We are grateful to Don Francesco Deffenu, a priest of the Archdiocese of Cagliari (on the Italian island of Sardinia), and a student of the Pontificio Istituto di Musica Sacra in Rome, for preparing this article, which has been translated and edited by Thomas Neal.
The Servant of God Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val y Zulueta (1865-1930) is remembered as one of the most authoritative and spiritually profound figures of the Church of his time. The most trusted collaborator of Pope St. Pius X, Cardinal Merry del Val served the pope first as his personal secretary and then as Secretary of State. In this role, he assumed a central role in the management of the Roman Curia and in diplomatic relations with heads of state. His life was entirely dedicated to the service of the Holy See, during which he held prestigious positions such as Prefect of the Apostolic Palace, President of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, and Archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica. Today, his intense personal spirituality is attested by the ongoing process of beatification, which was opened in 1953 at the behest of Pope Pius XII.
A portrait photograph of Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val taken ca. 1905. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)
Alongside his important ecclesiastical and diplomatic commitments, Merry del Val also cultivated a deep passion for sacred music. He experienced first-hand the great musical reform promoted by St. Pius X, author of the famous Motu Proprio Tra le Sollecitudini (1903) and founder of the Scuola Superiore di Musica Sacra (now the Pontificio istituto di musica sacra) in 1910. In his memoirs, he vividly recounted the Pontiff’s love for sacred music:
When new musical compositions were presented to [St. Pius X] for approval, he carefully examined the score and more than once, in my presence, hummed the melody that he read at first sight with the greatest ease, beating time with his hand as he read, then giving his opinion on the merit and style of the music.
This direct contact with the musical sensibility of St. Pius X profoundly shaped the Cardinal’s tastes, inspiring him to dedicate himself with genuine enthusiasm and refined sensitivity to the composition of sacred music.
Surprisingly, despite being immersed in correspondence with Heads of State, in the government of the Curia and in personal assistance to the Pontiff, Merry del Val found time to compose numerous pieces of liturgical music. His hymns and motets — including settings of the Veni Creator, Te Joseph, Ave Maris Stella, Ave Regina Coelorum, O Salutaris Hostia, Tantum Ergo, Panis Angelicus, and Audivi vocem de caelo — provide an extraordinary testimony to his faith, and to his spiritual and artistic sensitivity. The manuscript scores are now preserved in the Archives of the Cappella Giulia and at the Pontifical Spanish College of San José in Rome.
In recent years, the Cardinal’s musical legacy has been rediscovered and enhanced thanks to the work of Monsignor Pablo Colino, Canon and Maestro Emeritus of the Cappella Giulia of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. Colino has undertaken an extensive study of Merry del Val’s compositions, culminating in the recording of a CD with the Choir of the Accademia Filarmonica Romana, released in 2005 and entitled Raffaele Merry Del Val & Lorenzo Perosi - Inni, mottetti e canzoni, which has helped raise awareness of this repertoire and demonstrate both its beauty and historical importance.
Recently, on November 12, 2025, on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of Merry del Val’s episcopal consecration, a commemorative concert was held in Rome at the Spanish National Church. Presided over by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State to His Holiness, the event paid tribute to the figure and spiritual legacy of Merry del Val. The choir of Santa Maria in Monserrato degli Spagnoli (the Spanish national church), directed by Fabjola Lekaj, performed his sacred compositions, offering a rare opportunity to rediscover the Cardinal’s artistic dimension and underline the contemporaneity and lasting value of his ecclesial, spiritual, and artistic testimony.
