O how delightful, * o Lord, is thy Spirit, Who, that Thou may show Thy sweetness unto Thy children, having granted them most sweet bread from heaven, fillest the hungry with good things, and sendest away empty the scornful rich. (The Magnificat antiphon for First Vespers of Corpus Christi.)
Aña O quam suávis est, * Dómine, spíritus tuus, qui, ut dulcédinem tuam in filios demonstráres, pane suavíssimo de caelo prǽstito, esurientes reples bonis, fastidiósos dívites dimittens inánes.
A very nice polyphonic setting by the Spanish composer Alonso Lobo (1555-1617), a contemporary of Victoria, who held him in the highest regard.
Another by William Byrd (1540 ca. - 1623)
A particularly fine recording of the Gregorian melody of the hymn Pange, lingua, gloriosi Corporis mysterium, which is sung at both Vespers.
And finally, an absolutely splendid version by Victoria himself, alternating a different Gregorian melody with polyphony.
Benedícite, gentes, Dóminum, Deum nostrum, et obaudíte vocem laudis ejus: qui posuit ánimam meam ad vitam, et non dedit commovéri pedes meos: benedictus Dóminus, qui non amóvit deprecatiónem meam et misericordiam suam a me, allelúja. (The Offertory of the Fifth Sunday after Easter.)
Bless the Lord our God, ye nations: and harken to the voice of His praise, Who hath set my soul to live, and not given my feet to be moved: Blessed be the Lord, who hath not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me, allelúja.
A polyphonic setting by Palestrina.
From the Breviarium in Psalmos, a commentary on the Psalms traditionally attributed to either St Jerome or St Augustine, which was highly influential on the creators of the Roman chant repertoire.
“Bless the Lord our God, ye nations, and make heard the voice of his praise.” The Apostles preach these things, so that the nations may bless God Himself... and obey Him into whom they have been reborn through baptism.
“Who hath set my soul to live”, lest everlasting death consume it. Death has killed death, that is, Christ has killed our death. “And not given my feet to be moved”, but hath established me in the preaching which I have brought unto the gentiles.
“Blessed be the Lord, who hath not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me.” Being full of mercy, he hath not turned away my prayer from himself, because what I was asking was just, for his holy ears are always open to the prayers of the just. But let us humbly beseech the Lord, that He may open His ears to our prayers, and having granted forgiveness of sins, deliver us from our present troubles, and having made us a pure offering unto Himself, our vices being slain, join us to the multitudes of the Saints. Amen.
The following is based on a real letter. Dear Friend,
I’m sorry to hear that you’re experiencing some “ups and downs” with regard to the liturgy there, though it’s hardly surprising in a way. Your diocese is not well known for liturgical propriety or taste, and, beyond that, priests mostly have control over how the liturgy goes, which is why we end up with a lot of messes and relatively few triumphs. Once you grasp the essential problem of the optionitis of the new rite, you can then see clearly why the challenge of agreement on what to sing and when arises in such acute form. Very few clergy are well-trained nowadays in sacred music, and they often have a hard time understanding why (to take one notorious example) one would wish to use a Gradual instead of a responsorial psalm. They are just used to what they’re used to, and other things seem odd. This is the power of custom at work, and even bad custom, unfortunately, feels like, and is treated like, law.
You asked me how I ever got to the point of being able to sing so much chant at the place where I used to direct music. It was rather remarkable how things worked out. When I was first hired, I was in a position to convince the pastor—then a conservative who was open to Ratzingerian ideas—that Mass should be as “reverent” and “traditional” as possible. We wrote up a guide that we followed almost without deviation. There was also always a desire for a strong choir; and once people heard what the choir was capable of, they simply wanted that beauty to continue. Both my friends and my enemies would probably say that I kept a stranglehold on the program and fought hard against innovation or change, except when it was change in a more traditional direction.
In the end, as you know, I was too traditional for the place, especially under the dominance of new and more “progressive” (in reality, regressive: “Back to the ’70s!”) leadership, and so my tenure came to an end—but not before eleven good years had passed.
The use of Propers at daily Mass is certainly very exceptional in the Novus Ordo Missae [NOM] world. The place you pointed to as a model happens to be one of the few places on the planet where the Graduale Romanum is more commonly used than a hymnal.
Moreover, one must grasp—this is crucial—that the mentality of Catholics about daily Mass is very much a “low Mass” one. They want to get in and get out in a half-hour or so if possible. To my mind, this worked well enough when you had the real low Mass—a quiet, peaceful, contemplative Mass said by the priest and servers, with no music. But with the NOM’s near constant flow of words, a daily Mass can be a painfully didactic and unedifying experience; the chant, I found, helps a lot to dissipate that feeling and to elevate the worship, and it is possible to sing the Ordinary and Propers without Mass taking longer than about 40 minutes, provided the preaching does not carry on. Still, you have to understand that you are working from a baseline assumption of no music for weekdays, so every piece you add, no matter how beautiful or fitting, is already a step beyond that, and likely to be experienced, at least by some, as an unwelcome imposition.
The various Gregorian antiphons are, in keeping with the NOM’s character, optional. That is why no one can ever say “they must be sung,” even on Sundays or Holy Days. One can try to make a “hermeneutic of continuity” argument that they should be sung, that it’s better to do so, more fitting, but at the end of the day, they are as optional as the day is long. And options often facilitate the attitude: do what’s quickest, or even skip it altogether.
In the music program I used to direct, we did the Propers because, at the time, I was firmly convinced of the need for (and the possibility of) liturgical harmony between the old and new forms of the Mass, and others there were willing to accept my view because they liked the results. In the old Mass, in contrast, degrees of solemnity, and thus, required items of music, are hard-wired into the liturgy: you cannot do a High Mass or Solemn Mass without singing everything that must be sung. In the new Mass, solemnity is a subjective concept that is made up of a lot of accidental elements, which, again, can make navigating the waters quite a challenge.
Arguments for singing the antiphons at daily Mass are not difficult to come by (read this, this, and this), but you have to be prepared for pushback. One of the most disappointing aspect of fallen human nature is that a convincing argument, even an unanswerable argument, may still not be enough to shift someone to your position. That’s because people work by prejudice, sentiment, habit, instinct, laziness, fear, and a hundred other factors.
You asked me for recommended reading on the history and theology of the liturgy in our times, since your own education in Catholic institutions was deficient in this area. Don’t feel too badly; there is almost nowhere in the world where liturgy is studied from a traditional point of view, or even much at all, outside of traditionalist seminaries. Most degree programs are thoroughly in the grip of the “spirit of Vatican II” paradigm, and even when they are not, any serious or systematic critique of the liturgical revolution is verboten. Having and studying the following texts will constitute a profitable introductory course:
Ratzinger. A masterpiece—and the fact that it was globally attacked by progressives shows that he was very much on target.
Reid. A bit of heavy lifting but nothing is better on the concept of what development is and looks like and doesn’t look like.
Chiron. The perfect biography of a figure one must know about. Also lots of twentieth-century liturgical history.
Fiedrowicz. This book is essential reading on the history and theology of the liturgy. Just magnificent. And don’t skip the footnotes.
Shaw. Eminently practical and thorough, with copious sources of documentation. Indispensable for background of all kinds.
Mosebach. The masterpiece on the question of liturgy as art-form and the necessary aesthetic requirements of it.
That should be plenty to keep you busy. Be patient, do your best, and make time for the Byzantine liturgy you have in your neighborhood. It will teach you much.
The Vespers hymn for Passiontide Vexilla Regis, in alternating Gregorian chant, according to a different melody than the classic Roman one, and polyphony by Tomás Luis de Victoria.
Remember Thy compassion, o Lord, and Thy mercy, that are from of old; lest ever our enemies be lord over us; deliver us, o God of Israel, from all our distress. Ps. 24. To Thee, o Lord, have I lifted up my soul; o my God, I trust in Thee, let me not be put to shame. Glory be ... As it was... Remember Thy compassion... (A very nice recording of the Introit of the Second Sunday of Lent, more moderno, i.e., without ‘Gloria Patri’.)
