Category: Jeffrey Tucker

A comment on this blog points this the new GIRM at the USCCB website. This is the document that makes the Latin text much clearer. It includes a firmer declaration concerning the centrality of Gregorian chant, a broadened permission to sing the Gradual instead of the Responsorial Psalm, and a much-constrained environment for the use of non-liturgical music and texts. In fact, a plain reading of this document would raise serious questions about most all music (and texts in music) that one hears in most any Catholic parish today.

The Vatican II Hymnal jumps all over the new technology, the new consciousness about open source resources, the emerging understanding of the Mass propers, and today’s ethos that is just fed up with the 1970s. There is really something to this. I really wish them every success.

Here is the new translation of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 2011. This will appear in the Third Edition of the Roman Missal. This is the document that renders option 4 as “another liturgical chant that is suited to the sacred action, the day, or the time of year, similarly approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop.” For more on the implications, see this post.

At last, we have a nice booklet that permits us to chant the Rosary in Latin. It is beautifully prepared by the website Ictus. Here it is.

This Boston model should be copied by every diocese.

Hope to see you in East Lansing!

The jobs board at the MusicaSacra.com/forum is very active these days.