Newberry Organ dedication

This weekend was cold and rainy: a fortunate happenstance for the gardener, because I was occupied in the festivities surrounding the dedication of Richards, Fowkes & Company’s Opus XIX in the Church of the Covenant in Cleveland, right across the parking lot from work. The Newberry Organ (named after the grandparents of the principal donor, who was not just the donor of the principal rank) is a Baroque-style instrument in 5th-comma meantone at A415. My particular part in this was as a sackbut player in works by Schütz (Alleluja! Lobet den Herren) and Gabrieli (Omnes gentes plaudite).

My first task in taking this was to find a way out of my duties at Mary Queen of Peace, since singers are easier to come by than sackbutteers. Indeed, I only really know 3 in town, including myself, and we were all on duty (there are a couple trombonists I know who have played sackbut, but have no experience doing so at A415). I felt obligated to play, and Jonathan Moyer, music director at Covenant, made it worth my while. So I found a sub; I’ve not yet heard how that worked. And I found face, as I’ve been playing brass very little.

We met Friday night for an instrumental rehearsal.. “we” being a Most Excellent Crew. There were Peter Bennett, James David Cristie and Webb Wiggins on organs, Julie Andrijeski and a band of mostly present and former Case grad students on bowed strings, Covenant’s carilloneur George Leggiero on recorder, and me mates David Betts and Paul Furguson. on sackbuts. And, oh yeah, checks sitting on the stands. When I got my instrument, back in 1981 or so, I got a low pitch crook, but the other guys were reading everything down a half step. We didn’t have a bass sackbut, so I played the bass on tenor, transposing up the octave as needed. Paul plays alto, which was OK for the Schütz (which still could have been played on tenor) but problematic for the Gabrieli. Still the guys rose to the challenge magnificently. The only problem encountered was that one of the organs had a transposing keyboard and had been tuned at A440 (which meant that at A415 it was wretchedly out of tune). That got fixed easily enough afterwards. There were 4 organs in the church for this: borrowed chamber organs on either side, the Newberry in back, and the main one in front. It suggests a performance of Steve Reich’s eponymous piece, though 4 acoustic organs, 3 in meantone and one in equal temperament, would be quite inauthentic performance practice for that work (though it might be less irritating that way.). 4 organs in one church! I saw this as an act of expiation and reparation for all the organs that Calvinists trashed during the Reformation. And if you think that’s just Popish snark, the Catholics have a near-equal need to atone for the organs trashed in the wake of Vatican II.

Saturday morning I had to come into town again for the tutti rehearsal, which was kind of a meeting of old buds (Lynn Glickson, composer Jenny Conner) and folks I see every day in the Case library. The chief problem to be handled was to use eyes rather than ears in keeping together (as there were always 2 choirs separated). I’d done this to an extreme over the Internet, about a decade ago, and this was easier but still not easy. And there was the challenge of intonation (NONE of the partials on this instrument are in tune with each other; the higher you go in the low register, the farther the slide has to come out, which is counterintuitive.) Afterwards, I got lunch at Udupi Cafe (south Indian buffet), tried to do some shopping, tried to go to Mass but I got there way early and was feeling poorly, so I ditched my idea of going to a MQoP Schola member’s graduate recital, and went home to early bed, as I had to be out the door at 7.

Call at 8:45, ran through the big pieces, then sat back to hear the pregame show with strings and organ. I was listening to Castello and the Gabrieli Sonata a tre, thinking “This can’t be church music. Church music sucks, and this is 100% suck-free.” The choir did Byrd’s Sing Joyfully, and we did our big pieces without any great flaw (there are always little things that could have been better). The only problem was in the last hymn. In the bulletin, it was in A. We’d been given another hymn, with a different number and name and slightly different words, but the same tine, in Bb. But we hadn’t been told “play the Bb version”. So we came in, a half-step below the organ. I took out the crook (I might better have transposed), the other guys stopped their transposition games, and all was relatively presentable…and the organ drowned it all out anyway.

Well, then I still had to go to Mass. I shot in to the Mac, ran into Fred, who thought I should sing. So, just in case the morning hadn’t been exciting enough, I sight-read a Latin mass, singing tenor, and reading tiny notes for the Ordinary. I was in good voice and had somebody else on the part, so it went fairly well (less so where the notes were tiny).

Back to Covenant, do the 2 pieces again, listen to the organ recital. The new organ sounds wonderful. When’s the Hauptwerk sample set coming out? I want to take it home. I thought the morning had gone slightly better overall. Reception afterwards. I saw Carolyn Peskin, local recorder maven. for the first time in years, and by the looks of things it may well be the last time. I wanted to talk, but I’d spoke to a stranger who wouldn’t let me go (“…and I’m a Aspie.” “I never would have guessed.”) and she disappeared.

So, a lovely time was had by all. I think I’m going to try to put some work into sackbut solo and try to do something.

The Kingdom paradox

Today’s text (via John T. Kennedy, on Facebook):

“Here is an unfair way of choosing political systems: compare the worst form of anarchy to the best form of government; one then finds that government looks pretty good. The comparison between Somalia and the United States would be a case in point. A fairer comparison would be between Somalia before and after its government collapsed, or between Somalia and other societies in the same region that have governments.[8] Even better would be to compare the best feasible governmental system with the best feasible nongovernmental system. That is what I suggest in the book,[9] and that is the comparison that I tried to conduct over the course of part II. Anarchists do not hold that all anarchic situations are desirable any more than advocates of government defend all governments, including those of Nazi Germany, Uganda under Idi Amin, and the Khmer Rouge.”