Reminíscere miseratiónum tuárum, Dómine, et misericordiae tuae, quae a sáeculo sunt: ne umquam dominentur nobis inimíci nostri: líbera nos, Deus Israël, ex ómnibus angustiis nostris. Ps. 24 Ad te, Dómine, levávi ánimam meam: Deus meus, in te confído, non erubescam. Gloria Patri. Sicut erat. Reminíscere.
Dómine, non secundum peccáta nostra, quae fécimus nos: neque secundum iniquitátes nostras retríbuas nobis. V. Dómine, ne memíneris iniquitátum nostrárum antiquárum: cito antícipent nos misericórdiae tuae, quia páuperes facti sumus nimis. Hic genuflectiturV. Adjuva nos, Deus, salutáris noster: et propter gloriam nóminis tui, Dómine, líbera nos: et propitius esto peccátis nostris, propter nomen tuum.
Tract O Lord, not according to the sins which we have committed, nor according to our iniquities do Thou repay us.
V. Lord, remember not our former iniquities: let thy mercies speedily come before us, for we are become exceeding poor. All kneel.V. Help us, O God, our Savior: and for the glory of Thy name, O Lord, deliver us: and be merciful to our sins for Thy name’s sake.
This beautiful tract is sung every Monday, Wednesday and Friday of Lent until Holy Monday, with the exception of Ember Wednesday. Here is a polyphonic version by the Spanish composer Juan de Anchieta (1462-1523.)
A medieval chant manuscript in a digitized negative for scanning
In one of the better uses of technology (and EU funding), the Repertorium project is an effort to utilize “a set of AI-based tools to automate the digitalisation and cataloguing of historical mediaeval and classical music manuscripts.” In their own description:
REPERTORIUM is an ambitious European project with the primary goal of preserving and disseminating Europe’s historical musical heritage. Five Spanish organisations are participating in this initiative: the Higher Polytechnic School of Linares at the University of Jaén, the Complutense Institute of Musical Sciences, Complutense University, the University of Alicante, and the Hispanic Association for the Study of Gregorian Chant. This project, involving a total of 13 institutions and companies from eight countries, is creating a system based on open-source Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to facilitate the digitisation and cataloguing of historical musical archives.
They are laying claim to some remarkable fruits of this endeavor already:
Thanks to the system developed by the REPERTORIUM project, around 4,000 pieces of Gregorian chant have been recovered, pieces that had not been transcribed, studied, catalogued, or sung for over 1,000 years. These pieces have been digitised and catalogued, making them accessible to researchers and the general public through digital libraries.
There is not let a place online where the rediscovered chants may be viewed or downloaded, but their availability is part of the overall project, as can be found on page 24 of their vision document:
The database of mediaeval works being developed will find its home in DIAMM, the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music. Additionally, it will be indexed within the MMMO, also known as the Medieval Music Manuscripts Online database. DIAMM will inherit the metadata added via MMMO via API. These platforms will serve as the designated spaces for hosting and cataloguing the valuable collection of mediaeval musical works.
The mediaeval data will be publicly accessible, allowing researchers and enthusiasts to explore and utilise it. The metadata associated with this data will include essential information linked to the Cantus ID. The Cantus ID will be the unique identifier for data access, enabling users to locate and retrieve the desired information effectively. Lastly, the extensive collection of around 2,000 hours of audio recordings, which captures the entire liturgical cycle of traditional Latin chants from the Abbaye Sainte-Madeleine (Task 2.3), will be allocated individual Cantus IDs as they are added to the Neumz app. This identification system guarantees that each recording is distinctly identified within the database.
On January 25, 2025, a concert was performed at the Cathedral of Salamanca utilizing at least some of these rediscovered chants:
A reader who recently acquired from an antiquities dealer a handwritten letter from Pope St Pius X has kindly shared with us the image of the letter, a translation, and a look into the soul of Giuseppe Sarto, who so loved Gregorian chant that he quoted (relatively obscure) chants as authorities in making his argument.
The Letter
Note the elegance of penmanship. People like to say Pius X was a man of the people, a peasant, etc., and it’s true that he had holes in his shoes from walking back and forth to school. But, like any literate person before education tanked after the 1960s, he was taught excellent penmanship, grammar, and style. He was neither a country bumpkin nor a 21st-century public-school illiterate.
If you look closely on both the left and right sides, you can see fingerprints in what look to be the same color as the ink. My assumption is that these belong to Pope Pius as the ink would have been dry by the time the recipient received the letter. One might be reminded of an anecdote about Pius X:
Noted for his humility and simplicity, he declared that he had not changed personally save for his white cassock. Aides consistently needed to remind him not to wipe his pen on the white cassock, as he had previously done on his black cassock which hid stains.
While it cannot be seen from the digital image, when the letter is help up the light, the paper stock on which it was written contains a large and detailed watermark of the Pope’s face. In the lower right, there’s a watermark of the company that made the paper. The owner of this letter had it framed with double-sided glass so that the watermark can be observed while it's in the frame.
The document came with the original envelope in which it was mailed in 1908. That envelope is now quite stained and decayed, with some of the staining bleeding through to the letter.
The Transcription
The Translation
“Dearest Monsignor and Venerable Brother,
Please inform the canons of the cathedral of Chiavari that I have read with the greatest pleasure the story of the miraculous image of the Crucified, which is venerated in that city. - I congratulate them and the good people of Chiavari on this source of grace that Providence has reserved for them – and I pray that it might ever increase devotion for the good of souls. However, I believe it would not only disfigure the miraculous image with a gold crown, but would also contradict the very will of our Holy Redeemer, which allowed human malice, certainly for the highest purposes, to crown Him with thorns.
No image speaks so powerfully to the love of the true faithful as that of the Holy Crucified, and no crown, however precious, can replace the one that encircles the most holy head, of which the Church sings: The crown reddened with the blood of Christ, thorns changed to roses, and overcoming the wreath with its rewards, becomes more fitting for triumphal processions. [1] Hail, Crown of glory, More beautiful than gems and gold, knowing the sorrows of Christ you will surpass the crowns of the stars. [2]
I am certain that, as in the hymn, Venerable Brother, so shall the dearest canons enter into this sublime and holy concept, and with all best wishes, I impart the Apostolic Blessing.
Given at the Vatican on the 26th of November, 1908
Pius PP. X
To Msgr. Fortunato Vinelli Bishop of Chiavari
Notes
[1] The first hymn is “Exite Sion Filiæ,” from Lauds of the feast of the Receiving of the Crown of Thorns. It was also used for Vespers and Matins on the Friday after Quinquagesima Sunday, dedicated to the Most Holy Crown of Thorns of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Office of the Instruments of the Passion, or the Passion Offices.
[2] This line is from the hymn “Legis Figuris Pingitur” which comes from Lauds on the Friday after Quinquagesima Sunday, dedicated to the Most Holy Crown of Thorns of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
This coming Friday, February 7th, the church of Blessed Hugh of Faringdon in Faringdon, England, will host a lecture by our friend Thomas Neal, titled “The History and Future of Gregorian Chant in the Roman Liturgy.” The first part of this lecture will outline the history of Western liturgical chant from the Jewish temple worship of the Old Testament, through to the early church and the manuscripts of the 9th and 10th centuries. In the second part, Mr Neal will offer reflections on the nature and purpose of liturgical chant, and suggest reasons why it has always been considered the highest form of liturgical music. At the end of the lecture, there will be an opportunity for Q&A. The lecture will begin at 7:45pm; the church is located on Marlborough Street.
Thomas Neal is a teacher, musicologist, and church musician based in Oxford (UK). He read music to postgraduate level at Clare College, University of Cambridge, where he was the John Stewart of Rannoch Scholar in Sacred Music. His research focuses on the sources of sacred music in sixteenth-century Rome, with a particular focus on the life and works of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. Thomas has over fifteen years of experience directing music for the traditional Latin liturgy, in addition to conducting numerous choirs and period instrument ensembles in repertoire from Josquin to Haydn. Since 2018 he has been the Director of Music at New College School, Oxford.