Os Justi Press is pleased to announce a pair of new releases. First, in the “Studies in Catholic Tradition” series, we have Dr. Patrick John Brill’s The Great Sacred Music Reform of Pope St. Pius X: The Genesis, Interpretation, and Implementation of the Motu Proprio “Tra le Sollecitudini” Professional singer and choir conductor Dr. Andrew Childs sums it up well: “Dr. Patrick Brill provides thorough and much-needed support for what many traditional-minded Catholics have long known or at least suspected: that St. Pius X’s 1903 motu proprio Tra le Sollectitudini still provides the surest guide for the restoration of Catholic sacred music. Part I of this book provides a detailed commentary on the motu proprio, enlightening for amateur and expert alike, while Part II examines the document’s fate from the time of Pius to today, looking at its canonical force and status, positive efforts of implementation, and the neglect it has suffered since Vatican II. As tradition continues to make crucial gains, it will be books like this that serve as practical guides for restoration.” The new president of the Church Music Association of America, Fr. Robert C. Pasley, concurs: “Despite the sorry state of music in the Church today, the official documents of the Church still clearly proclaim that Gregorian chant has ‘first place’ (principem locum) in the liturgy. St. Pius X’s motu proprio is the definitive teaching on this subject. Brill’s book is valuable for Church musicians, an immersion in the fundamentals… A fascinating and important read.” Music director Jonathan Bading, the coordinator of the massive Palestrina500festival in Grand Rapids, Michigan, adds: “St. Pius X’s motu proprio on sacred music is the bravest, loftiest, most exhaustive attempt ever to protect and promulgate the precious musical riches of our Roman Rite. Brill’s work particularly shines by placing this great document in its tumultuous historic context and by thoroughly dismissing the naysayers who attempt to water down the urgency of this holy pope’s directives.” Dr. Edward Schaefer, musicologist and president of the Collegium Sanctorum Angelorum notes the timeliness of Brill's study: “Even though they met with certain challenges, these reforms [of Pius X] supported both the twentieth-century revival of chant and a renewed sensitivity to the importance of music in the liturgy…. Patrick Brill’s study comes at an opportune moment, when Catholics are increasingly rejecting the banality of much of today’s ‘church music.’ Brill’s work conveniently gathers into a slim volume the historical context of Pius X’s reforms, the reforms themselves, their implementation, and the place of these reforms in a Church rediscovering tradition.It will be a standard resource.”
Lastly, music professor and author Susan Treacy points to its practicality:
“An indispensable volume for every Catholic—musician or not—who wants to understand the sacred music of the Church.… Provides a detailed exegesis and history of Pius X’s 1903 motu proprio on sacred music Tra le Sollecitudini, as well as the subsequent history of Catholic liturgical music through the aftermath of Vatican II.… Also offers a plan to help pastors and musicians restore sacred music in today’s Catholic parishes, according to the evergreen reforms of St. Pius X.”
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The second new release is in a rather different vein: a collection of essays around the theme of the state of Catholicism on the African continent.
The familiar claim that Catholicism is booming in Africa—that it is the one continent where the Second Vatican Council has yielded abundant good fruits—does not square with available data and descriptions, as we discover in the late George Neumayr’s articles on Ivory Coast, a Nigerian Catholic’s analysis of harmful inculturation inflicted on Africans by racially stereotyping European liturgists, Claudio Salvucci’s questioning of the Zaire Use on the basis of Congolese history, and Peter Kwasniewski’s evaluation of the evangelical potency of preconciliar faith, life, and worship. In Africa as elsewhere, traditional Catholicism conquered whole populations and fostered immense cultural creativity. Under the new ecclesiology, new ecumenism, and new liturgy of progressive Western intellectuals, ever-larger numbers are falling away to Protestant sects and deracinating secularism.
What readers are saying:
“Accessible and informative, this agile volume…questions much of the received wisdom about the alleged ‘success’ of the Catholic Church in Africa in the last few decades… Will introduce the reader to an ecclesial reality far more problematic and fractured than the naively optimistic portrayals often found in Catholic publications… An important critique of simplistic accounts of liturgical inculturation.” —Thomas Cattoi, PhD, Angelicum, Rome
“Serves as a welcome corrective foray into a fraudulent historiography…based on eurocentric ideological preoccupations.” —Michael Kakooza, PhD, Eastern Africa
“The entirety of this book, brimming with intelligent observations and illustrated with unknown and appealing historical examples, will trigger conversations that should not be postponed.” —Fr. Federico Highton, PhD, ThD; co-founder of two sub-Saharan parishes
“As a priest celebrating the traditional Latin Mass in East Africa for twenty years, I appreciate your collective work. The Catholic Faith has been damaged by the new spirit of this council in Africa like everywhere else, even if the consequences are not of the same magnitude (yet).” —Rev. Christophe Nouveau, Kampala, Uganda
146 pages, full color, in paperback, hardcover, or ebook.
