The essence of our faith, as recited every Sunday is the Nicene Creed which takes its name from the first Ecumenical Council of the Church in Nicea in 325. It has, for nearly 1800 years, been the foundation from which the principles of the faith have been taught. For almost as long it has been codified in chant that the people of God may sing it in unity of thought, unity of profession, and unity of voice.
It hasn’t been without its revisions and controvosies including the filioque clause, added to affirm the precedence of the persons of the Trinity that ignited a heated debate with the Orthodox Church and remains a point of contention today. Regular readers of Fr Z’s blog will understand the “lame duck” argument against the 1970 translation and the way in which even subtle changes in text have led to significant changes in understanding. Consubstantialem patri became “of one being with the Father” rather than “consubstantial” which it becomes with the new translation. We “believe in” rather than “confess” one baptism, which again, thankfully will change. The detractors of the new translations claim that words like “consubstantial” are difficult concepts to understand and linguistically tricky because we just don’t speak that way in normal conversation. There are many points to be made in reply, but Fr Z answers it succinctly in the argument “if it’s structurally tricky in English then why not sing/say it in the fluid Latin?” A good point well made.
In order to aid the transition later in the year I’d be game for singing the creed in one of the 6 chant modes. Some parishes do this, and many of the English cathedrals will most Sundays, using either Credo 3 in ordinary time and Credo 1 (which I much prefer) in the penitential seasons. Personally, I think if we are in a time of counter-revolutionary revolution why not push the boat out with some of the other modes? Credo 4 is a particular favourite of mine (confusingly Credo 1 is in mode 4, Credo 4 in mode 1) as it evokes a monastic feel. I’d happily see that become the norm for the Lenten season perhaps. Maybe if your parish is too wedded to the 4 hymn sandwich to introduce plainsong propers, the plainsong creed is another way to go.
One of the ways the liturgical tinkerers have really undermined the centrality of the mass has been through the creed. I remember 20 years ago as a teenager going along to a Youth Rally that ended in a “mass”. I was in “Rhets” (Rheteoric, the name given the the lower 6th form year in my school) and a friend of mine was involved in the organisation of the day. Part of it included a kind of assembly where some “grown ups” (read “yoof ministry” professionals a good 20 or so years older than us and with no real idea of what messages would really have resonated with us) would talk to us about their “testimonies”. From what I remembered most of them involved stories of how excited they were at our age because Vatican 2 was going on at the time and how the mass was going to change from crusty old Latin into funky English, and the mass was going to be “fun” and the challenges they faced standing up to “the man” in the name of justice and peace. We listened politiely while scoping out the girls we fancied planning our advances for the disco later that evening, as you do when you’re 17. Then came mass. It was awful. My friend David, who had spent months organising this event with others in the Deanery, was effectively told that the mass was out of bounds to him and that the “yoof ministry” of 40-something grown ups would organise this bit of the day. We had “liturgical dance”. We had standing round in a circle holding hands during the consecration. We had bidding prayers for Mother Earth. We had a nun asking a non-Catholic if she wanted to be a Eucharistic Minister (because “we are all members of God’s family”). We had Fr Funky in his sandals and polyester ethnic shawl/stole strumming a guitar leading “praise songs”. We had all of that, but we kind of expected it. We resigned ourselves to the mass being a playground for the infantile “grown ups” who thought they were “reaching out”, but instead did nothing other than pander to their own whims while making us think they were loosers (in the nicest possible way). We knew that was the quid pro quo, so it didn’t shock us. What did, what got us talking afterwards (other than whether anyone knew if so-and-so’s sister had a boyfriend) was the fact that the Creed, the bit everyone would usually say together had been replaced with some nonesense. I don’t remember it in any detail, except that there was absolutely no mention of God beyond a passing reference to (and this I do remember even now, 20 years on) “a collective consciousness that energises the whole of creation”. Whatever that means. We professed beliefs in justice, peace, caring for the world and each other, denying war and famine were true paths, but we never actually stated a fim belief in anything other than a “collective consciousness”. God simply didn’t get a look-in.
What does it say about the innate understanding of the centrality of the Creed when Fr Funky and Sr Bendy and a few “yoof workers” can liturgically dance to the “table of more than plenty” and we, as teenagers, were hardly surprised and only mildly offended; but play with the Creed? That was a whole new dimension and it bothered us. We would have struggled to articulate why, but the absence of the Nicene Creed seemed to disjoint the whole experience.