The first page of the Laon Gradual, the oldest extant manuscript of liturgical chant.
Os Justi Press is proud to announce the publication of
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Designed primarily with TLM communities in mind, here are some highlights:
• Full Gregorian Kyriale in chant notation, including all 18 Solesmes Ordinaries plus several more (Du Mont, Hildegard, Pothier), 11 settings of the Creed, and all common tones of the Mass
• Complete text & chants of the traditional Requiem & Nuptial Masses
• More than 600 Catholic hymns, ancient and new, for every season and occasion, with original (non-modernized) lyrics and classic SATB harmonizations
• All your favorite hymns plus an astonishing repertoire specifically for saints' feasts: Our Lady (70 separate pieces for her!) and St. Joseph (7), but also St. Anne, the Holy Archangels, the Guardian Angels, St. John the Baptist, St. Peter, St. Paul, St. John, St. Stephen, the Holy Innocents, St. Cecilia, St. Martin, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, St. Benedict, St. Scholastica, St. Dominic, St. Francis, and more
• Many hymns feature organ introductions
• Concludes with several beloved Litanies, in English and in Latin chant: Holy Name; Sacred Heart; Our Lady (Loreto); St. Joseph; Saints
• Beautifully bound hardcover of nearly 900 pages, but still thin and light enough to make the book sit comfortably in the hand
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Here's a 3-minute promo video:
On the Sundays after Pentecost, most of the Communion chants are taken from the Psalms, as indeed are most of the Gregorian propers throughout the year. There are a some exceptions, however, such as the two from John 6, on the 9th and 15th Sundays, and another from Wisdom 16 on the 13th: “Thou hast given us bread from heaven, o Lord...” These are obviously chosen in reference to the Eucharist, although it has never been a habit of the Roman Rite (nor indeed, of any historical rite) to be consistently obvious in its choice and arrangement of liturgical texts, especially in the seasons without an overarching theme such as Advent or Passiontide. In Lent, a number of Communios are taken from the Gospel of the day, and there is one such in the time after Pentecost as well, on the third Sunday.
However, the Communio for the Sundays at the end of the year, from the 23rd to the last, may seem like a bit of a puzzler, since it is a text which has no evident reference to the Eucharist, and from a Gospel which is not part of the temporal cycle at all.
Communio Amen, dico vobis, quidquid orantes pétitis, crédite, quia accipiétis, et fiet vobis. (Amen I say to you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you shall receive, and it shall be done to you. Mark 11, 24.)
The explanation for this lies in a feature which is found in the early sources of the Roman Rite, and which was retained in many of its Uses up to the time of the Tridentine reform, but was not part of the Use of the later medieval Papal court, which became the Missal of St Pius V. In the earliest Roman lectionaries, proper epistles and gospels are assigned to the Wednesdays and Fridays of the weeks after Epiphany and Pentecost, as well as those of Advent and Eastertide. This Communio is taken from the Gospel which is assigned to the Wednesday of the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost, Mark 11, 23-26, in the second oldest lectionary of the Roman Rite, the Murbach capitulary, ca. 750 AD.
“[Jesus answering, saith to His disciples: Have the faith of God.] Amen I say to you, that whosoever shall say to this mountain, Be thou removed and be cast into the sea, and shall not stagger in his heart, but believe, that whatsoever he saith shall be done; it shall be done unto him. Therefore I say unto you, all things, whatsoever you ask when ye pray, believe that you shall receive; and they shall come unto you. * And when you shall stand to pray, forgive, if you have aught against any man; that your Father also, who is in heaven, may forgive you your sins. But if you will not forgive, neither will your Father that is in heaven, forgive you your sins.”
The Gospel mentioned above in a Missal according to the Use of Cologne, printed in 1487.
There is no immediately evident reason why the Communio should be taken from the Gospel of the feria, rather than that of the Sunday, but this is not the only such case. The Communio of the 3rd through 6th Sundays after Epiphany is Luke 4, 22, the end of a long-obsolete ferial Gospel attested in the very oldest Roman lectionary, the Wurzburg capitulary, ca. 650. We should note in passing that when Sacrosanctum Concilium spoke of broadening the corpus of Scriptural readings in the Mass (in paragraphs 35 and 51), the broader context of the document makes it clear that what it was talking about was the revival of an authentically ancient and Roman custom such as this, and not the creation of wholly new lectionary founded on more than oneerroneous conceit.
Although this passage is missing from the medieval editions of the Roman Missal, and the early printed editions based on them, it returned to general use with the publication of the Missal of St Pius V, in which it forms the Gospel for the Mass of St Gregory the Wonderworker, whose feast is today. (The selection of verses is not exactly the same; it includes verse 22, in brackets above, and ends at the asterisk.) The reason for this is that Gregory is traditionally said to have moved part of a mountain, as explained in the lessons of the 3rd nocturn of Matins on his feast day, which are taken from St Bede’s commentary on the Gospel of Mark.
“The heathen, who have written curses against the Church, are wont to reprove our people by saying that they did not have full faith in God, because they never been able to move mountains. To these it should be answered that not all things have been written down which have been done in the Church, just as the Scripture also bears witness concerning the deeds of Christ our Lord Himself. (John 21, 25) Whence this could also happen, that a mountain might be lifted up and cast into the sea, should this be necessary, as we read was done by the prayers of the blessed father Gregory, bishop of Neo-Caesarea in Pontus, a man outstanding in his merits and virtues...
A stained-glass window in the cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston, which shows St Gregory moving the mountain (in a much more dramatic fashion than in St Bede’s account.) Image from Wikimedia Commons by Faragutful, CC BY-SA 4.0.
for when he wished to build a church in a suitable place, but saw that it was too narrow, being wedged in between a precipice on the sea on one side, and a mountain on the other, he came there by night, and kneeling down, reminding the Lord of His promise... and in the morning ... found that the mountain had left as much space as the builders required for the church. Therefore this man, or other man of like merit, was have been able, if need were, to obtain from the Lord by the merit of his faith, that even a mountain should be removed, and be cast into the sea.”
Fully in keeping with the exegetical traditions of the earlier Fathers, St Bede goes on to give a spiritual explanation of this passage as well. “But since by the term ‘mountain’ is sometimes signified the devil, namely, on account of the pride whereby he lifts himself up against God, and wishes to be like unto the Most High (Isa. 14, 14), a mountain is lifted up and cast into the sea at the command of whose who are mighty in faith when holy teachers preach the Word, and an unclean spirit is driven out of the hearts of them that are foreordained unto eternal life...”
This is the second part of a guest article by Mr Thomas Neal on the chants of the ongoing feast of All Saints; the first part was published on Friday. Mr Neal is a teacher, musicologist, and church musician based in Oxford (UK), where inter alia he serves as the Director of Music at New College School. Our thanks to him once again for sharing with us the interesting results of his research.
Alleluia
Allelúia, allelúia. Veníte ad me, omnes, qui laborátis et oneráti estis: et ego refíciam vos. Allelúia. (Come to Me, all you who labour and are burdened, and I will give you rest.)
The Alleluia verse is a quotation from the Gospel of St. Matthew 11, verse 28. More research is required to determine the sources of this melody. In my (admittedly brief) searches, the earliest chant manuscript I could find with this text is the 11th-century Cantatorium of the Use of St. Martial de Limoges; among the later sources are a 15th-century Graduale from Maastricht; but both transmit other melodies that are markedly different from that in the Liber usualis.
