I was asked to write a bit about the "State of the Liturgy" in our Diocese (Venice in Florida) and thought that it might be a good subject for a seperate thread. To begin with, I am most certainly biased towards discussion of the music in particular as that is my area of expertise and ministry, so while I have some insight on what is happening "around here" on issues such as extraordinary ministers, adherence to liturgical norms and other non-music issues in the liturgy, I really prefer to talk about the musical atmosphere here.
To give an overall view, I would have to say that we have a mixed-bag situation here, both in my parish and in the Diocese as a whole. Like many Diocese, there is little or no attention given to the subject of music at the Diocesan level, and that lack of attention filters down to the Pastors and Priests, the result being, as it is in many places, that the music is left to the whims of the (often un-trained) local music directors, whose lack of knowledge of Sacred Music is often exceeded only by their passion for 1970's style pop-liturgy tunes. There are competent Directors who work hard to put in place respectable Sacred Music programs in their parishes (Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Osprey, FL for instance) and the Cathedral of the Epiphany set a strong example by hiring a well educated and trained Organist with a Degree in Sacred Music as the Cathedral Director. So it is fair to say that their are some points of light, however...
We also have a number of "Broadway Show" Directors who call themselves Music Directors, although it would be imprudent for me to name them here. One of them was allowed to play for Sunday Masses (without my approval) at my parish at the invitation of the Pastor as a "promotional event" for this "director's" upcoming concert. The Pastor over-rode my decision at the urging of the parish group for whom the concert was a fund-raising event (see my previous posting concerning why I left Marco Island). The stack of 3 Keyboards, complete with pre-sequenced background tracks was set up IN FRONT OF THE ALTAR with the PA speakers on either side. Suffice to say that there was less of the "Sacred" present during those Masses.... the closest thing to religious music that day was Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up"... more later...
To give an overall view, I would have to say that we have a mixed-bag situation here, both in my parish and in the Diocese as a whole. Like many Diocese, there is little or no attention given to the subject of music at the Diocesan level, and that lack of attention filters down to the Pastors and Priests, the result being, as it is in many places, that the music is left to the whims of the (often un-trained) local music directors, whose lack of knowledge of Sacred Music is often exceeded only by their passion for 1970's style pop-liturgy tunes. There are competent Directors who work hard to put in place respectable Sacred Music programs in their parishes (Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Osprey, FL for instance) and the Cathedral of the Epiphany set a strong example by hiring a well educated and trained Organist with a Degree in Sacred Music as the Cathedral Director. So it is fair to say that their are some points of light, however...
We also have a number of "Broadway Show" Directors who call themselves Music Directors, although it would be imprudent for me to name them here. One of them was allowed to play for Sunday Masses (without my approval) at my parish at the invitation of the Pastor as a "promotional event" for this "director's" upcoming concert. The Pastor over-rode my decision at the urging of the parish group for whom the concert was a fund-raising event (see my previous posting concerning why I left Marco Island). The stack of 3 Keyboards, complete with pre-sequenced background tracks was set up IN FRONT OF THE ALTAR with the PA speakers on either side. Suffice to say that there was less of the "Sacred" present during those Masses.... the closest thing to religious music that day was Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up"... more later...