What interests me here is WHY the disparity in comparisons exists. This discussion will involve both politics and theology, so both my Catholic and political friends will find something to offend them. Take the things that you don’t believe in as metaphors.

We have a fairly good idea on how to fix suboptimum governments. If they are only slightly dysfunctional, and are democratic, we can replace bad people with good people, who will replace bad law with good law. In practice, this is difficult, as good people tend to become bad people, and because the virtue of the citizenry is a limiting factor; i.e., they have to be able to look beyond their own narrow self-interest. If the dysfunction is deeper, the entire system can be replaced through revolution. This is very expensive in terms of blood and capital, and of uncertain success. But there is a long tradition of doing so.

But we have no idea at all on how to fix suboptimum anarchies, because we have no tradition of anarchy. One does not fix an anarchy through voting, because there are no elections, and nothing to elect people to. One does not do so through revolution, as there is nobody to revolt against, and any armed force strong enough to reset the institutions of an anarchy is a de facto government. It would seem that one must destroy the anarchy in order to save it.

If one posits an anarcho-capitalist / market anarchy society, it functions through the voluntary cooperation of its citizens. Thus, if the society functions suboptimally, it must be because cooperation is suboptimal. If one compels the citizens to cooperate, one no longer has an anarchy. Thus, one must persuade one’s fellow citizens to improve their cooperation. If the failures are fairly specific, they can be addressed by concrete proposals: “If we did THIS, things would work better.” “This” could be tried in a community, and if it proved successful, other communities would adopt it. And of course market forces are one of the main means of cooperation.

But what if the breakdown in cooperation was due to the will of the citizens? What if they don’t WANT to cooperate in a particular way? What if their self-interest conflicts with their neighbor’s interest? One possible solution would be to fix the moral basis of the citizenry, so that they see their neighbor’s self-interest as their own. But that’s a solution many libertarians are uncomfortable with, as it implies religion.  And “to fix” anarchism in such a way implies either forcing religion into the citizenry  (in which case, no anarchism), or else taking the matter out of political philosophy entirely and concentrating on religion. Since we have no other acceptable idea on how to fix anarchies, it is natural to use the worst anarchy in comparisons. On the other end, the better governments and anarchies are, the more they resemble each other. I call this the “Kingdom of Heaven paradox”: Is Heaven a perfect government where Christ rules with a rod of iron, or is it a perfect anarchy, since everyone there seeks to do the will of God?  Can you be forced to do what you want to do anyway? The better citizens are, the less government is necessary; the worse they are, the more government is necessary. So perhaps the most revolutionary act is to guide the citizenry toward holiness. This means friction with the State, because the State’s self-interest is to discourage reliance on anything besides itself, and the State will do what it legally can to erode morality and moral institutions.  This suggests that a necessary activity of religion is to erode the State. There are plenty of peaceful ways of doing this without directly confronting power: agorism and mutual aid are two examples. The Amish can be our guide here.

An open letter to college kids, from the Church

Inspired by (and partially in reply to) this:

Dear College Kid Who Misses Me,

Glad you had a great time at the Macklemore concert.I understand that sense of belonging, of being taken outside yourself. That’s a lot of what I do, but I don’t do enough of it, it seems. You want more, and you want real. And you think I’m in the business of excluding and hating people. Yeah, Fred Phelps, but you know me better than that; you know Westboro Baptist isn’t Church. Dad’s gonna spank that man, when he come home.

In particular, you think I hate gay people. I love gay people. I love gay people so much, that I don’t want them to hurt themselves. You remember, just a few years ago, when your mom wouldn’t let you eat your whole Easter basket all in one day? Or when she made you eat your vegetables (or at least try them)? She made rules about organizing your stuff so it didn’t get stepped on. And she had a screaming hissy when you wanted to overnight at your boyfriends’. Your dad had rules too, and your parents backed each other up. Oh wait, you didn’t have a dad. That makes my heart ache. But anyway, they really hated your guts, didn’t they? Oppressive patriarchal fossils who didn’t understand. Uh, no, they loved you. You know that now. You’ll know it even better soon, when you have kids of your own.

You seem to think that because there was some science that part of me was wrong about once, that I’m wrong about everything, and can change my mind about everything. I never claimed to be a scientist; I claimed to be infallible in matters of faith and morals. I know where you got that. The Schmuck of the Body of Christ who is typing this grew up in a “church” started by a priest who didn’t like some of what he saw in me either. He wanted to marry a nun. So a bunch of young people left and made their own “church” that didn’t oppose priestly marriage. They left those haters. (Of course, the guy they left with hated Jews, but none of the kids were Jewish, so it didn’t matter.) And people kept on following that pattern: they didn’t like Dad’s rules, so they’d start a church that did just what they wanted. You probably grew up in a church like that. But God is Truth. If you have a bunch of truths that contradict either other, some of them have to be false, right? Consider those Episcopalians you speak well of. They got started over sex too. And they’re losing members in droves, more than almost any other church. If people leave me because I’m fake, what does that say about them? God doesn’t change. If I speak for God, then I can’t change either. That should be pretty obvious. The world is supposed to conform to me; I’m not supposed to conform to the world. On the other hand, look at all the young people going to Latin Mass. That’s pretty hardcore. Maybe changing and pandering makes you a little less real.