This text was set by composers such as Palestrina, Andrea Gabrieli, Jacobus de Kerle, Orlando di Lasso, and Jacob Regnart. But it is perhaps Felice Anerio’s glorious setting for double choir (Selectae cantiones octonis vocibus concinendae, 1614) that is best known today:
I would also commend the slightly later setting by Heinrich Schütz, which was published in the first volume of his groundbreaking collection Symphoniae sacrae (1629):
However, Venite ad me is not the only text associated with the Alleluia for the feast of All Saints. Many chant manuscripts from the 10th through to the 14th centuries have the verse Vox exsultationis [4], while one 10th-century tropaire has the verse as O quam gloriosum, adapted from the Book of the Apocalypse (7, verse 9). [5] This text is still to be found as the Magnificat antiphon at Second Vespers of All Saints, and was set to polyphony by numerous sixteenth-century composers, most famously by Tomás Luis de Victoria (Motecta, 1572):
Offertory
Justórum ánimæ in manu Dei sunt, et non tanget illos torméntum malítiae: visi sunt óculis insipiéntium mori: illi autem sunt in pace, allelúia. (The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead: but they are in peace. Alleluia.)
Several early liturgical manuscripts (such as the twelfth-century Gradual of Bellay Abbey) give Mirabilis Deus as the Offertory for the Mass of All Saints, while manuscripts of Old Roman chant specify the widely used chant Laetamini. [6] It is unclear when it was changed to Justorum animae, although this must have occurred at a comparatively early stage. The text comprises the first three verses of the third chapter of the Book of Wisdom, a passage that had already had a long association with the feast of All Saints, appearing in various forms in the texts of the Office.
The melody for the new Offertory text was adapted from the Offertory chant for the feast of St. Michael, Stetit angelus, the earliest source for which appears to be the Graduel de Laon. (Bibliothèque municipale Ms 0239, f.73v.) This famous manuscript was copied for use at the cathedral of Laon in the final quarter of the ninth century, making it one of the very oldest surviving examples of Western musical notation. Perhaps the earliest copy of the chant adapted to the Justorum animae text is that found in the Graduale Narbonese, a manuscript copied at the cathedral of Arles in the tenth century, using so-called ‘Aquitaine’ notation. [7]
Justorum animae has been set many times by composers. The versions by Palestrina (Offertoria, 1593) and Byrd (Gradualia, 1605) are among the most well-known, but this one by Orlando di Lasso (Sacrae cantiones, 1582) remains my personal favourite:
With a nod to Anglican patrimony, the setting by Charles Villiers Stanford is also extremely attractive and deserves to be better known:
Communion
Beáti mundo corde, quóniam ipsi Deum vidébunt; beáti pacífici, quóniam filii Dei vocabúntur: beáti, qui persecutiónem patiúntur propter iustítiam, quóniam ipsórum est regnum caelórum. (Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God. Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.)
The text is taken from the Gospel of the feast, the Beatitudes in the Gospel of St. Matthew, chapter 5, verses 8-10. The earliest surviving source for this chant appears to be the Laon Graduale (f.71r), where it appears as a proper Communion for the feast of Ss. Felix and Adauctus (30 August).
Among the few polyphonic settings of this text is Byrd’s, from the Gradualia (1605):
Exitus
A vast amount of music has been composed for this important feast. However, one composition frequently omitted from music programmes is Palestrina’s six-voice Missa Ecce ego Johannes. Even among that composer’s incomparable corpus of Masses, this exquisite setting surely ranks near the top. The model for this Mass has yet to be identified, but the title suggests a motet setting the Chapter at First and Second Vespers of All Saints. It survives in only one source: a choirbook copied for use by the Cappella Sistina around the time of the composer’s death in 1594:
NOTES:
[4] Among the earliest sources with this verse are the 10th-century Gradual from St Gallen (St Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod 0342, f.195) and the Gradual copied for the Abbaye Saint-Sauveur de Prüm around 990 (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Lat. 9448, f.76r). [5] Bibliothèque nationale de France, Lat. 1118, f.94v.
[6] Roberto J. Snow, ‘The Old-Roman Chant,’ Gregorian Chant, ed. Willi Apel (London: Burns & Oates, 1958), pp.484-505: at 468.
[7] If I am correct, then Dom. Johner’s statement that the chant was adapted to the new text during the twelfth century, is inaccurate. See: Dom. Johner, The Chants of the Vatican Gradual, p.470.
We are very grateful to Mr Thomas Neal for sharing with us this excellent article on the chants of today’s feast. Mr Neal is a teacher, musicologist, and church musician based in Oxford (UK). He read music to postgraduate level at Clare College, University of Cambridge, where he was the John Stewart of Rannoch Scholar in Sacred Music. His research focuses on the sources of sacred music in sixteenth-century Rome, with a particular focus on the life and works of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. Thomas has over fifteen years of experience directing music for the traditional Latin liturgy, in addition to conducting numerous choirs and period instrument ensembles in repertoire from Josquin to Haydn. Since 2018 he has been the Director of Music at New College School, Oxford; he lives in Oxford with his wife, Catherine, and their three children.
The origins of the feast of All Saints have traditionally been traced to the most ancient custom of marking the anniversary of a martyr’s death. By the fourth century, adjacent dioceses would commemorate the feasts of each other’s martyr-saints, divide and transfer their relics, and coordinate common feasts. However, the persecutions under Diocletian (r.284-305) created so many martyrs that commemorations began to be grouped together. Eventually, a common day for all saints was appointed: the first trace of this feast is at Antioch, when it was observed on the Sunday after Pentecost. Reference to this or a similar feast appears in the writings of St. Ephrem the Syrian (d.373) and St. John Chrystostom (c.347-407).
In an article published here in 2017, Gregory DiPippo proposed an attractive theory that the feast of All Saints on 1 November has its origins in the iconoclast heresies of the eighth and ninth centuries. [1] Pope St. Gregory II (r.715-31) was quick to condemn the perpetrators of the iconoclasm that broke out in 726, and publicly reprimanded emperor Leo III for his role the destruction. His immediate successor, Pope St. Gregory III (r.731-41), convoked a synod at Rome on 1 November 731, during which he decreed the excommunication of all who committed iconoclasm against images of Our Lord, the Mother of God, the Apostles and all the saints. He dedicated a chapel in Old St. Peter’s basilica to All Saints and designated 1 November as its feast day. Recent research has demonstrated that this chapel was situated in front of the martyrium of St. Peter, on the south side of the nave and within the pars virorum. One of the texts inscribed in stone at the time of Gregory III can be seen in the crypt of the new basilica, left of the tomb of Emperor Otto II. The pope planned for a Mass to be offered in the chapel daily, commemorating not only the saints in the calendar or whose relics were kept in the chapel, but for all saints, including those known only to God. [2]
A cross-section drawing of the old basilica of St Peter as it was at the end of the 15th century.
In a follow-up to his first article, DiPippo further proposed that the construction of the oratory of St. Lawrence in the Lateran Palace (known as the Sancta Sanctorum), with its unique collection of relics and the icon of the Saviour, may have been constructed partly in response to the iconoclast heresies. (Vittorio Lanzani, Le grotte vaticane: memorie storiche, devozioni, tombe dei papi (Rome: De Rosa, 2010), p.242) The chapel is first mentioned in the life of Pope Stephen III (r.768-72) in the Liber Pontificalis, while the icon is known to have been in Rome by 753 when Pope Stephen II (r.752-57) carried it through the streets to implore Divine assistance against the threat of the Lombard invasion.
Nearly a century after the synod at Rome, during another wave of iconoclasm, Pope Gregory IV (r.827-844) extended this feast to the universal church. In so doing, DiPippo suggests, he upheld both the cult of the Saints and the Church’s true teaching on sacred images.
As the feast was introduced into the universal calendar only in the mid-ninth century, it does not feature in the more ancient manuscripts of liturgical chant. Some of the chants were borrowed and adapted from older feasts, while others appear for the first time in connection with the feast of All Saints.