As a counter to the folly of my older generation your correspondent leaves you with Credo 4. Let’s hope my children’s generation are spared the toe-curling embarassment of infantile “grown-ups” offering up what I had to endure. Now would be the time to encourage that change.
Keith, I like your posts here. Good writing. I'd be cautious about cherry-picking the worst arguments against MR3's English rendition.
There's a good point to be made here about the importance of the Creed in liturgy, and how to draw worshipers into a deeper intentionality about it. But don't sully your good arguments with throw-away cheap shots.
If you want to talk about harm to the liturgy, let's grapple with bishops covering up sex-abusers and what that's done to episcopal credibility and a good feeling among the faithful for their leaders. Who gives a darn about liturgical soap operas, whether polyestered or perfumed?
As a person whose comments on the subject of appropriate music and texts were deemed "snarkiness" by another blogger, I am suprised at this entry. I am one of the older Catholics that you criticize. Let's make this a "no snark" zone.
I'm not sure I understand Todd or RedCat's comments here. A tragedy (sex abuse) might be more important than a travesty (changing the Credo), but that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about the later. By that logic, we should all decide on the one most important issue of our time (abortion, maybe? genocide? global warming? women's rights? the rent is too damn high? the inability of Target to find enough people to work the cash registers during a rush?) and then only talk about that, as all other topics are too trivial by comparison.
Lots of bad things have happened in the world. Specific to Liturgy, lots of bad things happened there. One of those things was the replacement of the Credo with Unitarian hogwash. Our writer is pointing that out, saying it is even worse than some other liturgical stupidity (dancing, et al) and saying that he hopes the new ICEL texts and translation, along with the increasing movement of solemnity among the young, will herald a new era where such stupid things don't occur. Well gosh- I'll drink to that.
And RedCat, are you a perpetrator youth-directed liturgical abuse? If you are, we'll forgive you (you probably didn't know what you were doing). If not, then you are not "one of the older Catholics that [he is] criticiz[ing]"
Mr. Fraser,… I feel your pain.
Received into the Church via an heretical bunch in the mid 1980s, in a class of a dozen catechumens, I was one of two survivors who remained Catholic after two years. The priest and nun who ran the RCIA did significant damage: they were both vocal advocates of the pro-choice ideology; liturgies were routinely filled with major abuses, e.g., lay preachers and non-biblical readings, non-catholics routinely invited to receive communion, etc. That parish is only now shaking off its kooky past, but a whiff of heresy still lingers. A few aged hippies still gush about the "Father-so-and-so" days and cling to their memories of radical Sister Pantsuit, but most of the dissenters have gone over to liberal protestantism or left religion altogether.
If it hadn't been for joining a tradition-minded parish as choir director, I, too, might have soon left the Church. In the latter parish I learned what Catholicism was truly about from holy priests and lay faithful, and managed to shake off the diluted, lacklustre religion-substitute of the former parish. I suppose my real education in the Faith began in the second parish.
Thank God I was directed to the second parish. Twenty-five years a Catholic! I eagerly await the new translation of the Mass.
Todd – I fail to see your point. Are we only meant to talk about the sexual abuse cover up?
Actually, the best way to make amends for our sins – including that of sexual abuse of minors, abortion, etc. – is by celebrating the sacraments of the Church, in particular the holy sacrifice of the Mass, in the most reverent manner possible, because the sacrifice of Christ takes away the sins of the world. It is precisely because we have sinned that we need to partake in the same said sacrifice. When we do so, we should do it with the dignity and reverence that the Christ himself, through his Church, has commanded. Chanting the creed during the Mass (as opposed to making up our own creed) is one way of doing so.
Keith – were you at St Edmund's Ware by any chance?
Any thoughts regarding the Canadian "privilege" of saying the apostle's creed in stead of the Nicene creed? I am not against the apostle's creed as such, but in my experience it is the norm rather than the exception.
In fact, a few years ago a retired priest came into the parish after serving many years in the US. He chose the Nicene creed one Sunday morning. Only a handful of parishioners could recite it, while others flipped through their missalettes trying to find it.