But yeah, sex. You’re horny , right? I’m not who decided that you’re a child until you’re 26. I didn’t establish this messed-up social order. You should be getting married now, and working, not wracking up debt for a Gender Studies degree. That’s my plan. And I know you have issues with it, that the whole society does. You should be campaigning for heterosexual marriage. That got eliminated about the time your parents were born. You hate fake things; that’s why your generation isn’t getting married. If you can leave each other when the going gets rough anyway, why call in the clergy and the lawyers? Shack up. So do you want gays to get married, the way I mean marriage? Forever and ever, what God put together? If you do, I’d respect your argument more.

They’re tough rules. I understand. The Schmuck who is typing this had a big problem with them too, when he was your age. He thought he was good enough and smart enough to make his own rules. He hit 50 and saw that his rules didn’t work: not for him, not for society. His sexuality was disordered, and he doesn’t get my Gold Star of Approval just because it was disordered in a heterosexual way. I want you to be bound in love to each other, and to time, and to Dad. That’s what marriage does. And with gays, the time part is missing, because spit don’t make babies.

Dad wants gays not to play boinkie with each other. And that seems so unfair. But Dad didn’t make them gay. The world is broken, and He hurts because of it, hurts so bad that He let his own Son hurt like hell to fix it. Dad and I are trying to implement the fix, and we can fix individuals, but it’ll be awhile yet before we fix the world…or rather, Dad will replace it with a new world. Again, I don’t make the rules; I just pass them on. It’s up to each of us to play the cards we’re dealt, with Dad’s help, even if it seems like the dealer cheats. And that makes it all the more important to be kind to gay people. They have a tough row to hoe. I’ve got to call a sin a sin, but other people’s sins aren’t any of your business. You have enough sins of your own to worry about.

A lot of this stuff is even harder because of your parents. A lot of them said, “I want my children to make up their own minds about religion”. Funny, they didn’t say, “I want my children to make up their own minds about ALGEBRA.” You learned that, and maybe you don’t use it, but if you ever needed it, it would come back. If you don’t know what religion is, or how it works, or what it’s good for, how could it ever come back? Why would you ever become interested? And then maybe you go to church, and hold hands and sing Kum-ba-ya, and the pastor never says anything that’s challenging, because somebody might get offended and withhold their money. That’s fake too. Jesus is the most real, the most countercultural and rebellious thing out there, and it’s my job to point to Him and provide a space where you and He can hang out together, and where somebody can speak the truth, even if it hurts.

I’ve failed you in a lot of ways. I’ve always failed, because I’m made up of folks like the Schmuck and you, who are always looking for the easy way. This is not an easy way. Your friends won’t like you. People may even kill you. Life will become a live-action film, and you’ll be the hero. But the movie is realer than real. I think you’ll like it. Please come back to me.

A canticle for Leibowitz

My high school band director, Paul Parets, suggested that I should read A canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. Since Mr. P (I still can’t bring myself to call him “Paul”) was one of the few teachers I had who was Not An Idiot, I decided to take him up on it. And here is the obligatory book report.

Canticle was written at the high point of American Catholicism, the mid-50s, before The Spirit of Vatican II (not the letter!) tore everything apart. Miller was a Catholic convert who had before his conversion taken part in the bombing of the Benedictine Abbey of Monte Cassino, which was traumatic for him, and which was a definite influence on Canticle. It’s a bit of a shock in 2013 to read a novel, not specifically aimed at a religious audience, which treats the Church accurately and respectfully, and which deals with theological issues with 99% fidelity. It’s a realistic portrayal: there are sadistic abbots, bad popes, and a priest who punches somebody in the face (like St. Nicholas!). But there is no pederasty and no conspiracies (aside from a little politicking by an abbot). Rather, there is (among other matters) a battle over euthanasia which is shocking in its timeliness.

The theme of the novel is the relationship between religion and science, and the practical necessity for religion to guide the use and development of science. The first part of the novel (originally, three separate novellas) is set 600 years after a nuclear war. In the aftermath, the survivors had attempted to wipe out all knowledge and learning. A scientist named Isaac Edward Leibowitz joined the Church for protection, and founded an order of monks, The Albertine Order of Leibowitz (coincidentally and amusingly abbreviated AOL), to preserve what knowledge had escaped the howling mobs. The monks hand-copy books, as they did during the Dark Ages. A postulant encounters a Jewish pilgrim who points him to the final resting place of the Beatus Leibowitz’s wife, and to some relics, which eventually leads to the canonization of Leibowitz. This mysterious pilgrim appears in all three sections of the book (the only character to do so, given that the time span is 1200 years). In the first part, he is taken by some to be an apparition of Leibowitz himself. In the second section, he scoffs at this and declares himself to be Lazarus. As a type, he fits the legend of the Wandering Jew; he is always looking for the Messiah (who Lazarus would presumably recognize). And it should be noted that standard Catholic belief is that Lazarus eventually died again.