Introit
Gaudeámus omnes in Dómino, diem festum celebrántes sub honóre Sanctórum ómnium: de quorum sollemnitáte gaudent Angeli et colláudant Fílium Dei. Exsultáte, iusti, in Dómino: rectos decet collaudátio. Glória Patri… Gaudeámus omnes…
Let us all rejoice in the Lord, celebrating a feast day in honour of all the Saints, on whose solemnity the angels rejoice, and join in praising the Son of God. Exult, you just, in the Lord; praise from the upright is fitting. Glory be to the Father… Let us all rejoice…
The Introit comprises a general text calling on the assembly to rejoice in the feast, with the verse(s) taken from Psalm 32. To my knowledge, no other Introit has been recorded in connection with this feast. The melody is of such ancient origins that several of the oldest surviving chant manuscripts do not even provide notation. [3] According to Dom. Johner, it was originally composed for a Greek text for the feast of St. Agatha; it gained popularity and was gradually assigned to a range of other feasts, including (until the 1951 reforms) the Assumption. The earliest surviving source for this chant in relation to the feast of All Saints is the manuscript Missal copied by the Benedictine monks of Andechs Abbey between 900 and 930.
The text’s lively call to rejoice is wonderfully reflected in William Byrd’s setting, found in his monumental collection Gradualia (1605):
Gradual
Timéte Dóminum, omnes Sancti eius: quóniam nihil deest timéntibus eum. Inquiréntes autem Dóminum, non defícient omni bono.
Fear the Lord, you His holy ones, for nought is lacking to those who fear Him. But those who seek the Lord want for no good thing.
The text of the Gradual is taken from Psalm 33, verses 10-11. One of the earliest surviving musical sources for this chant is the late tenth-century manuscript copied between 960 and 970 at the abbey of Einsiedeln (Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, Codex 121), in which it is notated in adiastematic neumes. According to the Graduale Triplex, the chant also survives in the ninth-century Gradual of Compiègne (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Lat.17436, f.128). In that source and other ancient manuscripts, it is assigned to the feast of St. Cyriacus and his companions (8 August). The twelfth-century Gradual from Bellelay Abbey (Porrentruy, Bibliothèque cantonale jurassienne, MS 18) provides perhaps the earliest version in diastematic neumes, and is notated so clearly that an experienced schola might easily sing from its pages today.
In 1777, Michael Haydn (brother of Joseph) composed this glorious setting, which ingeniously plays on the contours of the plainchant melody:
NOTES
[1] Traditionally, the feast has been somewhat loosely connected with the consecration of the basilica Santa Maria ad Martyres (the Pantheon) at Rome by Pope Boniface IV (r.608-615) on 13 May 609 (the same date mentioned by St. Ephrem). Such an interpretation requires an equation of the martyrs with all saints—a point that DiPippo convincingly refutes by looking at the practice of the stational churches at Rome in the Octave of Easter.
[2] See the literature cited in: Éamonn Ó Carragáin, ‘Interactions between liturgy and politics in Old Saint Peter’s, 670-741. John the Archcantor, Sergius I amd Gregory III,’ Old Saint Peter’s, Rome, eds. Rosamond McKitterick, John Osborne, Carol M. Richardson, and Joanna Story. British School at Rome Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp.177-189: at 188-189. See also: Charles B. McClendon, ‘Old Saint Peter’s and the Iconoclastic Controversy,’ pp.214-228.
[3] The twelfth-century Premonstratensian Gradual from Bellelay Abbey (Porrentruy, Bibliothèque cantonale jurassienne, MS 18), for example, assigns this Introit melody to five separate feasts (The Assumption, St. Mary Magdalen, The Nativity of Our Lady, All Saints, and the Common of Many Virgins), but gives only the text incipit for each. At this point, I would like to acknowledge the incredible work of Dominique Gatté, Jan Koláček, and all the team involved in producing and maintaining the Medieval Music Manuscripts Online Database (https://musmed.eu/), without which much of the basic research for this article would have been impossible
The following guest essay was written by Garrett Meyer. For many years, defenders of Gregorian chant have leaned heavily into Sacrosanctum Concilium, and there can be no doubt that the drafters of its chapter on sacred music were indeed committed to the primacy of chant. However, Meyer challenges us to rethink the implications of the phrase “ceteris paribus” and to ask whether this was not, in fact, a gentle kiss of death.—PAK
While discussing the liturgical reform with me in the Letters of New Polity Winter 2022 Issue, Dr. Marc Barnes held a mirror in front of traditional Catholics to reveal the liberals. They seem “to stomach the Holy Church insofar as it can be baked into the basic hero of North American liberalism: a hidden authenticity smothered by an oppressive, institutional body.” [1] This might be a fair critique of the cranky Catholics who just want to be left alone to their liturgical preferences, but it misses a contingent of traditionalists (likely overlapping with New Polity readers) who grumble against the hierarchs for not restricting their “authenticity” enough.
Rebels Because They Are Without a Cause
Catholics have become liberals, as it were, all the way up. We have all been “oppressed” with freedom (of the liberal sort) since at least Vatican II, if not the Fall. Religious freedom gets all the headlines, but sacred music suffers as well from what we might call inverted smothering. While a superficial reading of Sacrosanctum Concilium §116 [2] suggests otherwise, Catholics are indeed forced to refuse Gregorian chant true pride of place [3] in liturgical services. Let us carefully read every word of this disputed article:
The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.
When deploying Vatican II to boost Gregorian chant, conservative Catholics almost always omit the phrase, “other things being equal.” Barnes, to his credit, defends this clause with full-throated gravitas. For him, it belongs to “the nature of the Church, the people of God at liberty, by Grace, to determine whether or not other things are, indeed, equal.” [4] This is not the only instance of Barnes identifying the Church’s mission as something unusual—I’m looking at you, “Hats Off” [5]—but at least the act of hatting admits of many metaphorical meanings. The same cannot be said for determining-the-equality-of-other-things. Try finding a single synonym.
This phrase, ceteris paribus in Latin, is neither scholastic nor patristic nor biblical, but comes from liberal economic theory. [6] It is strange for Vatican II to slip in the expression, and stranger still for Barnes to double down on it. From John Stuart Mill [7] to Investopedia.com [8] to even the farmers Beth and Shawn Dougherty [9], it is applied to an economic law as a qualifier. It means that the pertinent rule only perfectly holds in a model, for it requires conditions to be so static that it would be unusual if the rule simply held true in relentlessly-dynamic reality. Even if “other things are equal” now, they never stay that way. The use of ceteris paribus thus reveals not just a simplification, but an oversimplification.
To show this, suppose that you are on a field trip for your economics class. You go out to a local farmer’s market, or car dealership, or megacorp boardroom. You see friends disregarding the sticker price and enemies insisting upon it. You return to your instructor and shout, “The law of supply and demand is no law at all!” He condescends to comfort you, saying, “My dear, dear child. The principle only applies ‘other things being equal’—and they were not.”
When it comes to Vatican II and SC §116, some Catholic commentators inflect the phrase differently, saying that the liturgical law holds even if other things are equal, not only if. In their minds, ceteris paribus is an insufficient disqualification, not a necessary precondition. Gregorian chant should thus always (or at least normally) hold pride of place.[10] Barnes’s co-authored “Manifesto of the New Traditionalism” seems to interpret things just this way: “According to the very constitution initiating these reforms, the Sacred Liturgy should emphasize … Gregorian chant.” [11] The Manifesto then laments, “How rarely this is accomplished!” and calls the liturgical reform “betrayed” (by whom it does not say). [12]
But in his New Polity letter, Barnes changes tack. He stresses that one should not be offended if “the people of God at liberty” determine that Gregorian chant deserves demotion, precisely because of ceteris paribus. The reason that he appears a conservative in one instance, and a progressive the next, is not that he is flip-flopping. Indeed, he is one of the most radically consistent men which I have had the pleasure to meet. His honesty is indeed why I do not quite believe his gracious excuse for my own rash misreading—namely, that he co-wrote a document which misrepresented his own views, a slipup made possible because he “is not, say, a bishop in council.” [13] He would not sign something he did not believe, and he would retract it if he did. With great trepidation, therefore, I accuse Barnes of dancing around on the stage of liberalism, instead of his happier pastime (and greatly needed service) of ripping it up plank-by-plank.