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Both books are available directly from the publisher:
Brill on Pius X | paperback $14.95 | hardcover $21.95 | ebook $9.95
Just over two weeks ago, on the anniversary of Sacrosanctum Concilium, the YouTube channel of Catholic Productions published a video by Dr Brant Pitre, who is the Distinguished Research Professor of Scripture at the Augustine Institute Graduate School. The video is part of a series called “The Mass Explained”, which was published a bit over a year ago through the Catholic Productions website. This specific video is now being offered on YouTube as an encouragement to explore the full series; its subject is the much-debated concept of active participation in the liturgy.
Dr Pitre is a Biblical scholar, and by far the most successful part of this video is his attempt to give a solid Scriptural foundation to the concept; a useful endeavor, given the hopeless ambiguity of so much of Sacrosanctum Concilium. Unfortunately, his presentation is marred by a considerable number of really drastic historical errors, including one on which the whole narrative arc, so to speak, of his presentation rests. The errors are in fact too many to describe in a single post, and this response will have to be presented in more than one part.
I wish to be clear that I certainly do not ascribe to Dr Pitre any conscious dishonesty. There are plenty of liturgists and people who have written about the liturgy who can be excused of the charge of deliberate lying only if one grants that before attempting to deceive others, they have first gone to enormous pains to deceive themselves. (I wish I could take credit for this bon mot, but it comes from Sir Peter Medawar’s brilliantly savage review of Teilhard de Chardin’s The Phenomenon of Man.) I see no reason to think that Dr Pitre is among them; indeed, I think it very likely that he himself is among those whom others have deceived.
Nor does he fall into the fatuous excesses that so many others have fallen into when writing or speaking about this topic specifically, and claim that “active participation”, however defined, is incompatible with the historical Roman Rite. Indeed, he acknowledges that active participation of the lay faithful has been a part of it in the past. His gigantic historical error lies in his would-be description of when, how, why and to what degree this changed, leading the Second Vatican Council to call for its restoration. (I will cover most of what he says about this in part 2 of this article.)
He begins (2:55) with the first occurrence of the term “actuosa participatio – active participation” in Sacrosanctum Concilium, paragraph 14, saying that it is “arguably the most important topic of the Second Vatican Council.” Unfortunately, the translation of Sacrosanctum Concilium which he cites contains a very significant mistake, which is no less of a mistake for being repeated on the Vatican’s own website. The English version which he gives is as follows: “In the restoration and promotion of the sacred liturgy, this full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else.” (His emphasis.)
But the Latin original does not say that active participation “is to be considered before all else,” which would be a license for doing anything and everything in the liturgy, provided the claim were made that it fostered active participation. And of course, in the so-called “spirit” of Vatican II, many people, including the very men who invented the post-Conciliar Rite, have taken it as just such a license, in order to excuse their ignoring significant parts of Sacrosanctum Concilium itself, and all of the Church’s earlier magisterial teaching on the liturgy, to say nothing of others justifying the most appalling abuses in the actual celebration of the liturgy.
Much active. Very participation.
The Latin words of the Constitution are “actuosa participatio … summopere attendenda est”, which would be properly rendered “active participation … is to be given the greatest attention.” And it is in fact so rendered in the Italian, French, Spanish and German translations also available via the Vatican’s website. (I cannot vouch for the Arabic, Chinese, Swahili or various Slavic versions.)
This would have also been the perfect place to add that there is a solid case to be made that “actual participation” is a better translation of the words “actuosa participatio” than “active participation.” This case was laid out very thoroughly by Fr Peter Stravinskas in a paper which he delivered to the CIEL conference in Paris in 2003, and graciously allowed NLM to reprint in 2016. (Part 1; Part 2) For of course, as we all know, the word “active” has deceived many within the Church into confusing activity with achievement, and thus taking it for granted that as long as the laity are doing something, they are actively participating, and it doesn’t much matter what exactly they are doing or how they are doing it.