In the second section, set 600 years later, a Renaissance is beginning., along with secular science, which finds itself being co-opted by political power. The Church (in the form of the AOL Abbey) is open-handed with scientific knowledge, while challenging the moral choices of scientists. In the 3rd section (600 years yet farther on) civilization has returned to its former state, including nuclear weapons, and they are starting to be used. A group from the Church, including bishops, sets off in a spaceship to the colony on a planet of Alpha Centauri, to perpetuate the Church, before Mankind destroys itself again (and possibly finally).

The writing style is engaging (indeed, at points so virtuosic as to call attention to itself), the plot energetic, and the ideas of consequence. It’s well worth the read. One wonders what effect the post-Vatican II disruptions would have had on Miller’s writing. Miller suffered from PTSD and depression all his life, and after he wrote Canticle, he became a recluse. He had finished most of a companion novel, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, before shooting himself in 1996. It’s been finished and published, I haven’t read it, but the Wikipedia summary suggests that either the Church’s demons or Miller’s own had gotten to it, set as it is in a time of a Babylonian Capitivity of the Church. I might look for it; in the meantime, Canticle gets this layman’s official Nihil obstat and recommendation.

Back to the future

So what is this allergy that the Obots have about the 1950s?

This has been a recurring theme in the Obama campaign, and I really don’t understand it. It works because most Americans didn’t live through it and don’t know their history.

1950s: near full employment.  Married women didn’t HAVE to work (but could). Lower crime. Stable families. Much lower rate of divorce and out-of-wedlock births. HIgh point of the Catholic Church in America, and a better time for churches in general. Strong unions that weren’t Communist, and a Democrat Party that was not a wholly-owned subsidiary of the CPUSA. Real money made out of precious metals. Journalists who at least pretended to report. Millions of babies not being murdered in the womb. No War on Poverty programs creating a permanent underclass. A vigorous space program. Mail-order guns. Classical music on commercial TV and radio. Ven. Fulton Sheen. Few chain restaurants.

Negatives: segregation. Restricted access to birth control (not sure that’s a negative, but I’ll give it to them). The Cold War (we have one of those too, only it’s religious). High taxes to pay off WWII. Nightmares about mushroom clouds. More boring (but healthier?) food. The beginning of Richard Nixon’s career. Electric coffeepots that cost as much or more than the modern ones in fixed dollar terms, but brewed less good coffee (they did last longer though).

Technology doesn’t count. No society has ever willingly abandoned a technology, so if Romney takes us “back to the 50s”, we’ll still have Internet, cable, MRIs, etc.

Given that, just why again shouldn’t I regard this as a Romney campaign ad?

Why I’m NOT a Christian Democrat.

A Facebook friend posted a link to this essay, which I read because I really don’t understand Christian socialists. Well, I still don’t understand them. I have a feeling for them, maybe, but not an understanding. I understand more than I used to, when I started in the faith ; I’m willing to entertain the notion that government can be the vehicle for the fulfillment of moral imperatives. But I’m still not convinced that that’s the best decision prudentially, and I don’t think it’s the argument that the Left is actually making, since they generally argue against the intersection of morals and politics.

Ms. Dollar’s arguments, such as they are, amount to “I am a Democrat because they support all these good things.” It’s hard to argue against that; I want all those good things too. But as a Christian, I am responsible for my own actions, as are we all, and I will face my Judge to answer for the evils I have committed and supported.And my belief is that to vote Democrat is both to support evil, and not to support good. Let’s deal with the negative first.

The Democrat Party supports intrinsic evils, which we are forbidden to cooperate in.  First among these is abortion, which until 1930, Christendom universally condemned as murder. As a self-proclaimed theological conservative, Dollar should be standing with the past.  But I note that Dollar’s definition of “conservative” is “believes in the Nicene Creed”. That’s not the definition of a conservative; that’s the definition of a Christian. That’s been the filter between orthodoxy and heresy in Christendom for nearly 17 centuries, and if there are people whom Dollar accepts as Christian who do not believe in those propositions, both she and her church have major problems. (If she were truly theologically conservative, she’s be an orthodox Catholic, since the entire Reformation was an innovation.). She “align[s] myself with the political party that most consistently puts the interests of marginalized Americans on their national agenda.”  Yet the unborn are the most marginalized Americans of all,  since their very humanity is called into question; they are a “baby” or  a “fetus” depending on whether the mother wants them. To say “It’s not really murder” is like saying “It’s not really stealing,” the language of the justification is self-refuting. Even if one doesn’t know what a human is, somehow, the fact that the preborn class of humans are usually called “baby” should lead one to invoke the precautionary principle. Do you really want to appear before King Jesus saying, “I didn’t know” as He gives you perfect recall of your friend’s baby shower? It’s possibly unfair to note here that the Democrat Party was, historically, the party that marginalized Americans, if they were black.

Nor does Dollar get to hide behind the belief that “abortion is a personal matter”, because she accepts the notion that the State is an agent for her moral choices. If her obligation to feed the poor can and should be fulfilled by government, how much more her obligation to defend the defenseless and to act as a Good Samaritan? Even supporters of the most minimal forms of government agree that, if government has any legitimate function at all, it is to prevent or punish murder. There’s a limited exemption for self-defense, but to use that here would be to accept Murray Rothbard’s argument that the fetus is a parasitic invader that needs to be defended against… and hence not human. And if it’s human, then it’s not a moral actor in being where it is; nobody asks to be conceived. Worse is the unholy conjunction of abortion and charity which states that I have to pay for somebody else to kill their child, which means that abortion is no longer a “personal matter”, as there’s no conscience exemption.