Here is my evidence: If you grant that ceteris paribus in SC §116 means anything at all, then you are already a liberal. For you have made the deserved place of Gregorian chant not a consequence of its inner nature, but an imposition (however benevolent) from without. Progressives maintain that the environments which afford Gregorian chant pride of place are rare, conservatives complain that they are common, and Barnes is content so long as the Church determines them. But no group questions that ontologically violent presupposition which says that the honor due to a thing flows not from what it is, but only from what the context makes it. Should Gregorian chant be given pride of place in liturgical services of the Roman Rite? The postliberal says, “yes,” while the liberal says, “it depends.”
From Sensus Fidelium to Magisterium
This is the more believable interpretation of SC §116, not just because of the aforementioned etymology and my testimony (as well as my once-corrected-but-still-surely-incomplete interpretation of Barnes). [14] It just makes more sense of the historical data. What did Catholics by-and-large do from 1969 to this day? A few one-off parishes continue to plainchant [15], but the rest promptly and completely forgot all of it—that is to say, a liberal prescription was applied liberally in a liberal world. I was delighted that a simple tone Salve Regina broke out one night of the inaugural New Polity conference. Barnes and I seem to agree that this was an oddity among collections of Catholic men because of SC §116, not despite it. [16]
Our common ground, however, quickly gives way to questions which neither Barnes nor I can answer. What are these “other things” which must be equal for Gregorian chant to deserve pride of place? “Equal” to what? How close is close enough to constitute equality? How frequently must we check? Who decides? Thankfully, we lay Catholics are not on our own in interpreting the passage. The most extensive exegesis from the Magisterium comes the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2007:
73. The “pride of place” given to Gregorian chant by the Second Vatican Council is modified by the important phrase “other things being equal.” These “other things” are the important liturgical and pastoral concerns facing every bishop, pastor, and liturgical musician. In considering the use of the treasures of chant, pastors and liturgical musicians should take care that the congregation is able to participate in the Liturgy with song. They should be sensitive to the cultural and spiritual milieu of their communities, in order to build up the Church in unity and peace. [17]
This may feel more solid, but, intentionally or not, the ambiguity remains. The bishops could be implying that only Gregorian chant allows a congregation to participate with song in the Roman Rite; that it alone responds sensitively to the depraved cultural and parched spiritual milieu of our communities; and that it is uniquely capable of building up Church unity. However “based” the kids might find this interpretation, it is a strained one. If it were true, the “pride of place” given to Gregorian chant would not need to be “modified” in the first place. [18] Rather, our bishops most likely anticipated Gregorian chant as an obstacle to the full participation of the faithful, an insensitivity to modern needs, and a disturbance of the peace, and so duly qualified it to impotence.
We cannot blame the USCCB if, in their equivocal statements, they allow Gregorian chant to be considered a stumbling block. Certainly, they needed to accommodate the unequivocal statements of Pope Saint Paul VI. In 1969, six years after Sacrosanctum Concilium and just prior to the promulgation of the Novus Ordo, Paul VI gave a frank address to the pious people disturbed most by the impending changes:
8. It is here that the greatest newness is going to be noticed, the newness of language. No longer Latin, but the spoken language will be the principal language of the Mass. The introduction of the vernacular will certainly be a great sacrifice for those who know the beauty, the power and the expressive sacrality of Latin. We are parting with the speech of the Christian centuries; we are becoming like profane intruders in the literary preserve of sacred utterance. We will lose a great part of that stupendous and incomparable artistic and spiritual thing, the Gregorian chant.
9. We have reason indeed for regret, reason almost for bewilderment. What can we put in the place of that language of the angels? We are giving up something of priceless worth. But why? What is more precious than these loftiest of our Church's values?
10. The answer will seem banal, prosaic. Yet it is a good answer, because it is human, because it is apostolic.
11. Understanding of prayer is worth more than the silken garments in which it is royally dressed. Participation by the people is worth more—particularly participation by modern people, so fond of plain language which is easily understood and converted into everyday speech. [19]
Notice what Paul VI is and is not asserting here. He did not want Gregorian chant to simply stop being sung. Indeed, in 1974, he sent a booklet with some of the easiest chants to every bishop in the world for the edification of the faithful. [20] His sacrifice was much more subtle. Paul VI redefined Gregorian chant to be an impediment to modern man, in lieu of precisely what modern man, once converted, was to sing. The ancient custom was no longer a tradition, to be faithfully received and passed down, but a left-handed tool that no longer suited the understanding or participation of a right-handed world. Gregorian chant could still be sung within the Roman Rite, but no longer as the Roman Rite.
Paul VI rhetorically asked, “If the divine Latin language kept us apart from the children, from youth, from the world of labor and of affairs, if it were a dark screen, not a clear window, would it be right for us fishers of souls to maintain it as the exclusive language of prayer and religious intercourse?” [21] This question assumes the worldview of the world, wherein “divine” things can bar bishops from helping the rest of men. In granting this anti-Incarnational premise, Paul VI trusted not in the philosophy of Aristotelian-Thomism, but of Coca-Cola.
Seeing Our Nakedness
Within fourteen months of Paul VI’s self-professed “grave change” [22], Coca-Cola and ad agency executives hatched one of the most famous television advertisements of all time. [23] They wrote: “On a hilltop in Italy, we assembled young people from all over the world…” to sing these lilting words:
I’d like to buy the world a home And furnish it with love Grow apple trees and honey bees And snow white turtle doves I’d like to teach the world to sing In perfect harmony I'd like to buy the world a Coke And keep it company.
It’s the real thing. Coke is…what the world wants today. [24]
The advertisement presents attractive youth of all sexes, races, and dress united in Italy (of all places!) by one creed, actively participating in a perfectly intelligible English song about a soft drink. This is the diabolical inversion of the vision of Isaiah:
And in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. (Isaiah 2, 2)
From its fleeting molehill of monetary profit, the world mercilessly mocked the Church as failing to accompany the young, failing to unite the common man, and failing to understand “the real thing.” And Paul VI in some sense agreed.
With the blame squarely cast upon Latin, Paul VI’s solution was not to replace Gregorian chant with any one genre. The sacrificial victim becomes holy by the very law of God, and no other goat can be substituted for the scapegoat. [25] Rather, he presumed that dethroning Gregorian chant as the chief musical expression of Roman Catholicism would clear the way for a democratic invigoration of the entire religion. In the same 1974 booklet advocating for a “minimum repertoire of plain chant,” the Vatican encouraged bishops to encourage the musically-inclined to pick up the slack:
When vernacular singing is concerned, the liturgical reform offers “a challenge to the creativity and the pastoral zeal of every local church.” Poets and musicians are therefore to be encouraged to put their talents at the service of such a cause, so that a popular chant may emerge which is truly artistic, is worthy of the praise of God, of the liturgical action of which it forms part and of the faith which it expresses. [26]
After 50 years, I compare the glory of Gregorian chant, just now being rediscovered, with the “popular chant” that Paul VI attempted to summon into existence, and wonder if a mistake was made. Paul VI sacrificed a real thing to first allow, then “challenge,” then require his flock to invent a new thing. Thus, he could not praise the tradition as such, but only insofar as it historically served the private goals of understanding and participation—goals which, in his mind, were far better served today by the chosen genres of “every local parish.”