In regard to the Council’s statement that the people’s participation in the liturgy should be “full”, Dr Pitre very rightly points out (6:45) that this means fully participating in the parts which properly belong to them, “and only those parts which belong to them, and the people shouldn’t be doing what is exclusive to the priest, and vice versa.” For of course, it was the furthest thing from the Council Fathers’ minds to foster the participation of the laity by blurring this necessary distinction. This would have been a good place, therefore, to point out that “active” participation in the modern liturgy has been brought about in no small part by redefining “what is exclusive to the priest”, and giving to the laity liturgical roles that the tradition of the Church has always given to the clergy: the reading of the Scriptures, and the distribution of Communion. Perhaps this comes up elsewhere in the series.
At 7:50, Dr Pitre very rightly notes that the phrase “actuosa participatio” goes back to St Pius X’s famous motu proprio Tra le sollicitudini on sacred music in the liturgy, and that singing the parts proper to them is above all the most important way in which the faithful actively participate in the liturgy. Perhaps some other part of the series points out that in practical terms, Tra le sollicitudini has been completely overthrown by the post-Conciliar reform, since the confusion between activity and achievement, a confusion which the word “active” positively invites, often leads to the replacement of good music with bad music or no music, because it is easier for the congregation to sing bad music than good, and easier still to recite than to sing.
It would also be worth mentioning somewhere along the line that Sacrosanctum Concilium itself does not cite Tra le sollecitudini, because in the last phase of its redaction, the numerous citations of the Church’s prior magisterial teaching on the liturgy qua liturgy, and particularly those related to sacred music, were expunged. This includes not only multiple references to Tra le sollecitudini, but also to Pius XI’s 1928 Apostolic Constitution Divini cultus, Pius XII’s encyclicals Mediator Dei (1947) and Musicae sacrae disciplina (1955) as well as the instruction issued by the Sacred Congregation for Rites in 1958, De musica sacra et sacra liturgia. (This removal was documented by Susan J. Benofy in an article entitled “Footnotes for a Hermeneutic of Continuity: Sacrosanctum Concilium’s Vanishing Citations”, published in the Adoremus Bulletin in 2015.)
At 9:30, Dr Pitre introduces a few key Biblical texts that refer to active participation in the liturgy, and as I stated earlier, this really is the strongest part of the video. The first of these is a description of the assembly in Nehemiah 8, which he describes as “actively listening” to the word of God read to them by the priests. This passage occupies a prominent and very ancient place in the historical Roman Rite, as the second reading of the Ember Wednesday of September. With the suppression of the Ember days in the post-Conciliar Rite, it has been assigned to a Sunday of Ordinary time in year C, and a Thursday in year 1. (This might have been the place to mention that the books of Ezra and Nehemiah refer much more often to the organization of trained cantors among the ministerial orders of the Temple, since the use of professional choirs will later be noted as one of the developments within the Church which putatively detracted from the participation of the laity.)
The second quotation is a foundational passage for the priesthood of all the baptized, 1 Peter 2, 9, which is cited in the aforementioned paragraph 14, and this is followed by the passages which describe the heavenly liturgy in the Apocalypse, and the various ways in which all of the different orders of the Church participate, including silent participation. And since the “heavenly model provide(s) the template for what worship should look like on earth, if all of the members of the mystical body of Christ are actively engaged (in the liturgy) in heaven, then the same thing should be true of the liturgy on earth.”
At 18:00, Dr Pitre begins to adduce examples from the history of the Church which show that “for the first thousand years or so of Christian worship, this is precisely what we’re going to find.” Unfortunately, this is precisely the point where he begins to run his ship aground. For his reference to the “first thousand years or so” implies that a change took place after that point, a change which he will later explicate very wrongly; wrongly enough that, as I said earlier, I will need a second part of this article to explain it all. (The words “or so” are also being made to do far too much work here.)
