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In my youth, in the wake of Vatican II, the Church decided to jettison all the liturgical music of the past two millennia, The Beethoven and the Bach and the like, generally written for choir and organ, in favour of the “folk mass,” with guitar, up in the front of the church. Folk, after all, was what all the youngsters were listening to. The church was going to be hep.
Except—I was one of those youngsters, who adored folk music. A tradition is rich with deeply religious songs. Indeed, rock itself is only secularized gospel music. “Go Tell It on the Mountain”; “We Shall Not Be Moved”; “We Shall Overcome”; “Turn! Turn! Turn!”; “Children, Go Where I Send Thee”; and the like, were on the radio every day.
But the church did not go to real folk music. Instead, they had a small group of St. Louis Jesuits compose almost the entire new hymn book, with songs presumably in the folk tradition; but soulless and trite. Hallmark Card stuff. To anyone who loved either folk music, or true religion, it was offensive.
The low point, for me, was when I passed a Catholic Church in grad school days, and the carillon was playing the notes of John Denver’s “Sunshine on my Shoulders.”
Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely
Sunshine almost always makes me high”
Why didn’t the church use true folk music? I suspect a need to control, a Pharisaic fear of the Holy Spirit. But probably also because, in the English world, the folk music other than that substantial body out of Ireland was mostly going to be written by Protestants, and express Protestant theology. For example, “The Old Rugged Cross”:
“And exchange it one day for a crown.”
That easy conviction that one is going to heaven would be, to Catholicism, the sin of pride, and a likely ticket in the opposite direction.
Still, there was a ready alternative, a better road not taken. There is a rich Catholic folk tradition in non-English-speaking countries. The lyrics need only be translated. My wife and I were the choir back in Athabasca, and the priest allowed us to sing the English version of the Spanish song “Pescador de Hombres.” Not included I the regulation hymn book, but he had pasted it inside the back cover. A visitor came up to us afterward and said it wax the most beautiful thing he had ever heard in a church.
Then you smiled and whispered my name.
I’ve abandoned my boat in the harbour;
Close to You I will seek other shores.”
For that matter, the good old Protestant hymns could be adapted.
Till my trophies, at last, I lay down
I will cling to the old rugged Cross
And wear every thorn like a crown.”
Some day, I pray, the Church will come to its senses on liturgical music.
But how long, O Lord, how long?
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