Chill wind from Rome frustrates musicians

National Catholic Reporter, Feb 27, 1998 by Pat Marrin

It is hard to imagine Sunday worship without hymns such as "Gather Us In," "Be Not Afraid," "On Eagle's Wings" or "Peace is Flowing Like a River." We take the words and music for granted, hardly giving a thought to where they came from or to who is composing the next generation of hymns.

But the world of the Catholic music composer is anything but tranquil these days. Since the Vatican took the unusual step of turning back a translation of texts approved by the U.S. bishops -- and used by composers for their creations -- nothing can be taken for granted. The tension was evident when 50 of the country's top liturgical composers met for the first time Jan. 26-28 at Mercy Center in St. Louis.

The fact that Marty Haugen, Bob Dufford, Michael Joncas or Carey Landry -- the respective composers of the hymns listed above -- and others like them decided the meeting was necessary is significant. They usually stay in the background. Few would recognize them in an airport or on the street. Yet they and others have deeply shaped the liturgies we have come to know since the Second Vatican Council of the mid-1960s.

The topic of the meeting -- "Church music in a time of upheaval and change" -- went far in explaining the growing tensions between the creators and controllers of liturgical music in the United States.

A reporter was invited to this private, Open-ended and off-the-record conversation with the understanding that participants could be qouted but not by name, unless the speaker gave permission.

Uncertainty and delay are enemies of composers and publishers. A considerable measure of both have been caused by recent moves by the Vatican to publicly question the adequacy and fidelity of texts approved by U.S. bishops for use in Catholic worship in the United States. The moves have sent a wave of confusion and frustration through the small composing community eager to enhance those texts with musical settings.

Fr. John Foley, director of the Center for Liturgy at St. Louis University, the forum's sponsor, said the purpose of the gathering was to get composers together in a framework of general topics, then see what happened. Forum participants came eager to compare notes.

And as they gathered, any diversity in age, style and approach to liturgical music quickly gave way to common concerns. For some who earn their living writing music or serving as parish music directors, those concerns are a matter of professional survival. Two veteran composers told of being fired from parish music jobs because they were said to be out of step with the current climate of liturgical correctness espoused by some conservatives. Others said bishops had asked people to report "abuses." One said he had been accused of "politicizing the assembly" for asking too many questions in his music. Others expressed concern that a change of pastor could wipe out an entire liturgical team. Summarizing the group's concerns, one composer put it, "We want to serve the church. Just tell us what the rules are."

Their confusion is understandable.

When the U.S. Catholic bishops met in June of 1997 to finalize an almost decade-long revision of the 1970 lectionary -- the book of scripture readings and psalm responses used at Mass -- they were confronted by a new set of translation guidelines from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, effectively bringing the process to a halt.

At issue was a long-standing quarrel between U.S. bishops and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who heads the Congregation, over the issue of inclusive language. After fierce debate among the bishops, a majority voted for compromise adoption of a provisional text subject to review in five years.

The new Vatican norms, coming this late in the process, overrode the U.S. bishops' own 1991 guidelines urging inclusive language. For composers, such battles over approved texts put the work of creating musical settings in limbo. Some compositions had already been based on earlier guidelines, like the 1968 norm from Rome that accepted music from any translation with an imprimatur for use with processional chants or chants between the readings. Those works have been put on hold by publishers until it is resolved whether existing guidelines are still in effect.

Musicians cite further confusion by official approval, then disapproval in the United States for the new Revised Standard Version used throughout much of the English-speaking world. Compositions anticipating Rome's approval of the bishop's own copyrighted New American Bible translation were caught in the pipeline by Vatican approval flip-flops in 1992 and 1994.

The CDF's assault on the lectionary has cast a long shadow over another text approval process that has deeply engaged the creative energy of many liturgical composers. The sacramentary -- the book of prayers used at Mass -- may be the latest casualty in what some composers characterize as Rome's effort to bring the American church to its knees because it is the most visible and vocal advocate for Vatican II reforms.