There follow six examples of things in which the people fully participated in the liturgy during those first thousand years: in his order, the Sanctus, the giving of the peace, the responsorial psalm (sic), the Amen at the end of the prayers, including the Canon, the Creed and the Our Father. Regarding the last of these, he correctly acknowledges that it has always been the Roman custom for the priest to sing it alone (except, of course, for the final words), and just as correctly notes that in some other Western liturgies, it was sung by everyone, as it still is in the Byzantine Rite.
First of all, I note that with four of these, the Sanctus, the Amens, the Creed and Our Father (i.e. the end of it), it has always been possible for the faithful to sing them. It has always been possible for the faithful to pray the Our Father silently along with the priest. There are of course ways of singing them in which not all the faithful can participate, such as the very rich polyphonic settings of the Lord’s Prayer composed for the Byzantine Divine Liturgy. There have been specific sociocultural and historical circumstances in which the faithful did not sing them, although apologists for the post-Conciliar reform have habitually exaggerated the degree to which this is true, and regrettably, Dr Pitre falls into this trap. Nevertheless, the faithful have never been excluded from singing them in principle.
A polyphonic setting of The Lord’s Prayer in Church Slavonic, by the Ukrainian composer Maxim Berezovsky (1745 ca. - 1777).
Concerning the Sanctus, he cites the statement of the Liber Pontificalis that it was instituted by the eighth Pope, St Sixtus I, who reigned from roughly 115-125. But the liturgical notices in the Liber Pontificalis, the statements that “Pope so-and-so instituted such-and-such a custom”, are notoriously anachronistic, the more so the earlier they go. For example, the very next entry attributes the institution of Christmas to Sixtus’ successor St Telesphorus (125-36 ca.); all scholars recognize that the feast dates to about two centuries later. It is not per se impossible that St Sixtus instituted the Sanctus, but we have no real evidence that he did in fact do so.
Secondly, the Liber Pontificalis has come down to us in very rough condition, and is full of textual problems. The relevant part of the entry for St Sixtus says, “Hic constituit ut intra actionem, sacerdos incipiens populo hymnum decantare, ‘Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabahot’, et cetera.” As written, the infinitive “decantare” (to sing) is a grammatical error, and the passage is marked in modern editions as corrupt; an easy emendation has been proposed, “decantaret.” If this is correct, the passage would mean, “This one (viz. Pope Sixtus) established that within the action (i.e. the saying of the canon, as is written above the Hanc igitur in the Missal) the priest as he begins should sing to the people (‘populo’ in the dative case; my emphasis) the hymn ‘Sanctus…’ ” etc.
One might object that it makes no sense to say that the priest sang the Sanctus and the people did not. But there is some evidence that this was in fact a custom of the Ambrosian Rite on certain penitential days, on which the priest alone sang the Sanctus as part of the preface. But even if this custom was never observed in the Roman Rite, this text does not say that the people sang the Sanctus; quite the opposite.
After references to the giving of the peace, Dr Pitre goes on to say that “in the fifth century, St Augustine tells us that the people would sing the responsorial psalm,” and the video cites The Confessions, book 9, 8.15, as given in Lawrence Johnson’s Worship in the Early Church: An Anthology of Historical Sources (3:12). But this passage does not refer to the people’s participation in the Mass. It refers to an event of St Ambrose’s episcopacy for which Augustine and his mother were present, when the Empress Justina planned to turn one of the basilicas in Milan over to the Arians. The Catholic faithful occupied the church, and the custom was therefore established that the people should hymns and psalms “after the manner of the eastern regions, lest the people pine away in the tediousness of sorrow…”
Augustine does go on to say that this custom, “retained from then till now, is now imitated by many, and nearly all of (the Lord’s) flocks throughout the rest of the world.” But nothing about it suggests that it was a specifically liturgical custom, much less that it involved anything like what we now call a responsorial psalm.
After a mention of what St Isidore of Seville says about the readings being for the instruction of the people, i.e., that they are meant to be actively listened to by the faithful, Dr Pitre now turns (at 20:50) to a text known as the Ordo Romanus Primus, the “First Roman Order”, an ancient description of a Roman stational liturgy. This text is presented to set up a supposed contrast with the later medieval manner of celebrating the liturgy in the papal chapel which gave us the so-called Tridentine Missal. This contrast, however, is so thoroughly and so badly misconstrued that it must be described in another part of this article.