This is not the only intrinsic evil supported by the Democrats. (I will gloss over the contraception issue, as most Christians no longer have a problem with it.) Their entire political philosophy and campaign strategy is based on envy, on the violation of the 10th commandment. It’s all about taking from those who have to give to those who have not. And the definition of “need” constantly expands. Our poor live what in much of the developed world would be considered a middle-class lifestyle. At what point are the poor no longer poor; at what point have we helped enough? I think we all agree that having to live under a bridge is unacceptable, but is there a right to fast food or discounted smart phones?

And the whole mechanism of wealth transfer can be morally questioned. Voting to aid the poor is not like pledging to United Way. In that case, one has a choice whether to contribute, and that choice doesn’t commit anyone else to do so. Indeed, one can get out of fulfilling one’s pledge. However, when you vote, that vote is binding on others who themselves chose otherwise.  And the State, unlike United Way, has guns; all state action is ultimately supported by armed force. Now, if I point a gun at you and request money, it’s a crime, even if I stick the contents of your wallet into a Salvation Army kettle. If I and a mob do so, it is still a crime; it may indeed be several crimes (inciting a riot, conspiracy). If a majority of the population were to do so, would it still be a crime? Why not? What is the magic whereby the State has a moral right to do this?  The Christian might cite Romans 13, but that begs the question of the moral standing of government action. Rom. 13:3-4 assumes we are dealing with just government. If we read 13:1-2 without the light of 13:3-4, we must assume that all governments without exception are ordained of God, including those of Hitler and Pol Pot, and equally to be obeyed, and there is no just-war right to revolution. Now, historically, the Church hasn’t had a moral problem with normal taxation, unless it reaches an oppressive level, so I will freely admit that this argument is ahistorical. Yet it offers a possible counterbalance for the prudential judgement of those who were not taught about solidarity and subsidiarity.

But  some of Dollar’s arguments are also ahistorical, particularly the distinction between “fairness” and “justice“. Indeed, by etymology, she has them reversed if there is any real distinction at all, since justice is legal whereas what is fair is a moral issue….probably more of the rotten fruit of Luigi Taparelli (The class-differentiation is built into the words : Latin vs. Germanic.) Quoting Matthew 20 here is a two-edged sword. God is “fair” exactly as the vineyard owner is. His covenant with us is to grant eternal life to those who repent and believe on His name, whether we do so from birth or on our deathbed, and regardless of how long we have labored in the vineyard. Like the early workers, we might be disturbed at God’s insane generosity to the latecomers. But we contracted for the penny because we need the penny, and can’t lose the chance through death.

She goes on to discuss “everyone giving out of what they have so that all have what they need (e.g., the Loaves and Fishes, Matthew 14:13–21).”  I’ve dealt with this heresy elsewhere (and it IS a heresy to deny what is clearly described as a physical miracle.). But in the State, not everyone gives what they have. The tithe was not a progressive tax, and the widow’s mite was praised because losing anything was a hardship for her. Clearly the centurions should have gone to a Pharisee’s house, and made him pay for her.

This brings us to the other big problem with government support of the poor: it’s not charity, and like bad money under Gresham’s Law, it tends to drive real charity out of the marketplace. You get no moral brownie points for voting for taxes. You get even fewer for paying them, except for those applicable to obeying the law. You aren’t paying out of the goodness of your heart; you pay them to avoid unpleasantness with the IRS which may well include losing your home or freedom. Paying your tax doesn’t change who you are. Now, we sinners don’t want to come up off the dime, and I am the worst in that regard. Some of us solve that problem by making the government force us to come off the dime. It’s somewhat like the closet gay legislator who wants more anti-gay laws because he doesn’t think he can keep it in his pants otherwise. Others of us solve the problem by just doing it. It’s a form of pump priming; as we give, giving gets easier. And it changes us, making us more like Christ, which for Christians is the name of the game. But there aren’t enough real Christians to maintain the poor? Uh, maybe you should take some of the effort you put into Get Out the Vote and put it into evangelization, as Jesus told you to.

“None of us practice a pure faith. Our faith is always influenced by both the Christian and wider cultures in which we live. ” As a statement of fact, I can’t disagree with that. After all, we don’t only read the Bible in Greek as the Muslims read the Koran in Arabic.  As a theological position, though, it runs up against Romans 12:2. I have to wonder whether Dollar’s religion is actually liberalism for which she uses Christianity as a justification, just as she (and I) might well question the extend to which my libertarian leanings might wag the Christian dog. But the goal should be, first, to find the pure faith, and then to prayerfully and objectively apply it to life, including political life.

On the last morning of free America

A repost from the old CWRU blog, so that maybe I’ll find it next year. This was written on the 5th anniversary.

I got to work just before 8:30, as usual, opened up the library, got my email and dealt with it, opened Netscape, around 9…and there on the home page was something about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center. Shrug. Tragedies happen all the time, and I don’t pay much attention to them. A few people die, life goes on. Some drunk or crazy private pilot, probably. I didn’t click on the headline; I did whatever I’d opened the browser for.