The immediate successor to Paul VI, Pope John Paul II, came tantalizingly close in 2003 to reinstating Gregorian chant as the template for sacred music. He said:
12. With regard to compositions of liturgical music, I make my own the “general rule” that St Pius X formulated in these words: “The more closely a composition for church approaches in its movement, inspiration and savour the Gregorian melodic form, the more sacred and liturgical it becomes; and the more out of harmony it is with that supreme model, the less worthy it is of the temple”. [27]
Though this rule is made “general” (scare quotes per the Vatican website), it remains shockingly illiberal. Gregorian chant itself—down to its simple, monophonic, free-rhythm “melodic form”—is held up as the exemplary cause of all sacred music. If John Paul II had extended his quotation of Pope Saint Pius X, he would have effectively abrogated SC §116: “The ancient traditional Gregorian Chant must, therefore, in a large measure be restored to the functions of public worship.” [28]
But John Paul II did not say this. Instead, he continued:
It is not, of course, a question of imitating Gregorian chant but rather of ensuring that new compositions are imbued with the same spirit that inspired and little by little came to shape it. [29]
Anyone seeking a return to Gregorian chant as such is thus rebuffed by a fiery sword. We can even imagine John Paul II as lamenting this exile, but he admits no power to end it. In this new world, “of course” the plain meaning of Pius X’s rule cannot hold. The “spirit” of Gregorian chant remains to be imitated, but its sharply distinguished letter has been relegated to out of the question.
Lament for paradise lost can easily give way to anger at the intransigence of “restorers.” How dare someone today compose a new free rhythm Gradual? Who lacks the pastoral heart or musical skill to go beyond merely “imitating Gregorian chant”? A man can press on and still sing a plain old Sanctus XVIII, but no longer is he doing so in humble obedience to Rome. Instead, it is borderline selfishness, filling the air with a dead language that few—perhaps not even he!—understands. If Gregorian chant itself is opposed to modern man’s active participation, then how much more so a lofted Latin schola which includes only the diligent or the talented?
The Fate of Tradition After 1776
The victory of liberalism over Roman sacred music comes into view. Gregorian chant appears no longer good for the whole body of Christ. Instead, it is of varying degrees of usefulness to individual Christians in each’s musical quest to understand and participate. It is hard for me, American that I am, not to see this as the outworkings of the American Revolution.
In The Politics of the Real, D.C. Schindler proposes that the Declaration of Independence installed “ ‘Nature’s God’ as the sovereign principle of the new political order. This is a God defined specifically abstracted from any particular, i.e., actual, tradition so as to be potentially available to any and all of them.” [30] What Schindler says of the American Revolution and traditions broadly construed seems to apply, with only slight tailoring, to Vatican II and sacred music:
It represents the liberation of all possibilities, the inclusiveness of all possible traditions and cultures—within certain minimal constraints (the tradition one chooses for oneself cannot disrupt the public order, it cannot threaten public safety, it cannot harm others or exclude their own cultural expressions.) The point is that all of the contents of tradition can be affirmed, but now only in a new form, as not traditional, no longer representing something that precedes me as an authority and entails a claim on me prior to any choice I might make. All traditions are welcome—indeed, the greater diversity of traditions the better, since a single tradition would inexorably tend to take on a traditional form. But they are welcome only as “neutralized,” as various species of “tradition” in general that present themselves now as objects of choice, submitted to the only actual authority in play—reason as exercised by the private individual. [31]
It may be the case that Schindler’s argument can only hold because Roman Catholicism and liberalism are each totalizing forms, while Gregorian chant is not. Pope Boniface VIII declared, stated, and defined that “it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff,” [32] not “that every human creature sing Tantum Ergo.” But we should expect that if liberalism is, in fact, a societal form, it is re-presented fractally within every subdomain of human activity, and analogies from subworld to world can hold water.
In the analogy, the SC §116 places Gregorian chant in the same liberal domain as the Declaration places the true God. A pastor cannot settle the liturgy wars—as a true authority could—because he himself is recast as just one more private individual taking a side. These wars have resulted in statistically less Gregorian chant, instead of more, because Gregorian chant fails to meet Paul VI’s new “minimal constraints”: music cannot disrupt public participation (analogous to order) nor threaten public understanding (analogous to safety).
Each citizen within a parish’s boundaries (not just the fraction that attend Mass) has similar veto power over traditional music in the sanctuary as he does over religious direction in the neutral public square. In both cases, this veto is made stronger by his absence, since a music minister or state representative can more easily indict custom by pointing to an empty chair than to a man. Once living, breathing people are involved, piety sometimes wins.
Coming to the present day, it seems that Pope Francis has reaffirmed the private ability to negate tradition and neglected the corporate strength required to live it. In revoking Summorum Pontificum, Francis indicated that bishops should “discontinue the erection of new personal parishes tied more to the desire and wishes of individual priests than to the real need of the ‘holy People of God.’ ” [33] Francis frames the Traditional Latin Mass, so intimately bound to Gregorian chant, as nothing more than a hobby of individual priests that today competes with the unity of the Church. Anyone who maintains love for it is thereby suspected of schism. Barnes himself makes no excuses for the “dissent, disobedience, and sedevacantist playacting that characterizes the traditionalist movement today” (emphasis mine). [34] In his letter, Barnes does not praise Gregorian chant above the liberty to refuse it. Within liberalism, no one can.
Clinging to “the One Blessing Not Forfeited by Original Sin”
In the place of allegiance to actual traditions, liberalism ushers in all traditions in potentia. Likewise, after SC §116 supposedly elevates Gregorian chant, it states the following:
But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action, as laid down in Art. 30.
This neutralizes the (already hopelessly hypothetical) “pride of place” due to Gregorian chant should it somehow spill over from potency to actuality, from bridesmaid to bride, and root itself in that highest of liturgical celebrations, the Mass. [35] Just how married are you to a particular woman if you “by no means” forsake any other? When you appear to compliment your lawfully-wedded wife, do you take pains to reassure other women of your continued favor? Even the holiest saint on Earth cannot sing both the Introit and the St. Louis Jesuit’s “Let us build the City of God” [36] at the same time. One genre must be excluded, and only one option (by its membership in the set of “kinds of sacred music” other than Gregorian chant) merits Vatican II’s protection from exclusion.
To clarify the marriage metaphor, it is not every soul on earth that should be wed to Gregorian chant. Rather, it is the Roman Rite which was historically, culturally, and theologically wedded to Gregorian chant till death. And who has checked in on the widower since his house fell silent? Liturgists of both conservative and progressive persuasions concur that the traditional Roman Rite was “destroyed” in the making of the new, [37] but this will nonetheless seem exaggerated to those unfamiliar with all that changed in 1969. I include Dr. Barnes in this category because of the attempt in his letter to backhandedly compliment traditionalists. He wrote that traditionalists’ local parish “could probably use their knowledge of the propers,” [38] but I can assure him that devotees of the 20th-century Tridentine Mass do not know the Novus Ordo propers in the first place. Only 13% of the 1,273 rotating orations of the traditional Roman Missal were preserved intact in the “flood,” [39] and precious few readings were left in their original place in the impossible-to-memorize triennial lectionary.
I know that reform-of-the-reformers such as Barnes earnestly wish to hear Gregorian chant again fill the sanctuaries of the Roman Church. But the Council Fathers gave and Paul VI confirmed an infinitely wide cop-out which we laity cannot rescind. What is worse is that we liberals, more than anything, love “keeping our options option.” We felt privileged rather than slighted to honor Gregorian chant with our fingers crossed behind our back. Where before there was a gold standard of sacred music, now there is a free market, with every individual as the arbiter of value.
It takes considerable virtue to deny such license. Suppose that a father of a bride makes a solemn request to his soon-to-be son-in-law: “Take care of my baby girl.” The groom starts to promise, “I will”, but the father continues, “other things being equal, of course.” Would not the righteous man, in a fit of offended chivalry, reject this interposed condition, saying “no, sir, other things being damned!”
It is with this degree of fervor that I wish for the Roman Catholic Church to un-sacrifice Gregorian chant, relinquishing in totality the potential to conjure up something better. Restoring Gregorian chant to true pride of place would in fact exclude other worthy genres such as polyphony, motets, and hymns from occupying the exact same honor. However, I grant D.C. Schindler’s point that “there is no going back” to simply reproducing the old pre-liberal forms. [40] Recommending that every smartphone-wielding Catholic download the free app Chant Tools [41] will not fix things to God’s satisfaction, but I suspect that seeing again the good of Gregorian chant might do the trick.