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)
In the wider Catholic world, the question posed in the title is not even on the radar screen. If you can have altar girls and female lectors — indeed, apparently, acolytesses and lectresses, in a veritable salmagundi of sanctuary servants — then why not women singing music for the Mass? (Never mind the fact that the concept of “propers” has more or less disappeared outside the world of the usus antiquior.) However, traditionalists, myself included, reject both altar girls and female lectors, arguing that it is only appropriate for males to fill these roles, and, in general, that the patronizing and vocationally deviant clericalization of the laity should be avoided. It might therefore be thought that, as a matter of logical consistency, we ought to maintain that women should not form a chant schola to execute the propers of the Mass. Yet this conclusion does not follow.
While I am an adamant opponent of feminism, I am no less staunch an opponent of chauvinism wherever I see it — and I do see it reappearing in the traditional movement, along with other -isms (e.g., antisemitism, libertarianism, sedevacantism) that are incompatible with Catholic tradition. The revival of traditional liturgical practice has permitted the reappearance of some extreme points of view that deserve refutation. For example, not only have I heard traditionalists argue against women singing the propers; I’ve heard them argue that none of the laity whatsoever should sing any of the Mass Ordinary or responses. (On that last point, see here, here, and here.)
The point of departure for the question on women chanters is the rather blunt statement of Pope St. Pius X in his famous 1903 motu proprio Tra le Sollecitudini:
With the exception of the melodies proper to the celebrant at the altar and to the ministers, which must be always sung in Gregorian chant, and without accompaniment of the organ, all the rest of the liturgical chant belongs to the choir of levites, and, therefore, singers in the church, even when they are laymen, are really taking the place of the ecclesiastical choir…. On the same principle it follows that singers in church have a real liturgical office, and that therefore women, being incapable of exercising such office, cannot be admitted to form part of the choir. Whenever, then, it is desired to employ the acute voices of sopranos and contraltos, these parts must be taken by boys, according to the most ancient usage of the Church.
Stated thus, it sounds cut and dried. But is it self-evident that “all the rest of the liturgical chant” (would this include the Ordinary?) “belongs to the choir of levites” (whatever that means exactly)? It seems that Pius X has in view singers in the sanctuary or the “choir” area of a transept of a monastic-style church, where their placement and vesture suggest that they are performing a ministerial function. The operative conception here, it seems to me, is that of a cathedral, seminary, or boys’ school.
If singers are, in contrast, somewhere in the nave, whether on the floor or up in a loft, it is more difficult to see that they constitute a “choir of levites” with a “real liturgical office.” Just as laywomen were not forbidden to sing the Ordinary of the Mass (indeed Pius X and his successors encouraged this) even though the Ordinary is manifestly a liturgical text also said by ordained ministers, by the same logic women would be competent to sing the propers.
To make the situation clearer, Pius XII in his encyclical Musicae Sacraeof 1955 lifted the ban for lay women as long as they were not in the sanctuary (the internal quotations are from three earlier decisions of the Sacred Congregation of Rites):
Where it is impossible to have schools of singers [scholae cantorum] or where there are not enough choir boys, it is allowed that “a group of men and women or girls, located in a place outside the sanctuary set apart for the exclusive use of this group, can sing the liturgical texts at Solemn Mass, as long as the men are completely separated from the women and girls and everything unbecoming is avoided. The Ordinary is bound in conscience in this matter.”
Granted, Pacelli’s words are not exactly a resounding encouragement to have women, but it shows that there is no ban on women singing, as long as they are outside the sanctuary.
Let’s think this through, with attention to the symbolism of church architecture. The development of choir lofts, which can certainly be said to be the norm in most churches built in the century prior to Vatican II, perfectly accords with the role of the choir as a body that provides chant and polyphony for the liturgy, with mixed voices as needed or desired, and in a way that does not involve the singers in the ceremonies taking place below. This preserves the anonymity of the choir and bypasses the danger of distraction for the congregation, since the musicians do not so easily risk “putting on a show.” If the propers can be sung polyphonically with men and women, does that not establish that women may sing the propers by themselves?
