Worship Wars: Traditional Hymns Vs. Praise Choruses

The Liturgist

Traditional Liturgical Christian
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I should stress I strongly prefer traditional music; I am not a Roman Catholic, but I greatly admire the thinking behind Pope St. Pius X’s motu proprio Tra la solicitudini, which addresses what is appropriate in sacred music, and sought to restore Gregorian chant and the traditional polyphony of composers like Palestrina, Vitoria, Byrd, Morales, Tallis, et cetera, to the place of honor in the Roman church, and this was in regards to the relatively benign excesses, if we can even call them that, of Classical and Romantic composers.

Now it makes me quite sad having experienced Roman Catholic parishes strumming the electric guitar during masses (which is theoretically uncanonical, I have read, but this, like Tra la solicitudini, is cared about mainly by people who go to the Traditional Latin Masses which were universally authorized by Pope Benedict XVI, but now his successor Pope Francis is basically reversing that).

I am particularly distraught over the war between Russia and Ukraine because the Eastern Orthodox Christians of those two lands have between them produced some of the most beautiful church music.
 
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