Funk — the man behind the music

National Catholic Reporter, August 24, 2001 by Arthur Jones

The association has established a set of qualifications that enables a parish to judge whether the musician merits the salary being offered. The DMM certification is built around a mentoring concept, the musician operating in his and her own environment with a mentor observing what's going on in the practicum environment.

Funk, who celebrates liturgy locally when he's in town, said, "We work with those parishes that are motivated and seeking education. We do not try to motivate, parishes -- we are interested in parishes that are motivated and uneducated, so to speak, in any of the five areas we talk about."

Asked what the weakest link is in the liturgy, Funk, who usually has a humorous refrain running through his sometimes-gruff comments, answered, "Whenever musicians gather they say it's the priest, when priests gather they say it's the musicians. The honest truth is the weakest link is the assembly. The assembly doesn't identify itself as the primary worshiper. The Catholic congregation does not possess the conviction of its baptismal call. They don't get it.

"Now you can say," continued Funk, "that it's the clergy and the musicians' problem that they're not allowing or forming the assembly in that way, and I'll agree. But the biggest problem remains, in my opinion, that Catholics are still unconvinced of the divinization that takes place in baptism."

Worship, he said, is not "group dynamic. The act of worship is more profound than the social phenomenon." Similarly, he says, there is no "perfect liturgy out there" to conform to -- "God is praised when the alleluia of someone who knows that they have been transformed is authentically sung. When the Kyrie eleison for those who are poor is authentically sung. That we are standing in mercy before God. And Marinatha is proclaimed that the Kingdom is yet to come. And that happens a hundred thousand times more often than we know., If it happens to an individual, it's happening for the congregation.

Bags packed, sabbatical planned -- he won't say where he's going -- Funk is headed out of the metaphoric door. It bears the heraldic motto he's carved on American Catholic music.

And in thousands of parishes around the country there are pastoral musicians who'd say that for 25 years, Funk struck the right chord.

By ARTHUR JONES
NCR Staff

Washington