I've often criticised CBWIII as wreaking havoc on Catholic parishes in Canada.
Unbenownst to most pastors who purchased it, the editors surreptitiously foisted upon parishes in Canada a feminist, person-centred, culturally philistinistic agenda by changing the words and therefore, the meaning of hymns long-known and loved. Immaculate Mary beyond the first verse is unrecognisable, Praise My Soul the King of Heaven is heretical in its reference to God as "mother-like" and in Praise to the LORD the Almighty we no longer "draw near" to the "Altar" but to our "brothers and sisters," Those who come to Mass once a year at Christmas according to Hark the Herald Angels Sing now have to learn that they are to be "pleased as one with us to dwell" and the grail psalms have been bastardised thanks to so-called "inclusive language" because David, the Prophet was a misogynist, right? The thickness of the choir edition is awkward, the Mass settings are not together by composer and setting but by text, the typesetting is hard on the eye, the paper too thick and there is simply too much banality from OCP and HauganHass. The colour of the cover is quite nice though.
Last night I was perusing this wretched monstrosity of a hymn book to give a friend advice on the music for a funeral, since it is used at this particular parish; I came across the introduction page.
There, on that page from a certain diocese named after a certain patron saint of a certain mother-country was the insignia of a certain prelate who was bishop of that diocese at the time of this shoddy hymnbook's publication and forced rape of parish treasuries. He was then head of the liturgical committee of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Any guesses as to which bishop the unsuspecting people unfortunate enough to be bored by a Sunday homily and who peruse through the first pages of CBWIII will be reminded about week after week after week until CBW IV hopefully in accordance with Liturgiam Authenticum and the new and more accurate ICEL translations comes out and these green monsters are used to increase global warming in someones fireplace?
Oh, come on...you can guess.
Truly you can.
A corporal work of mercy.
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7 comments:
Who is it?
Clue 1: His name is pronounced the same as an Ontario musical family (though spelt differently) and Cape Breton fiddler.
Clue 2: He has a "deer in the headlights" kind of demeanor.
Clue 3: He enjoys exotic travel to far-away.
Clue 4: He is computer savvy...or maybe not.
It's my fellow Newfoundlander (God help us!), His Grace Raymond J. Lahey, former Bishop of Antigonish, NS. Should be perhaps His "Dis-grace" -- how long will this s***t go on? Things are far from ideal in the Church, especially here in Quebec where I now live, but Lahey's crime makes it even worse. I know -- "innocent till proven guilty" and all that, but the evidence is very strong. Also, given the Newfoundland Abuse Crisis of the 1980's -- the Mount Cashel situation -- it sadly wouldn't be at all surprising. My Grandmother was a strong supporter of Mt. Cashel, and patronized their fund-raising raffles every Christmas. In fact, that's where just about every turkey we ever had for Christmas dinner came from. She must be again spinning in her grave. Lord have mercy upon all of us!
This is a continuate of the previous post. I'm anonymous for obvious reasons, which will become clear. I hate CBW III too -- I was organist for the English choir at my bilingual parish, (20 yrs) and never liked the mutilation of the hymn texts. I used to be an English teacher, so had stylistic issues with this sort of dreck also. Our choir directors (2 almost-unqualified women) just loved it. After 20 years the lack of musical taste, the intransigence of the directors, and the extremely laissez-faire attitude of the pastor got to me and I retired. Since there was no farewell of any kind, the retirement felt more like a dismissal. DIdn't even get a card! BTW, the pastor said, in my presence, that "whenever anything comes from Rome, we close our eyes". Also, with regard to the choir: "I don't poke my nose in; I don't ask questions". And in several disputes which led up to my retirement, he consistently sided with the directors, whose husbands are wealthy businessmen. The area I live in is affluent, and there's lots of money, but no class. All this happened a year ago, and it still hurts. Yesterday I went to the choir Mass and almost got up and left. The noise level was horrific, and the priest celebrating Mass said nothing about it. I had to fight a bad mood for the rest of the day. My husband doesn't understand this at all - as far as he's concerned, it was all my fault -- that makes everything harder. Pray for me. This has to end some time!
Dear Anonymous,
I feel your pain!
Been there, experienced it, have the T-shirt too.
Hang in there and your husband should be a little more supportive of the plight of a "real" church musician.
--Vox
This is Anon again -- thank you for your encouragement, and I agree with you about my husband. Unfortunately, he's a scientist, and is extremely rational-- how we've stayed married for 31 years is a result of the grace of God and of the Sacrament, or maybe because we're too stubborn to quit! (Yes, we both have Irish blood, so that probably explains it, LOL!) God bless.
Hello again Anon,
It is so sad to see what has happened in apostate Quebec. Here in Toronto it is not quite as bad. The Cathedral has always had St. Michael's Choir School and they have continued to sing Gregorian chant propers even in the English Sung Mass and polyphony every week. The music director is Jerzy Cichocki who also conducts The Victoria Scholars and the new organist is William O'Meara. We have the liturgical excellence of The Toronto Oratory with two exceptional organists Peter Bishop at Holy Family and Philip Fornier at St. Vincent de Paul and every week they provide superior english music and chant and polyphony for the Latin Mass in both Ordinary and Extraordinary Form. I'm building a humble schola from scratch for the FSSP apostolate and their are sprinklings of good work here and there...but it is a sprinkling. For the most part, church music here is dominated by unprofessional, uneducated, uncultured and uncivilised and liturgically ill-formed feminists or youth groups that "play mass" or foist their heretical political agenda on emasculated priests and chest-stroking, make-me-feel-nice congregations.
I know you can't say where you are but the FSSP is in Quebec City and there is a Latin Mass in Montreal.
God bless.
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