sanction or funding. It can all take place within the framework of the freedom of association and without unnecessary provocation or expense. The group can grow this way and come to persuade people of the merits of this repertoire. With enough hard work and dedication, this group can become as accomplished and more so than the already established choir or choirs of the parish.

These first four steps will require a tremendous amount of time and energy but it will also demonstrate that this is a serious project aimed at contributing to the life of the parish, not merely a protest group. At some point in this process, the next step becomes a kind of historical inevitability. 

Step Five: Sing in Liturgy  

If all the above steps have been taken, the group can begin to integrate itself into the public liturgical life of the parish. It could be just a special occasion, say, Good Friday. It could be at a daily Mass or at evening Benediction and or Vespers. It could be just the summer when everyone else is on vacation and music for Mass is needed. Whenever opportunities present themselves should be accepted. Ideally, the demand for the schola to do more along these lines will come from within the parish.

Finally, at some point along this path, a Mass could be established that will permit the Schola to sing every week so that parishioners do not have to keep up with complicated schedules but can expect sacred music on regular basis in a certain time period and without exception.

Those without experience in provide music at liturgy may find themselves taken aback at the pace of demands. The liturgy moves surprisingly quick from Easter to Pentecost to Advent to Christmas and Lent—with all special solemnities along the way—and each makes unique demands on the singers. In order to not be caught off guard, and to set the highest standard of liturgical practice, the schola must have familiarity with the basis music of each of these seasons.

And the schola should make it clear that an integrated liturgy is necessary (good hymns, along with dignified Mass parts), not a mixed program of traditional and contemporary[9]. Every effort should be made to keep out contemporary hymns and settings in Masses assisted by the Schola, if only so that that the people can observe the difference between the solemnity of the Schola-assisted Masses and the others. This demonstration project, carried out over time, will secure the schola in the life of the parish.

How long will this process take? It depends on the local situation. It could be a month or it could be two years. But no matter how long it takes, it is worth the effort. Introducing this music can draw new people to the faith, reinforce the faith of those already there, draw people to a greater understanding the Catholicism, introduce a new generation into real Catholic music and tradition, and lift the hearts and rekindle the fire in the souls  of older Catholic who remember it all from childhood. One must never lose sight of the goal, which is not to achieve a personal victory or to score debating points against “liberal” Catholics, or to point to the bad taste of the liturgical team, but simply to glorify God in the creation of sacred space.

The best way to make a case for musical diversity that includes the treasury of sacred music is set a high standard for excellence in every liturgy. There is little room for error, because the burden of proof falls so heavily on those who are seeking to do something different. The schola is going to be judged more harshly and there are always those who would gain pleasure from failure. For that reason, great attention must be given to good intonation and solemnity in style.

The schola should not be front and center but in the balcony or the back of the church, if at all possible. In the end, it is not the music that will carry the day so much as the silence and space this repertoire provides for people to pray and experience a sensibility far different from that provided by a contemporary choir. Once people get a taste of participating in liturgy through prayer and preparation[10], and coming to understand that music can point to God and not just to the community, the rest will take care of itself.

Objections and Responses

As the process of introducing solemn music proceeds, a number of question will arise for which answers must be given. Some will object nobody knows this music. Possible answer: the best way to assure that this continues to be the case is not to allow people to have the chance to learn it. The schola should also make translations freely available, preferably through a weekly program. Some will fear that this music will bring back a caricature of preconciliar Catholicism. The answer to this is that Vatican II specifically called for chant and polyphony, and for Latin to take “pride of place.”  Others may just object on the general grounds that this is not the way our parish does things. Answer: That’s true but our sense of the faith must develop; we cannot get stuck in a time warp.

More serious opponents of restoring sacred music are quick to argue that the new structure of the Mass is incompatible with large Mass settings of days gone by. This point should be taken seriously. A schola that early on attempts a full Mass setting is going to bump up against strongly contrary claims as well as a host of practical problems. The once-clear distinction between propers and the ordinary, and between low and high Mass, is not as operative to the same degree that it once was. In the old-rite structure of the Roman Rite, large settings of the ordinary (thinking here of 16^th and 17^th century settings, and leaving aside controversies over 18^th and 19^th century settings) did not interrupt the flow of the liturgy because so many of the prayers by the Celebrant were said sotto voce and it was clear in that the schola was, in practical terms, not the primary liturgical actor but necessarily secondary. The new rite, however, is more linear in this sense that these separate theatres of liturgical action are collapsed into a single voice alternatively exercised by the priest and people. When the schola sings a Gloria, for example, the celebrant does not say a separate one but defers to the music. The same is true of all parts of the Mass.

This reality creates many practical problems for adapting old-rite music to the new-rite structure. In the new rite, there is little opportunity to separate the Sanctus from the Benedictus with the consecration, though Benedict XVI is in print with a defense of such a separation. During the Angus Dei, the people are not kneeling but standing, waiting for it to end, making long settings unwieldy unless carefully thought out. A large setting of the Credo seems out of the question for most assemblies in smaller parishes. Nor does the schola want to appear to be responsible for having somehow taken parts of the Mass like the Gloria from the people, even though the GIRM permits a choral Gloria.

What this means in practice is that the schola, in the beginning stages, will have to work from simple chants that can be quickly taught, learned, and sung by everyone. The polyphony sung by the schola must take place during preludes, the offertory, and communion, which means not Mass parts but motets. This is a reality that any attempt to restore sacred music must deal with. The rite and the times have changed and, with it, the tolerance that the Mass structure itself has for complex artistic development. But the new structure also opens new opportunities to fulfill what was truly the goal of many liturgists who participated in the Second Vatican Council, namely to diminish the role of popular hymnody and increase the use of chant that can be sung by everyone.

This plan presumes that something can be done to eliminate common musical Mass settings used in the new rite (“Mass of Creation,” “Mass of Hope,” “St Louis Jesuits Mass”). This should indeed be a priority. There are few parts of any of these settings written in the last thirty years that are stylistically compatible with the aesthetic and liturgical sensibilities of chant and polyphony. The two biggest problems of all these new settings arrive at the “Memorial Acclamation” and the “Great Amen.” Both of these should be replaced by the simplest possible chant, English or Latin, preferably without accompaniment. In fact, the rule in favor of simplicity over complexity, a cappella over accompaniment, and less over more generally, should be observed as much as parish culture permits. The simpler the settings of the Psalm and Alleluia are to be preferred over more complex ones.

Humility and Deference

So many of the struggles in smaller parishes turn on questions of ego, personality, and control over liturgy—a consequence of the mistaken but too-often-encouraged view that liturgy should be structured or organized like a political democracy, with all its attendant pressure groups and agendas, including ones that impact on music.

The attempt of bringing chant and polyphony to a parish cannot and should not be approached as a matter of control, as it is precisely the case that the point of our musical heritage is not power and authority but humility and deference to the sacrament.

The goal is not to draw attention to the music or musicians but precisely the opposite: to remove every obstacle to sacramental understanding and create a setting most suitable for forgetting what is not important and remembering what is. Music in liturgy can point outside of itself to Truth, and, in the end, that is the best reason to work to find a place for the Catholic musical heritage in every parish in a church whose name means universal.

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Arlene Oost-Zinner and Jeffrey Tucker are, respectively, president and director of the St. Cecilia Schola Cantorum in Auburn, Alabama. Contact@ceciliaschola.org. This article is based on a piece published in the Spring 2003 issue of Sacred Music.

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St. Michaels Catholic Church

302 East Magnolia Ave
Auburn, Alabama 36830
contact: president | director