Sadly, the Vox Clara tinkerers have added THREE "I believes" to the Credo, which in Latin has only one, as everyone knows and understands, governing the entire Symbolum. Moreover, Saint Thomas Aquinas specifically addresses why we do NOT say "I believe IN one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church."
While rightly rejoicing over the restoration of "consubstantial," we, and the author and Father Z ought to be just as honest in our critique of this translation as we are of the "lame duck" translation. THIS one is inaccurate as well, and we ought to demand that Vox Clara and the Congregation give us an accurate translation, with one "I believe," or this, too, will become a "lame duck" much sooner than the tinkerers imagine.
Todd, there are plenty of blogs and other forums on the internet to discuss clerical sex abuse, Chant Cafe concerns itself purely with liturgy and music, therefore I'm not going to address that issue. There is no causal link that I am expressing in my post about sex abuse and any cover up by the bishops and a particaular anecdote about a mass.
The point I was seeking to make was that I and others found the way in which the creed was dispensed uncomfortable, even amongst my peers who had different ideas about liturgy and liturgical practice to me. My further point was that it may be possible to win an argument at parish level to re-introduce a sung creed even where there may be opposition to replacing the 4 hymn sandwich with an introit/gradual/offertory/communion antiphon.
Thank you for linking that Credo IV. Does anyone else find it impossibly slow? I try not to complain about tempos – about which no one agrees – but seems to take things a bit too far.
Too slow for my taste, too, and impracticaly so for congregational participation. But one can imagine it being sung so in circummstances – say, in a religious house or at an EF celebration – in which its contemplative character would be just right. Assuming the singers have sufficient support and breath control, that is!
Keith, thanks for the response. Let's say that recent mass church defections have little enough to do with liturgy, and likely the mythical Father Polyester didn't have much to do with them either, and leave it at that.
"My further point was that it may be possible to win an argument at parish level to re-introduce a sung creed even where there may be opposition to replacing the 4 hymn sandwich with an introit/gradual/offertory/communion antiphon."
I don't think this argument is even on the table in most places. Personally, I would love to have a sparkling musical setting of the Creed in any language, any style. Credo IV is nice. I don't find this recording abominable, and I'm one of those who thinks chant was sunk because it was rendered dreadfully slow. Still the pauses between lines are a distraction.
For those of us around in 1963/4, the defections from attending Sunday Mass started with the ill thought out and ill conceived "reforms." The statistics don't lie. On the eve of the Council 75% of American Catholics attended Sunday Mass. prior to Humanae Vitae (the liberals big excuse for why people stopped coming to Mass) it had already dropped to 55%. Pretty startling. By the early 80s (with the new and improved Mass well established)and well before the clerical sexual scandals were in full view weekly attendence had dropped to the low 40%. If parishes had followed what Sacrosanctum Concilium said as opposed to what liturgical "progressives" said it meant, the attendence numbers would likely have held up fairly well. But when you have week after week of "change",upsetting worship patterns of centuries, bad results are bound to happen.
On the other hand, Mass attendance in Europe was already plummeting earlier int he 20th century. Another nail in the conservative group-think on bad liturgy were sociological studies from the University of Chicago. HV wasn't a liberal excuse. It was a reality. The same early-70's studies showed that liturgical reform as a whole lessened the hemorrhaging from HV.
Traditionalists and chant advocates are better served promoting the highest quality possible and setting their subjective opinions or even experiences aside.
The post-WWII West had significant upheavals. Even when you don't factor in the disillusionment in political and cultural leadership, you have the advent of the automobile, urban flight/suburban development, the civil rights movement, television, political assassinations, the counterculture, and of course, every conservative's favorite bugaboo: the sexual revolution.
A transfer from the silent Low Mass to one folk Mass plus five organ Masses? Catholics always had choices to avoid silliness. The third folk Mass I attended was when I was a 19-year-old college student. Guitars plus a wind quartet and SLJ-style propers: that was sure an improvement over the tremolo organ and warbly largo sopranos in most parishes.
My continuing challenge to Keith and Jeffrey: convince us the virtues of your own positions. Your criticisms are barely recognizable.