I don’t recall who called first, whether it was my girlfriend (now wife) Rusty, or Mary Burns from Special Collections (who I think had the day off). But they both let me know that this was not your typical tragedy, that something very big was happening. And I wanted to know more. So I hit the Net, just like every other person in every other office in America. And I learned that broadband avails not when every news server in the country is being bombarded. Web sites took hours to load, or so it seemed. So I tried broadcast. No TV in Kulas (we had a straight video monitor for tapes and DVDs). We had a room full of receivers, but none had antennas, and none brought in anything but static. Mary and Rusty kept calling, people coming through to the music department were pumped for details and provided with what I had. I’m a librarian, damnit, let me do my job of transmitting information. Work keeps me sane. Yes, I’ll show you how to find Rite of Spring, if you really care today. Nobody did.

German class at 11:30, was it? And that bastard Benseler dropped the lesson plan and had us talking about it, in English yet. Nein. Fick das. Ich kann die Wörter für dies auf Englisch kaum finden. Wie schwerer konnte es auf Deutsch sein? Lass uns über Flugzeuge und grosse Gebaüde reden, ja, selbst über das Turkenproblem (and I note that my old German-English dictionary has no entries for Moslems or Islam). Es klingt ferner, wie Dresden oder Auschwitz oder der Heimatssicherheitsdienst (Ach! Das war nicht in der Vergangenheit, sondern in der Zukunft.)

Shortly thereafter, the University sent us all home. And the RTA made us leave the Rapid at E. 34th, to get on busses to sit on Public Square forever so that, in that hypothetical moment when the plane hit the Terminal Tower, only half of it would fall on our heads. And finally home, to the deafening silence of an nearby airport with no planes (and the stark terror three days later when I heard the first one fly over), to the TV that I couldn’t watch and couldn’t turn off.

In days after, I checked friends in NYC. The composer Jeff Harrington saw the smoke from his office. My old love Beth Marker was working as a toxicologist for NYC, and was stressed. As I later learned, baritone Stephen Poulos, a schoolmate at University of Michigan (though I didn’t know him) had decided there was more money in computers than in singing, and was in one of the towers.

It hasn’t happened again. Does this mean the government has done a good job? I haven’t flown since then either, since I don’t care to be treated as a criminal. On 9/10/01, we weren’t discussing NAIS, or Real ID, or a hundred other assaults on liberty only tangentially connected to radicals hot for their 72 Virginians. It was the day that we as a culture learned how to fear, and we ran towards anything that would promise safety. Judged by that, it was the most successful terrorist act in history.

My colleague Mano Singham sees all the commemoration as false sentimentality. Not here. I don’t, can’t in any real sense mourn 3000 people I never knew. The only difference between them and any other random sample of people is that they died earlier and more unpleasantly. I mourn the free country I grew up in, freedom that has been going downhill for years but which was given a good kick downward 5 years ago today.

Return to St. Mary and St. Joseph, Newton Falls, OH

Awhile back, I did a very negative review of St. Mary and St. Joseph Church, 131 W. Quarry St. in Newton Falls, which became one of my most popular and controversial posts, and an occasion, I regret to say, for all kinds of calumny and gossip about the then-pastor. I thought it was only fair to check back in a year later, to see how the place had changed.

11 AM Mass, O 20, 8/19/12
Pastor: Fr. Thomas Ungashick
Organist: ?? (Not named in bulletin-why?)
Worship aids: WLP Seasonal Missalette, Glory and Praise (not used), pew cards with new translation
Prelude: an unknown hymn which was either evangelical Protestant or E. European folkie-Catholic, and Hillert Festival Canticle (“This is the feast of victory for our God”)
Hymns: Rendez a Dieu, Jesus Christ Bread of Life (Dvorak 9th Symphony/II), I received the living God, Love divine all loves excelling
Ordinary: Penitential C (spoken), the usual suspects (I’ve sung some of these, I know, but if I haven’t had the music in front of me, I have no idea what they’re called or who was responsible.)

The hymns were all good ones, and the priest sang along. The organist was not highly skilled; I heard a fair bit of Alberti-pattern left-hand comping going on. But he was more tasteful than last year’s organist, and adequately skilled, with few if any wrong notes. Everything was on organ except for the Psalm and Gospel Acclamation, which pretty much had to be up front on piano, because the organist was the cantor. He sang on pitch, but can use some work with vowels and dipthongs. This is probably a summer thing, because choir rehearsal resumes on 8/22, with 45 minutes of cantor practice scheduled.

There was a little bit of jolly talk announcement stuff before the Mass which had me worried. And then the homily began with talk about “legalism”, and I assumed he was going to talk about “don’t sweat the little stuff.”  Boy, was I wrong! This was some of the solidest preaching I have heard in an OF church.Fr. Ungashick described legalism as the thing before the sex abuse scandals that was most injurious to the church, and gave several examples, ending with the legalist notion that Jesus was only inside you for a short time (15 minutes, say) after the Eucharist (so you only had to be good for that long.)…and BOOM, we were off to the races. During the Mass not only is the bread and wine consecrated (and he hit the True Presence hard) but also the congregation is consecrated as the Body of Christ.  The bread can’t choose not to be consecrated, but we can. So why is it that Catholics don’t stick out like a sore thumb? How come there are just as many Catholic divorces and as many Catholic crimes as in the general population , and how come (Hats in the air!) Catholics vote for pro-abortion politicians in number similar to the general population? There’s a sermon! Church history? Check. Catechesis? Check. Exhortation? Check. Afflicting the comfortable/not being afraid to piss off the congregation? double check. What more could one want? Anointing of the sick after Mass? We got it.

