c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a sociologist at the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. Check out his home page at http://www.agreeley.com or contact him via e-mail at agreel(at)aol.com.)

PARIS _ Notre Dame de Paris pretty much fills up for the 10:00 a.m. Mass on Sundays.

The congregation seems equal part native and foreign, the latter heavily American tourists. The liturgy is performed with precision and care. The priest reads the homily in French.

The only woman in sight up front is a director of song who appears in Celtic blue periodically to signal the congregation it is time to sing, which they do. The readers and ministers of the Eucharist are all male.

However, while the Mass is mostly in French, the proper and the ordinary are sung in perfect Gregorian chant. I would not trade our sometimes joyous American liturgies for all the chant in France. On the other hand, I fail to see the reason there has to be a choice.

Some liturgists decided after the Second Vatican Council that the liturgical reform introduced by the council meant chant (and all Latin music) was no longer tolerable. It had to go, replaced by guitar music and songs written by St. Louis Jesuits. Why this decision was necessary the liturgists never said. They rarely give reasons for the ukases.

It did not and does not seem to have occurred to them that the Catholic genius is and always has been to say”both … and”instead of”either … or.”One might have said”both chant and folk music,”if not at the same Mass at least on the same Sunday.

So this ancient and glorious Catholic music tradition was swept into the ash can of history, mostly one suspects because it was both ancient and glorious. The same folk who cheer loudly for the anachronism of the”Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (which dismisses”catechumens”from the Eucharist lest its secrets be betrayed to the Roman empire) have decided that plain chant is not a relevant remnant of our past.

The same liturgists, and whoever wrote the council bishops’ document on church architecture, would also think Notre Dame itself is not”liturgically correct.” So much for vibrant traditions.

Chant must be done well. Often what we heard in the past was a grotesque caricature. The four-man scola cantorum at Notre Dame did it well. Whether the execution is as good in many other churches in France I don’t know. But the issue is whether it can still be done in some American churches, especially by those who have wisely chosen to hire an expert music director who is not a fascist. Can some parish priests develop a small scola cantorum of men and women who appreciate the chant and sing it at one Mass a month or perhaps even one Mass a week?

Plain song does not exclude congregational singing. If the folks in the congregation of Notre Dame can respond effectively and prayerfully in the ordinary parts of the liturgy, so too can the congregations in some, perhaps many, American churches.

Why do it? Because it is a work of great artistic and religious beauty that is a rich part of our heritage. As the pope wrote not long ago in his remarkable letter to artists, art is essential to the ministry of the Church. It is not an option, not a luxury, it is an”Epiphany-making”necessity.

Why chant?

Because it is an art form which builds bridges between past and present and possesses a beauty which is inherently Catholic. Are there not more important things to do in a parish than to attempt to restore a moribund anachronism? There are many important things to be done in a parish. Art is one of them.

In a Catholic community which cares about its heritage and its past, the case does not have to be made in favor of chant. That should be presumed. The case that needs to be made is the case against it.

And that case?

Mainly the argument against plain song is that it is old. Nothing that is old can possibly be good. Anything that happened before 1965 is old-fashioned, out of date, irrelevant. Catholics have nothing to learn from their traditional art forms and everything to learn from the up-to-date and the modern. This, so the argument goes, is what the spirit of Vatican II means.

But one looks in vain in the documents of the council or the better commentaries, or even in the works of great conciliar theologians to find any justification for that attitude. However, when church leadership, losing control of the energies unleashed by the council, tries to suppress them, it leaves the field to the misguided and unguided enthusiasts.

DEA END GREELEY