Todd, you keep repeating the same old, same old "little nuggets" I used to hear at lectures at liturgical conferences in the 1960s and 1970s. I didn't buy those arguments then, and I certainly am not buying the now. You're desperately trying to hold onto a vision of "reform" that has utterly and completely failed. Why not convince us of the virtue of your positions? Per Sacrosanctum Concilium chant should be the norm. To be in compliance with Vatican II parishioners must be talk to chant, in Latin, the parts of the Ordinary proper to them. In parishes where this was done prior to the Council, the results were fantastic. Chant is what conveys the power and genious of the Latin Rite. The other stuff, doesn't even come close. It's a bore.
Todd
I have to be honest, I'm not going to carry on a huge combox dialogue on this because arguiing points with someone who is obstinant is usually fruitless.
I've had a look at your blog, and I think it would be fair to say that on some issues we might have rom for agreement, on others not at all. Your blog bio says you…"serve in worship and spiritual growth in a midwestern university parish." and in one of your posts you reduce the argument in a piece in America magazine by Austen Ivereigh on the evangalization of Europe as "Bishops hoping to recover a ecclesiastical pseudo-aristocracy on a continent that has relegated its entitled class to tabloid fodder?"
Let's bust some preconceptions. I'm in my mid 30's. I'd like to see most, if not all parishes offer a traditional mass each Sunday but if given the choice as to whether to attend an EF or OF I would choose the latter mostly unless I needed to be somewhere else during the day and the EF mass was the only one I could get to. I prefer Latin but have no problem with masses said in English. I'm happy to say the new translations are a vast improvement on the old. My parish priest is a former Anglican and he's married. I have no problem with it. I'd have no problem with the discipline being generally dispensed in fact. A lot of "traddies" would find that horrifying. And so the list of me being conservative on one hand, liberal on the other could go on.
Put simply I am a former boy chorister, sometime lay clerk, former choir administrator and now I deputise quite often in a number of church and cathedral choirs, not all of them Catholic. If your perception is that being a regular contributor to this site is that I like to dress up in yards of frilly lace making exaggerated liturgical gestures incanting strange languages in clouds of incense you would be way off base. If I had to represent anything it would be the "middle ground" of the majority of Catholics who just want to see their Sunday mass said dilligently and respectfully in keeping with the norms of the church and in the comfort that if we found ourselves in another parish that we wouldn't feel utterly alien by the strange and bizarre that goes on there. I'd also like to see the clergy and the faithful in unity with the Holy Father and the bishops, not setting themselves up in opposition. That isn't a desire to a return to some form of clericalism, but rather respecting the Pope and the bishops and conforming the church to them in spite of their human frailty, but accepting all round that respectful challenge is sometimes necessary.
Keith, thanks for the response and the story. I'll confess being tenacious with people who insist on using second- and third-hand testimony to base their stances. I think a great case can be made for chant and other musical traditions. I don't think you put your best foot forward on this one.
And lastly, I'd be cautious about assuming too much about my perceptions. Except for what I share, they are my own.
Keith said, "…the comfort that if we found ourselves in another parish that we wouldn't feel utterly alien by the strange and bizarre that goes on there."
1 Corinthians 1:10?
I sure do think it would be nice to travel across the country and stop in at any church without fear of feeling like an outsider. The (Catholic) Christian community praying of one mind and heart… isn't that the point of Catholicism? Because the battle we find ourselves in over liturgical practice seems to be exactly over this very notion. "That's cool if the pope wants to do it that way, but I'm going to do it MY way."
Sigh.
I have a question about this. When I took over the music program for our Ordinariate Parish, my husband and I created the order of service for Mass. My husband noticed that "Holy" was taken out of the Credo with regard to "I believe in one Holy Catholic Church"– this appears to be only in the American Episcopal Prayer book and 1940 Hymnal. My knee jerk reasoning is that the Episcopal Church did not want to give anything too sincere to the Catholic Church– I want to say that I asked about why we believed in the Catholic Church, if we aren't Catholic, when I was a child– I think someone said that it was Catholic, with a little "c"– something probably said more tongue in cheek, rather than insightful.
But, is there a reason? Or just our need to change things?
It appears that some manuscripts of the Creed omitted the word _holy_, so Abp. Cranmer and his colleagues took it out: The question is discussed at this page: http://alivingtext.com/2010/10/18/omissions-from-…