And there were no liturgy abuses! Yeah, there was the old 4-hymn sammich and EMHCs, but the legalists say that’s OK. Musically, there’s room for improvement, but that’s a question of resources rather than will, and I believe it will happen. (and given that I haven’t volunteered to cantor, I can scarcely complain). The one suggestion I would make is for Father to at least sing the Mysterium fidei and  ”through him” , if not the other prayers, given that he’s demonstrated he CAN sing. (and keep on singing those hymns; it encourages the congregants.)

I suspect the healing process is still ongoing here. I had a pew to myself, and there were empties. I heard somebody outside complain about being unappreciated.  But you guys have the real deal here. (Yeah, I know, they’re all the real deal; it’s not like I can confect the Eucharist. But some priests are more gifted and/or committed to church teaching than others.) Support him. And I’ll be back…let’s see how attendance is at 8, or at the “vigil” mass.

Barnhardt and the Latin Mass

Ann Barnhardt has been discussing the Tridentine vs. the Novus Ordo Mass. I’ll be quoting here, due to the stupid non-linkability of her individual blog posts.

I can tell from my email box that the vast, vast, vast majority of people out there have absolutely no fathom what the Mass looked like before 1968. Most Catholics think that the Mass was pretty much like it is today, except in Latin.

Um, that would be very, very, very wrong. The Mass today, the Novus Ordo Mass, has been so radically altered, you can only tell that it is even related to the Tridentine Mass by a few phrases here and there, namely the Gloria, Creed, Orate Fratres (Pray, my brothers and sisters), Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy) and the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God).

The Mass today IS pretty much like the Tridentine mass…and it IS, normatively, in Latin, with national translations.  The language is quite similar. The differences IN THE MASS ITSELF (as opposed to its implementation) are the options for the Penitential Rite and the Canon, the substitution of the Responsorial Psalm for the Gradual and the Gospel acclamation for the Alleluia, the addition of one reading, the Great Amen and the sign of peace. Add to that the three year lectionary.

Now, some of these changes are good, and some aren’t, but they don’t in themselves create “superfun rockband church”. The options are silly and confusing; go with the Confiteor and the Roman Canon, and get rid of the twofold Kyrie (which member of the Trinity got demoted?). Now, the Responsorial Psalm is an issue. It’s one of those things that are good in theory; you get a whole psalm, and the congregation sings the antiphon. More Scripture and more participation are good.But the congregation doesn’t read music, and they’ve never heard the piece before, so they get to sing (or not sing) some inane jingle that in theory can be picked up after the first repetition, and repeatedly interrupts the psalm. Then you have some cute babe at the ambo (or whatever wretched lectern substitutes for it) — and why are 90% of cantors female? Solo voices (and particularly solo female voices) are not really part of the Catholic tradition. Sure, they’ve always been there, but not as a prescribed and customary part of the liturgy, and not front and center. It’s a performer culture: “Listen to my beautiful voice.” The deal is, the psalm does not, legislatively, have to be solo or responsorial; it just IS, in the American church. The Gospel Acc is a wash. the extra reading is a good thing, and the Great Amen is not prescribed… you can sing “Amen” recto tono and be fine. Get RID of the Sign of Peace. The 3 year lectionary I’m not sure of; more Scripture is good, but so is more repetition of Scripture, and Scripture as a marker for where you are in the year. And I HATE HATE HATE the term “Ordinary time”

If you look at Sacrosanctum concilium, you find that the Vatican II participants wanted to improve the mass experience. And Low Mass, and Low Mass with hymns, definitely needed improving. The stereotype of the little old ladies saying the Rosary because they didn’t understand anything is a valid one. In essence, they wanted to make the High Mass normative, with permission for SOME English in the mass, and a greater role for the congregation in the responses. A Mass according the the vision of SC would probably have Latin Ordinary, Confiteor and Canon, and English readings and propers (instead of doing the readings in Latin and repeating them in English).

As I explained it to one person, the Novus Ordo Mass is FAR closer to Superfun Rockband church than it is to the Tridentine Mass.

IN PRACTICE, it’s hard to contradict her. So how did we get SRB?
It was the bishops (particularly Bernardin) and the implementation. Before Superfun Rockband Church, we had Superfun Hootenanny Church, which was a movement bubbling up from the late 50s on. Well, those were the people who had songs and Ordinary settings ready when the bishops decided to turn the Church on a dime and go ALL ENGLISH, so they got used, and people liked them… which is why Church music today sounds like 60s/70s folk rock. Worship ad populo? Not Vatican II. Communion in the hand? Not V2. Announcements and chit-chat during the mass? Not V2. Female altar servers and Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion? Not V2. And the Missal of Paul VI, the Novus Ordo itself? NOT VATICAN II.

