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Bishops to vote on new directory, norms for liturgical music

By Nancy Frazier O'Brien
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- To ensure that the hymns used at Mass are "doctrinally correct" and based on Scripture and liturgical texts, the U.S. bishops will debate and vote on a new directory for music and the liturgy at their Nov. 13-16 meeting in Baltimore.

Each bishops' conference around the world was directed to draw up such a directory within five years after the 2001 Vatican instruction "Liturgiam Authenticam" ("The Authentic Liturgy"). Within another three years, the bishops' Committee on the Liturgy is to propose a common repertoire of liturgical songs for all Latin-rite Masses celebrated in the United States.

The directory is intended to serve "not so much as a list of approved and unapproved songs as a process by which bishops might regulate the quality of the text of songs composed for use in the liturgy," said Bishop Donald W. Trautman of Erie, Pa., chairman of the bishops' Committee on the Liturgy, in an introduction to the document.

If approved by two-thirds of the bishops, the directory and norms would be sent to the Vatican for its assent.

The draft document says the U.S. church "has been greatly blessed both by a hymnody drawn from a number of great traditions and by the contributions of composers and lyricists of liturgical songs over the past 40 years of the liturgical reform."

"Composers are urged to continue to seek ways in which liturgical song can grow organically from the tradition that the voice of the church might sing the ancient hymn with new conviction in our own day and age," the directory adds.

But there have been "certain challenges" in the use of liturgical songs, the document says. "While works of poetic art should not be judged in the same way as catechetical texts, liturgical songs can benefit from certain doctrinal judgments."

A set of norms to be considered along with the directory says each diocesan bishop is responsible for approving liturgical songs in his diocese, assisted by the directory, the bishops' Secretariat for the Liturgy and a local review committee of theologians, liturgists and musicians.

Without naming any specific hymns, the directory cites several examples of "tendencies which may compromise an individual song's doctrinal integrity":

-- Any "statements about the faith which are untrue."

-- Compromising the doctrine of the Trinity by "consistent replacement of masculine pronominal references to the three divine persons."

-- Any "emphasis on the work of the members of the church" that fails to recognize "the doctrine of grace and our complete dependence on the grace of God to accomplish anything."

-- Efforts to eliminate "archaic language" that "alter the meaning and essential theological structure of a venerable liturgical song."

In addition, any repertoire of liturgical songs "should reflect a balanced approach to Catholic theological elements," the draft document says.

Citing "Liturgiam Authenticam," the directory also says that the number of songs available for use in Catholic worship "must be relatively fixed."

"The sheer number of such liturgical songs has militated against the establishment of a common repertoire," it says. "Cultural forces which prize novelty and innovation can sometimes drive a competitive commercial climate which seeks to satisfy a desire for constant change.

"While this dynamic has often benefited the church and her liturgy, it also seems desirable that a certain stable core of liturgical songs might well serve as an exemplary and stabilizing factor," the directory adds.