I myself cannot teach the depths of this good, but I can defend chant as not evil. Gregorian chant is a wonderful gift of “priceless worth” [42] (as Paul VI affirmed) because by its nature it fosters actual participation and understanding of prayer (as Paul VI denied). If it did not so augment the faith of all, it would not have “priceless worth” in the first place, nor would Pope St. Pius X have described active participation by the laity as preciselycontingent upon it in his 1903 command: “Special efforts are to be made to restore the use of the Gregorian Chant by the people, so that the faithful may again take a more active part in the ecclesiastical offices, as was the case in ancient times.” [43]
A mere sixty years later, Vatican II required the Church to forever look this gift horse in the mouth, rather than ride it roughshod over Her spiritual enemies. SC §116 may at first seem to level the sacred music playing field for the benefit of all men, but it only succeeds in erecting the prison of human opinion. Within it, Satan holds our musical dowry from the ancient fathers, our patrimony from St. Gregory the Great, the crown of the crown of all sacred art, behind illusory gates constructed of our own pride. No one should prize the “freedom” to respect the liberal mirage.
[3] I believe that “chief place” is a better rendering of the original Latin, principem locum, but the translation on the Vatican website, when read charitably, conveys the same sentiment.
[6] I am sure that there is a better story here than I can tell. Can it be a coincidence that, per the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the words ceteris paribus were scarcely used between Cicero and Luis de Molina, those two bookends of Christendom?
[7] “John Stuart Mill used the explicit phrase ‘ceteris paribus’ only occasionally but it had an important impact because he characterized economy by its way of coping with disturbing factors: ‘Political economy considers mankind as solely occupied in acquiring and consuming wealth […] not that any political economist was ever so absurd as to suppose that mankind is really thus constituted […] when a concurrence of causes produces an effect, these causes have to be studied one at a time, and their laws separately investigated […] since the law of the effect is compounded of the laws of all the causes which determine it.’” https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ceteris-paribus/index.html#ref-7
[8] “The difficulty with ceteris paribus is the challenge of holding all other variables constant in an effort to isolate what is driving change. In reality, one can never assume ‘all other things being equal.’” https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/ceterisparibus.asp
[9] “Now, food independence is a great goal, and all things being equal we’d love to reach for it, but given all the demands already made on our time, is it realistic to imagine that we can keep a dairy cow?” Considering the Family Cow: Why you want one and what it takes, page 8, Beth and Shawn Dougherty, 2021.
[12] Nor does the Manifesto say why, in its words, “the liturgy was unable to develop organically in this [the modern] era, all while Christian culture endured centuries of militant secularism and industrialization.” This sounds much like the liturgy was “smothered by an oppressive, institutional body,” since it would be hard to argue that the Church was not in control of Her own liturgy for hundreds of years. The New Traditionalists may be as guilty of liberalism as the Old.
[14] We are joined by other interpreters of various philosophical stances:
Summing up Joseph Gelineau’s position, Anthony Ruff states that “in effect chant has priority only when other factors do not overweigh, such as ‘functional value, or pastoral concern regarding the language employed, and also regarding the adaptation of the melodies to the capabilities of the assembly, etc’.” Ruff, Anthony. Sacred Music and Liturgical Reform: Treasures and Transformations (Chicago, IL: Liturgy Training Publications, 2007), 321-332
Joseph Swain states “The famous qualifier ceteris paribus (other things being equal) makes its appearance here to accommodate local conditions that might obstruct the use of plainchant or warrant its replacement by something more suitable for the sacred liturgy. In the light of both the theoretical nature of plainchant and the experience since the council, it is difficult to imagine what these conditions might be in any general case. The American Gospel Mass, sung where the local people have grown up with an alternative musical language owning a true sacred semantic, might be judged a situation where ‘other things’ outweigh the Gregorian advantages of biblical Mass propers specific for each Sunday: a universal and neutral language and a musical means to connect with the rest of the world.” Swain, Joseph P. Sacred Treasure: Understanding Catholic Liturgical Music (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 321.
[15] “A few” is very likely less than 1 in 20, based on a straw poll of ReverentCatholicMass.com and some back-of-the-envelope calculations on the number of parishes listed versus the total parishes in the United States..
[16] Conservatives may be right when they assert that Msgr. Johannes Overath and the Council Fathers did not intend this outcome. I, however, cannot read the hearts of the Council Fathers, but only their words. Nor can I change what those words mean. If their words misrepresent their will, I require another word from them (or their successors) to know this.
[18] The bishops’ intent to qualify any deference to be paid to chant, rather than boldly promote it, is also seen in their footnote citing the Vatican’s 1967 Instruction on Music in the Liturgy Musicam Sacram, which they write “further specifies that chant has pride of place ‘in sung liturgical services celebrated in Latin.’”
[23] The executives were quite explicit in their desire to fill the “niche” of uniting the world: “So that was the basic idea: to see Coke not as it was originally designed to be — a liquid refresher — but as a tiny bit of commonality between all peoples, a universally liked formula that would help to keep them company for a few minutes… Davis slowly revealed his problem. ‘Well, if I could do something for everybody in the world, it would not be to buy them a Coke.’ Backer responded, ‘What would you do?’ ‘I’d buy everyone a home first and share with them in peace and love,’ Davis said. Backer said, ‘Okay, that sounds good. Let’s write that and I’ll show you how Coke fits right into the concept.’” “Creating ‘I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke.’”
[25] To this day, Catholics are associated only with Gregorian chant despite its disuse and disfavor among them. Steve Martin, a comedian and agnostic, sings in a 2019 song “Atheists Don’t Have No Songs”: “Catholics dress up for Mass and listen to Gregorian chants. Atheists just take a pass, watch football in their underpants.” Steve Martin and The Steep Canyon Rangers, Rare Bird Alert, 2019, Universal Music Group,
[28] Nov 22, 1903 Motu Proprio Tra le Sollecitudini, Pope Pius X, n. 3. Pius X’s word choice of “restored” dispels any false history of a pre-Vatican II “golden age” for Gregorian chant. We can grant Mike Lewis’s point in his article “Gregorian chant and the post-Vatican II liturgy” that chanters today may be more competent, or even more in love with chant, than before. However, consistent with my argument, Pius X also said the word “must” without qualification, insisting on a moral obligation which was turned inside out post-Vatican II.
[29] Chirograph of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II For the Centenary of the Motu Proprio “Tra Le Sollecitudini” on Sacred Music.
[30] Page xvii, The Politics of the Real: The Church Between Liberalism and Integralism. D.C. Schindler, New Polity Press, Steubenville, OH, 2021
[32] Bull Unam Sanctamof Pope Boniface VIII promulgated November 18, 1302.
[33]Letter of the Holy Father Francis to the Bishops of the whole world, that accompanies the Apostolic Letter Motu Proprio Data “Traditionis Custodes” 16 July 2021
[37] “At this critical juncture, the traditional Roman rite, more than one thousand years old, has been destroyed.”
Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, K. Gamber ( Harrison, N.Y.,1993), p. 99. “Let those who like myself have known and sung a Latin-Gregorian High Mass remember it if they can. Let them compare it with the Mass that we now have. Not only the words, the melodies, and some of the gestures are different. To tell the truth, it is a different liturgy of the Mass. This needs to be said without ambiguity: the Roman Rite as we knew it no longer exists. It has been destroyed.” [Gelineau, Demain la liturgie: essai sur l’évolution des assemblées chrétiennes, Éditions du Cerf , Paris, 1976 pp. 9-10.]
[39] Rotating orations defined as “collects, secrets/super oblata, postcommunions and super populum,” excluding prefaces, hymns, and sequences. (October 01, 2021, “All the Elements of the Roman Rite”? Mythbusting, Part II, Matthew Hazell, New Liturgical Movement)
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