It’s very important to make that distinction, else you’re headed to SSPX-land. It’s very hard to exclude a general council of the Church from the Magisterium. Fortunately, there’s no need to do so. If you read the conciliar documents on the liturgy, they are eminently sensible. The only problem with them is that they constituted an unfunded mandate on parishes to provide a High Mass experience. Priests couldn’t or wouldn’t sing, and there was at most money for one professional musician besides the organist (the cantor).  Worst, they butchered implementation of the Propers in English, by including different texts for spoken and sung use, and by including a huge loophole in the GIRM which allowed for congregational hymns to replace the Propers, which is how we got the “4-hymn sandwich”. Essentially, the typical Ordinary Form deployment became a hybrid of the Low Mass with some elements of the Missa Cantata.

So, given that we have 2 generations of Catholics that never knew anything else, how do we fix the Mass? Start with the little things. Have the priest sing more, even badly. Have him face East. Install altar rails for Communion, and save your EMHC for shut-ins. Use the Propers.  Have processions. Post a dress code at the door of the sanctuary, and mention it periodically in the homily. Sing a little Gregorian Chant. Use a little Latin, for texts the congregation should know. If we performed the Mass we have reverently, we’d be 90% of the way toward where we need to be. And if we keep on offering the Latin Mass, people will see what the Mass can be, and be influenced by it.

Jubilation festival

Last night was the second night of the Jubilation/Elizabeth Stuart Choir Festival V, and appearance of the Mary Queen of Peace Chamber Choir, the Little Choir That Could. In the end, we couldn’t, but we gave it our best shot.

It had been pretty stressy going in. The Thurs. rehearsal was a workout; I had throat discomfort the next day. When you’re 1-2 on a part, there’s not much of a lifeline if you fall off the tightrope, you can hear every little imperfection, there were the usual suspects adding stress. Even warming up downstairs, we were changing things like performing pitch (though thankfully, we finally had the notes in hand).

Then upstairs to hear the competition. I’d heard 2 groups on the radio the night before and wasn’t worried, but tonight’s competition was stiffer, alarmingly so. Hudson UCC was pretty damn good… fine blend, dynamic range, diction and rhythm. And I sat there thinking, “We are screwed.”  Their gospel tune rocked pretty hard for a bunch of white folk from the ‘burbs. Processing to the back to that tune seemed a bit too much like a victory lap for me.

Next up was St. Noel Willoughby, in their first competition. They were big – about 70 – and also good, though not as consistent as Hudson, with some blend issues in the men, mushy diction and the occasional intonation lapse. And they HAD enough men, unusually for an OF Catholic choir. And the very able accompaniment of the amazing Eric Charnofsky.

And then it was our turn, and we sang at about 96% of potential. There were a few little lapses, but no disasters, and we were VERY well received by the audience. Praise afterwards, from other choir members, about our diction, our voices, expressivity, and repertoire (especially the Iain Quinn Vidi Aquam, which had been a controversial repertoire choice, particular for the closer. It’s beautiful, but pretty crunchy harmonically, and not at all a “big finish”.) All this we heard from people while we waited for the judges.  Fr. Doug showed up, which meant a lot to me. It is SO important to have the pastor in your corner, if you’re going to do traditional Catholic music.

Finally the judges came out, they got people shushed and cut back from the station, and they brought Robert Page up to read the results and give out the prizes. He was saving the winner for last (they don’t rank anyone else). So they named off yesterday’s choirs, then Hudson, which I somehow didn’t notice. Then #5, Mary Queen of Peace. Oh shit, we didn’t win. Shocked silence in the room as it dawns on St. Noel that if we’re #5, they’re the winner. BIG applause for us, and then of course big applause for St. Noel. After things quieted down, we approached Dave onstage. We’d gotten some amusement from Hudson’s choir motto, because Dave’s motto for us had been, “If you don’t win, you’d better find another choir director to go home with.” So Majersic said, “You SUCK! I’m quitting!” and I said, “OK, Hudson IS closer to home.” He was amused, and was happy with our performance.

I don’t know how the judges judged, and how subjective the process was. In purely objective terms, I thought Hudson was the better choir. But I’m really glad that a Catholic choir won, because most of them suck so badly (when they exist at all). And their repertoire was middle-of-the-road, which is an improvement on so many parishes. We got judged harder because we were obviously professional…but we predicted that going in. We just weren’t professional enough, what with that bass with the breathing issues (that would be me). I don’t feel very bad about being beaten by a choir 10x our size. And I’m not sure how we compared, since what we did was so different from anybody else. Our program was 50% Renaissance, and 50% Latin (not the same 50%), and was radically traditional-Catholic except for the obligatory African-American piece (and the Stainer maybe, though it’s hard to define a setting of John 3:16 as sectarian)  and we were the only group to perform exclusively a cappella. We got to show the world the best of what happens musically at MQoP… which is mainly why we did it.  That, and making some money to pay us with.

There were choirs (at least half) who brought instruments besides piano with them. Do they usually have that in their services? Was it an attempt to curry favor? I don’t know. I was amused by St. Noel’s flute piece though. It’s funny; flutes had never been part of the Catholic church music tradition, and were actively discouraged in Papal documents (which means they WERE used occasionally) — until Vatican II. Now they’re everywhere, the sackbuts and violins of the 21st century. Now, I don’t have a problem with that, as they don’t have those noisy theatrical lascivious associations for me, and the V2 docs are more permissive in that regard. I should have a problem, maybe, as flutes, harps and drums are the primary neo-pagan instruments. I just note that it’s yet another 180 from tradition.

So, it’s over…and there’s planting and composing to do.