Monsignor R.J. Schuler, PhD on the Elimination of Gregorian Chant

[Michie]

Below is a fascinating article written three years after the close of the Council. The author is the late Monsignor Richard Schuler, a professor of music at the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul. Minnesota. It gives a rare glimpse of the state of sacred liturgy in the years following the close of the Council, just after the publication of the Instruction Musicam Sacram, on music in the liturgy.

In the article the author (a learned professor) is protesting the almost total elimination he witnessed of artistic sacred music in the liturgy. This brilliant piece was published in The Wanderer on November 30, 1967. It was also included in the book The Wheat and the Cockleby Rev. P.J. Gearnon, O. Carm, published n 1969 by Britons Publishing Company.

Implementation or Deterioration
by Fr. Richard Schuler

"Never before in the history of Catholic Church music has there been so promising an opportunity for a universal reform of liturgical music according to a very positive outline. Never before had an Ecumenical Council turned its attention to sacred music in such glowing terms of praise, and with so warm an encouragement of the sacred art. Not since the days of St. Gregory the Great had the church musician been given a challenge of such magnitude for the creation of a new art.

Continued below.

Monsignor R.J. Schuler, PhD on the Elimination of Gregorian Chant

Catholic liturgical art, vestments, sacred architecture, sacred art, sacred music, liturgical books

www.liturgicalartsjournal.com

 

[chevyontheriver]

Below is a fascinating article written three years after the close of the Council. The author is the late Monsignor Richard Schuler, a professor of music at the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul. Minnesota. It gives a rare glimpse of the state of sacred liturgy in the years following the close of the Council, just after the publication of the Instruction Musicam Sacram, on music in the liturgy.

In the article the author (a learned professor) is protesting the almost total elimination he witnessed of artistic sacred music in the liturgy. This brilliant piece was published in The Wanderer on November 30, 1967. It was also included in the book The Wheat and the Cockleby Rev. P.J. Gearnon, O. Carm, published n 1969 by Britons Publishing Company.

Implementation or Deterioration
by Fr. Richard Schuler




Continued below.

Monsignor R.J. Schuler, PhD on the Elimination of Gregorian Chant

Catholic liturgical art, vestments, sacred architecture, sacred art, sacred music, liturgical books

www.liturgicalartsjournal.com

I met him. I actually interviewed for a job with him, and learned a lot in the interview though I did not get the job. In addition to being an academic he ended up as pastor of St. Agnes Church in St. Paul MN and was head of St. Agnes Schools. As pastor he never ceased a Latin Mass (novus ordo but in Latin and always reverent) at St. Agnes and never ceased a high liturgical tradition, employing the great music of our tradition. My children went to St. Agnes for high school and I appreciated it for it's top flight musical tradition that they got to learn, and for the excellent religion classes. My kids turned out faithful engaged Catholics and Msgr. Schuler had a big part in that.

 

[mourningdove~]

My kids turned out faithful engaged Catholics and Msgr. Schuler had a big part in that.

You are so blessed.
You must be very proud of your children.
Happy for your family

 

[chevyontheriver]

You are so blessed.
You must be very proud of your children.
Happy for your family

Yup.

By the way, this article provides more clarity on what happened after Vatican II. We didn't get the liturgical implementation of the Council. We got something else. In the liturgical area we STILL haven't gotten what the Council promised.

At St. Agnes they got what Vatican II actually wanted. Not what the bureaucrats later decided we should have had from the 'spirit of Vatican II'. It was, and still is, a successful and faithful parish that has been a leader in vocations for decades now. And the liturgies are events where the the distance between heaven and earth vanishes.

Wishing that some day we can get the liturgies Vatican II actually wanted for us. What some rare parishes had all along after Vatican II.