Why Catholics Cant Sing

by Thomas Day

Book Overview

This book is about the culture of American Christianity and what it does to our understanding of God, self, and community as reflected in the way Christians worship. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0824510356
• ISBN13: 9780824510350
• Release Date: September 1990
• Publisher: Crossroad Publishing
• Length: 183 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Bulls-eye, homerun, touchdown and slam-dunk. Fantastic!

This is a book I'd been eagerly wanting to read since I first heard about it in the early 1990s and after reading it in 2006 I can say that it is as relevant to the Church as the day it was printed. As a Catholic child growing up in the 1980s, I would look with disdain on those catatonic church-goers who sat defiantly mute while the rest of us did our part and belted out the hymns listed on the board in the front of the church. Even as the specter of hippie guitarists and their soft-pop stylings began to stir up a vague feeling of discomfort and opposition in my young reactionary self, I still bore in mind the maxim of my nun teachers that "Singing is praying twice" and soldiered on through "classics" that sounded more appropriate for a gay wedding shower, all the while wondering what the heck was wrong with the mute holdouts. Were they retarded? Were they bad Catholics? Did they lose their vocal chords in Vietnam? With age, maturity and perspective, I came to realize the problem: most modern Catholic church music is utter garbage. It's ugly, banal, effeminate, desacralized and unsingable for a congregation. Beyond that realization though, I had no idea how to articulate a diagnosis or a treatment. Thomas Day accomplishes both and puts into words what millions of American Catholics are feeling. Day writes with a verve and wickedly humorous style that one wouldn't expect to find in a book on this kind of subject. His way with a phrase frequently has one laughing out loud as he skewers the people who perpetrated this musical assault on the American Catholic congregation. Surpringly, it started before Vatican II and it started with the Irish. Because the Irish Catholics, who played such an influential role in the American Church, came from a country where persecution forced Catholics to celebrate Mass with utmost secrecy in caves and back rooms and hidden groves, the Irish developed no popular tradition of church music, as did the French, Germans, Poles and other Catholic cultures, and grand, uplifting church music came to be associated with the Protestant oppressors. With such a history, it wasn't surprising that after Catholic emancipation, the Irish had a negative view of church music as a superfluity, as mere entertainment indulged in by Protestants and other lukewarm Christians. Therefore, with Irish immigration to America and Irish dominance of the American Catholic church, the only kind of music they had to fall back on when composing religious hymns were the saloon ditties and sentimental ballads of Irish secular culture. The Irish became the musical puritans of the American Catholic church, frowning on greats such as Mozart and Palestrina while promoting their familiar and maudlin native hymns. With most of the American Church inured to such insipid church music over the course of a few generations, it wasn't a giant leap for the 60s radicals to impose their own brand of theologically questionable and musically awful "folk" and

Irreverant but on-target critique of Amrican Catholic music

I was born and raised in the post Vatican world, going to Catholic education from grade school through college, so I know how bad the music is first-hand. Sometimes stunningly bad. Day's book just reaffirms from a professional standpoint pretty much what I already knew, that contemporary Catholic music is a mish-mash of bad old Protestant hymns and bad new Catholic hymns - that nobody really sings well or too enthusiastically because there is no real beauty in them. What I didn't know was how bad the music was before Vatican II, and the influence the Irish culture had on stifling musical development in this country. Interesting theory. Day's solution - bring back some trace of professionalism - seems to make sense. I recently moved into a parish with a top-notch music program from one with terrible music and mediocre attendance. On Sundays when the whole choir is present and singing classics like Palestrina and de Lassus attentance is packed while on other Sundays it is at best respectable. I really enjoyed this book. Day is a hoot of a writer: funny, irreverant, sarcastic and dead-on correct.

For a generation that does not understand liturgy!

Thomas Day presents a very interesting theory as to why Catholics have become silent during the Mass. His comments at the current state of litugical music (as well as liturgy in general, seeing that the two are closely connected) are explained very thoroughly with very clear examples. While he certainly does not have much love for contemporary "folkish" church music and informal (sloppy) liturgies, he does not feel a 180 degree turn to the Tridentine Mass of old will solve the problem. I found myself laughing out loud as Day would discuss the exact situations present in my parish in a very witty and humorous way. If you think that "They Will Know We Are Christians" or "Here I Am Lord" is the best litugical music out there, then buy this book and open yourself up to 2000 years of Catholic tradition that Thomas Day very cleverly unlocks.

If you think your parish doesn't sing---read this!!!

An intelligent and humorous account of why we Catholics don't sing at the "new" mass, anyone involved in liturgy from Bishop to altar boy (I mean server) should read this book. As an organist and music director in a Roman Catholic parish for many years, I finally feel forgiven for what I have been unable to do sinc ethe late 60's----try to get the parish to sing.

an enjoyable read, highly pertinent observations

This is not a book about one particular type of mass versus another, its about achieving practical, meaningful, enjoyable community worship. A few years ago out of curiosity, I attended a tridentine sung mass. I had never been to a high mass in latin before and I found it a much deeper spiritual experience than the post Vatican II mass I was used to. The solemnity, the ritual, and the music combined to let me understand the grave import of the ceremony, and become deeply aware of the special presence of God, what's more it was joyous and enjoyable. However, when I tried to rationalise the experience, figure out exactly why this mass and its "old church" music allowed me to feel so deeply compared to my normal experiece of mass - I couldn't do it, (surely the mass is the mass, whatever the liturgical style, I said to myself). In this book Thomad Day explains why for many people catholic communal worship can be a bland experience, even an irritating chore, devoid for the most part of any sense of the divine, and by referring to catholic tradition he suggests simple, effective, commonsense methods for improving the community worship experience. For any concerned catholic layperson - I thoroughly recommend it.