Admittedly there is a longstanding tradition of having only men singing, inasmuch as the choir was seen as fulfilling a properly liturgical role. Yet just as it is possible for altar boys to substitute for acolytes, and even for any laity (such as girls in a girls’ school) to make the responses at Mass provided they are in the pews and not in the sanctuary, so too it is possible for non-vested laity to substitute for a properly liturgical choir. Put differently, lay people from outside the choir area can fulfill a liturgical function, but not in a properly liturgical manner, which would involve their being vested and being more closely associated with the ritual action in or near the sanctuary, as we see in solemn Vespers when the singers in cassock and surplice process into the sanctuary, genuflect, bow to each other, and split off to their seats on the sides for the chanting of the psalmody. (It also seems clear enough that whenever there is a schola of clergy or male religious singing the propers, as Pius X envisioned, women should not join them.)
We should also take into account the not inconsiderable witness of centuries of women religious singing the sacred liturgy, and doing so not because there are no men around to do it (although that will usually be true), but because it is proper to themselves: it is a requirement of their consecrated life, expected and indeed demanded of them by the Church. They do not “substitute” for anyone else but do it by a right proper to and inherent in them. Moreover, depending on the order or congregation, the nuns might perform this opusDei in the choir area of a monastery church (still with a symbolic separation from the sanctuary), chanting all the parts of the Mass except those of the major ministers. It is true that this fact in and of itself does not establish an analogous right for unconsecrated lay women to do the same, but it does establish, once and for all, that women as such are not disqualified from singing the chants of the liturgy, provided that good order is maintained.
Once again we can see what a fine and helpful development the choir loft was, and why it should be present in every Catholic church. How many blessed hours of my life have been spent in choir lofts, leading or singing with scholas and choirs of men and women, in Santa Paula, California; in Washington, D.C., and Silver Spring, Maryland; in Gaming and Vienna, Austria; in Lander, Wyoming and in Lincoln, Nebraska!
We cannot leave history and prudence behind. There has been an evolution in the attitudes toward women in the Church, even while we still hold fast to the ancient truth, now contradicted by Pope Francis, that women should not be vested and serving in ministerial roles (cf. 1 Cor 14:34). One need look no further than the redoubtable Justine Ward to see that women were heavily involved in the resurgence of Gregorian chant in the twentieth century and taught people how to sing it, which means that they were in the lay schola.
It’s not clear to me what we could possibly gain by trying to prevent women from singing the propers, provided the singers are musically qualified (and the same holds, obviously, for men — no one’s sex makes him or her more adept for the art of singing). Unlike the minor orders of acolyte and lector, there has never been a minor order of cantor/singer. It is therefore impossible to classify women singers along with altar girls/acolytesses and female readers/lectresses as part of the same progressive “slippery slope” for the ordination of women as deacons or priests. Musicologists and musicians are free to argue about whether a higher-pitched or lower-pitched rendering of chant works better from the point of view of liturgical aesthetics, and sociologists or anthropologists of religion could argue about cultural expectations and associations, etc., but none of this pertains to the question at hand.
On a practical level, unless there is some extenuating circumstance like a CMAA Sacred Music Colloquium with its pedagogical aims, it would be strange to have a men’s schola and a women’s schola dividing up tasks at the same liturgy; this is best avoided. When only men or only women are singing the propers, the worshiper can more easily forget about it and pay attention to the chants, the texts, and the ceremonies. When the two scholas go back and forth, it draws attention to the octave difference between men and women — that is, it draws attention to the performers, which is not ideal. Similarly, chant sung by men and women simultaneously is sometimes an unavoidable necessity, but chant tends to sound best in a true unison, not in organum of parallel octaves. If a chapel or parish has two scholas, a men’s and a women’s, it would be better to have one or the other sing all the propers at Mass. This is what I did at Wyoming Catholic College. The men’s schola sang multiple times a week; at a certain point, a women’s schola was created to give the women a chance to immerse themselves more fully in the chant and to give the men a much-needed rest. Here, too, a certain complementarity developed that was beneficial for all.
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