Is your Parish loyal to Pope Benedict XVI?

I have a disturbing habit of rummaging through old press cuttings just to remind myself how far we have come (or not, as the case may be) over the last twenty years or so. That is approximately when I started my collection of articles and cuttings; in those days the press was full of headlines such as "Rebel Archbishop" meaning ++ Lefebvre and also "the outlawed Mass" meaning the EF Mass.

But today I only returned in my time machine to the year 2006, just months into the reign of Pope Benedict XVI. He whom, when plain Cardinal Ratzinger, was dubbed "the only man more Catholic than the Pope".

My eyes fell on a cutting from The Daily Telegraph (the only British paper to consistently report fairly evenly on Catholic goings on over the past 25 years).
The journalist, Malcolm Moore, now the DT's man in Shanghai wrote a piece headed:

"Silence modern music in church, says Pope". Here is an introductory extract:

The Pope has demanded an end to electric guitars and modern music in church and a return to traditional choirs.

The Catholic Church has been experimenting with new ways of holding Mass to try to attract more people. The recital of Mass set to guitars has grown in popularity in Italy; in Spain it has been set to flamenco music; and in the United States the Electric Prunes produced a "psychedelic" album called Mass in F Minor.

The guitar is an instrument of the
streets and should remain there

However, the use of guitars and tambourines has irritated the Pope, who loves classical music. "It is possible to modernise holy music," the Pope said, at a concert conducted by Domenico Bartolucci the director of music at the Sistine Chapel. "But it should not happen outside the
traditional path of Gregorian chants or sacred polyphonic choral music."


I am not particularly au fait with the goings on at new Masses these days so I'm more than happy to be corrected but, is that not a guitar I see before me, coming out of church after the 10am Mass? And, do my eyes deceive me or are those round things not tambourines? Aaaagh! not tambourines! And, yet again, some primary school aged children clutching the devil's own instrument, the recorder!!!! Help! Plus ca change methinks.
Nothing has changed. The Holy Father's "demands" are ignored by Bishops, Priests and laity alike. How can that be? They are all good Catholics aren't they?
No, they are not! Anyone who ignores the teachings of the Holy Father places his or her immortal soul in peril.



Das ist verboten!



Meanwhile, those pew warmers, those parish councillors, those mindless masses, sit happily absorbing music that has not progressed much further than Kum-bay-yah.



Oh, I am being judgmental, I know but we all are obliged by an unspoken vow of obedience and it does fire me up when faced with a bland and fatuous congregation who accept willy nilly, the froth that is put in front of them.

Are they incapable of seeing that what they do is actually wrong? Not just misguided, wrong! Time they were given the Byrd!