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I see if we want to keep up with the Bloggers next door we’ll have to add comment capability to our site. I’m against it. Not only do I enjoy the email, I don’t get enough of it. I guess I don’t get enough email because everyone agrees with me! What if I start a liturgical troupe that sings and dances and wears spandex? The colors of spandex would change with the Church calendar, of course. There will be no audtions but admission will be limited to potato-shaped males only. We’ll call ourselves the Brother of Perpetual Corpulence and we will sing “Be Not Afraid” all the time. Look for us at your kid’s First Communion next year.

I did not see this mentioned in the article, but wasn’t it the OCP who was one of the first to make the words of traditional Christmas carols politically correct by removing “sexist” language?
I still remember the first time I opened it up and was checking out what carols we would sing this year, when I came across “God Rest Ye Merry, Christian Friends” That was a moment that raised the hairs on the back of my neck.
And it got worse. In “Joy to the World” we get the phrase,
“let all their songs employ”, plus there is the constant twisting of words and phrases to avoid saying “men” or “man” or using “Father” to refer to God.
To change the subject, and to refer to something you have often said – the liturgy is powerful in and of itself, yet many liturgical directors do so much to tart it up. This past Good Friday, I went to a church where they did the entire liturgy in semi-darkness. The priests processed up the aisle and then sat with the congregation, and stayed there reading prayers for almost the entire service. The Passion was read by a team of lectors (with dramatic lighting and sound effects) and I was left feeling like I had been at a performance, not a liturgy. Frankly, I was saddened by it all, and I will avoid that church next year.

I don’t know what OCP’s involvement was in the so-called “inclusive language” movement. Maybe some of our readers can comment? Here’s the problem with changing pronouns to remove someone’s idea of gender specificity. It’s insulting. The English language doesn’t express or imply that in a context like “For us men and for our salvation” that the word “men” limits it to only males of the species. To posit this is to assume that people are ignorant about the language they read and speak. That’s insulting, and I know many women who think that is insulting.

To refer to God with a word like “Mother” flies in the face of Scripture and what Jesus Himself said of God. Even to call God the Father “brother” I think is incorrect, but I’m not going to start a crusade about it.

Regarding the Good Friday Show at your church, that is truly regrettable. I have seen the Passion read in the manner you describe and I think that’s appropriate. When we have a crowd of people yelling “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” we know it is our sin that crucified our Lord. The sound effects and light show can go though. What that church needs is a traditional Good Friday liturgy with the Reproachments. I need to dig up the text of them and post them.

We did a wonderful piece called “O Mortal Man” during the Triduum this year. The liturgy director said that at her old church they changed the lyrics to “O Mortal One.” We did it as written. Maybe we can change all the words around on Inclusive Language Sunday when they add it to the Church calendar.

I just discovered your site. Considering your theme, I think you might enjoy checking out my site. I am the Catholic “Weird Al”. http://www.nickalexander.com
Also, Crisis Magazine posted my letter in response to the anti-OCP article that you’re now parading. It was printed in the March issue. http://www.crisismagazine.com/march2002/letters.htm
Have a good one!

If you read Mr. Alexander’s letter to the editor in Crisis, read also the author’s reply.

Cheese-flavored Yasser Arafat potato chips. The Egyptians can’t get enough of them.
Arafat potato chips take Egyptian market by storm from the Bahrain Tribune
Cashing in with Arafat chips from the Washington Times

The chips are bagged in Palestinian colors – green, red, black and white – and carry the likeness of Mr. Arafat, rotund and wide-eyed, saluting with one hand and holding a Palestinian flag in the other. He’s dressed in his trademark military fatigues and black-and-white checked headgear. For every 50 bags sold the company that makes this travesty of a snack food donates the equivalent of 5 cents to the Palestinian cause. Each bag says “The more you buy, the more you build.” Build what? Arafat had his chance for peace at a Palestinian state. [“The ‘Jenin Massacre’ hoax” by Charles Krauthammer]

Twenty-one months ago, Israel offered a total end to the occupation, ceding 100 percent of Gaza and 97 percent of the West Bank to the first Palestinian state ever. The Palestinians turned that down and took up the suicide bomb. By the Orwellian logic of today, the Palestinians are justified in perpetrating one massacre after another to end an occupation that Israel offered to remove almost two years ago.

Rather than choose peace Arafat chose to slaughter innocents again and again. Now he has no power over the other terrorists that continue to use human beings as weapons. 5 cents for 50 bags of chips to the Palestinian cause. 25,000 dollars from Saddam for the family every suicide bomber. This is madness. For the most part the international community, especially the Arab world, supports this terror war. But clearly the Palestinian cause is not for a Palestinian state that coexists with Israel. Their friends in Egypt can’t have just one chip, and they themselves can’t have just one state – they have to destroy Israel. The recent wave of anti-semetic violence in Europe shows they are not alone.

How long, O LORD? I cry for help but you do not listen! I cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not intervene. Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and clamorous discord. This is why the law is benumbed, and judgment is never rendered: Because the wicked circumvent the just; this is why judgment comes forth perverted. Look over the nations and see, and be utterly amazed! For a work is being done in your days that you would not have believed, were it told. Habakkuk 1:2-5

Amy Welborn posted this last night from Crisis Magazine.
We were complaining about this over at Care and Feeding of a Catholic Choir some time ago but didn’t suggest a course of action as this author does.

The truth is that no one is happy with the state of Catholic liturgical music — least of all musicians — and the OCP is a big part of the problem. So, what can you do? Step 1 is to get rid of the liturgical planning guides and use an old Scripture index to select good hymns that have stood the test of time (if you absolutely must continue to use the OCP’s materials). Step 2 is to rein in the liturgical managers and explain to them that the Eucharist, and not music, is the reason people show up to Mass Sunday after Sunday. Step 3 is to get rid of the OCP hymnals and replace them with Adoremus or Collegeville or something from GIA (no, none of these is perfect, but they are all an oasis by comparison).
Finally, reconsider those innocuous little missalettes. These harmless-looking booklets may be the source of the trouble. Parishes can unsubscribe — accept no OCP handouts or volume discounts. There are plenty of passable missalettes and hymnals out there, and all the choral music you’ll ever need is now public domain and easily downloadable for free (www.cpdl.org).
In his book, The Spirit of the Liturgy (Ignatius Press, 2000), Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger states clearly that popular music does not belong at Mass. Indeed, it’s part of “a cult of the banal,” and “rock” plainly stands “in opposition to Christian worship.”
This is very strong language from the cardinal. And yet we know that many liturgy teams in American parishes will continue to do what they’ve been doing for decades — systematically reconstructing the liturgy to accommodate pop aesthetic sensibilities. The liturgy is treated not as something sublimely different but as a well-organized social hour revolving around religious themes.
It’s up to you to decide the future course of your parish’s liturgy: reverent worship or hootenanny. Despite what the OCP might tell you, you can’t have both.

The emphasis above is mine, of course. Where did we fall away from the Truth that the Mass is the celebration of the perpetual sacrifice of our Lord? It is His prayer to the Father. It is the perpetual sacrifice that redeems us and makes us holy. I have always thought that calls for reverance and not hootenanny. Oh, and I’m not sure if any of you noticed but the short intro to the OCP “Celtic Alleluia” sounds like someone falling down a short flight of stairs.