Why Catholics Can't Sing And The Crisis Of Catholic Education<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"First Things has a great little\u00a0post by a dejected Lutheran convert about\u00a0how Catholic liturgical singing is like "plaintive squeaks from depressed\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/2015\/03\/why-catholics-cant-sing-and-the-crisis-of-catholic-education\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Catholics Can't Sing And The Crisis Of Catholic Education\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"First Things has a great little\u00a0post by a dejected Lutheran convert about\u00a0how Catholic liturgical singing is like "plaintive squeaks from depressed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/2015\/03\/why-catholics-cant-sing-and-the-crisis-of-catholic-education\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Inebriate Me\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-03-02T08:30:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-03-02T08:35:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/423\/2015\/03\/article_54dbcc55e6e32.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"960\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/2015\/03\/why-catholics-cant-sing-and-the-crisis-of-catholic-education\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/2015\/03\/why-catholics-cant-sing-and-the-crisis-of-catholic-education\/\",\"name\":\"Why Catholics Can't Sing And The Crisis Of Catholic Education\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-03-02T08:30:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-03-02T08:35:30+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/#\/schema\/person\/0086affece051ff30c559c7496a5aaa7\"},\"description\":\"First Things has a great little\u00a0post by a dejected Lutheran convert about\u00a0how Catholic liturgical singing is like \\\"plaintive squeaks from depressed\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/2015\/03\/why-catholics-cant-sing-and-the-crisis-of-catholic-education\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/2015\/03\/why-catholics-cant-sing-and-the-crisis-of-catholic-education\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/2015\/03\/why-catholics-cant-sing-and-the-crisis-of-catholic-education\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Why Catholics Can’t Sing And The Crisis Of Catholic Education\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/\",\"name\":\"Inebriate Me\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/#\/schema\/person\/0086affece051ff30c559c7496a5aaa7\",\"name\":\"Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c58ddf334487491c603a6c75472a2ab3?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c58ddf334487491c603a6c75472a2ab3?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/author\/pegobry\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why Catholics Can't Sing And The Crisis Of Catholic Education","description":"First Things has a great little\u00a0post by a dejected Lutheran convert about\u00a0how Catholic liturgical singing is like \"plaintive squeaks from depressed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/2015\/03\/why-catholics-cant-sing-and-the-crisis-of-catholic-education\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why Catholics Can't Sing And The Crisis Of Catholic Education","og_description":"First Things has a great little\u00a0post by a dejected Lutheran convert about\u00a0how Catholic liturgical singing is like \"plaintive squeaks from depressed","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/2015\/03\/why-catholics-cant-sing-and-the-crisis-of-catholic-education\/","og_site_name":"Inebriate Me","article_published_time":"2015-03-02T08:30:42+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-03-02T08:35:30+00:00","og_image":[{"width":960,"height":400,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/423\/2015\/03\/article_54dbcc55e6e32.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/2015\/03\/why-catholics-cant-sing-and-the-crisis-of-catholic-education\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/2015\/03\/why-catholics-cant-sing-and-the-crisis-of-catholic-education\/","name":"Why Catholics Can't Sing And The Crisis Of Catholic Education","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-03-02T08:30:42+00:00","dateModified":"2015-03-02T08:35:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/#\/schema\/person\/0086affece051ff30c559c7496a5aaa7"},"description":"First Things has a great little\u00a0post by a dejected Lutheran convert about\u00a0how Catholic liturgical singing is like \"plaintive squeaks from depressed","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/2015\/03\/why-catholics-cant-sing-and-the-crisis-of-catholic-education\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/2015\/03\/why-catholics-cant-sing-and-the-crisis-of-catholic-education\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/2015\/03\/why-catholics-cant-sing-and-the-crisis-of-catholic-education\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Why Catholics Can’t Sing And The Crisis Of Catholic Education"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/","name":"Inebriate Me","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/#\/schema\/person\/0086affece051ff30c559c7496a5aaa7","name":"Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c58ddf334487491c603a6c75472a2ab3?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c58ddf334487491c603a6c75472a2ab3?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/author\/pegobry\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1804"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":1474,"date":"2015-03-02T09:30:42","date_gmt":"2015-03-02T08:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/?p=1474"},"modified":"2015-03-02T09:35:30","modified_gmt":"2015-03-02T08:35:30","slug":"why-catholics-cant-sing-and-the-crisis-of-catholic-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/inebriateme\/2015\/03\/why-catholics-cant-sing-and-the-crisis-of-catholic-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Catholics Can’t Sing And The Crisis Of Catholic Education"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"article_54dbcc55e6e32\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

First Things has a great little\u00a0post<\/a> by a dejected Lutheran convert about\u00a0how Catholic liturgical singing is like \u201cplaintive squeaks from depressed marmosets.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a permanent pet peeve of mine.<\/p>\n

And yes, this is something parish priests should do more about.\u00a0You know the phenomenon of how a church will be crowded\u2013except the two front pews. I knew a priest who often wouldn\u2019t start Mass until those pews were filled.\u00a0He would go out in front before Mass and ask people\u00a0to move to the first pews.\u00a0One of the few 70s-style liturgical tics I wouldn\u2019t mind at all would be for the priest to go \u201cSing it! Can\u2019t hear you!\u201d etc. during the entrance & exit hymns\u00a0for a few weeks until everyone is trained to actually sing.<\/p>\n

One additional failure I would like to point to is the failure of Catholic schools. Catholic school all my life\u2013I was never taught how to sing.\u00a0If the liturgy is \u201cthe source and summit of the Christian life\u201d and if we are beckoned to \u201cactive participation\u201d then shouldn\u2019t singing be something that is as important to teach as the\u00a0Catechism? (Yeah, yeah, we don\u2019t teach the Catechism either, you\u2019re right.)<\/p>\n

But it actually goes even deeper than that. The great failure of Catholic schools, going back to the 19th century, is that they have swallowed wholesale the erroneous Cartesian-Lockean\u00a0<\/i>metaphysical\u00a0view of human\u00a0nature, which is the master framework of modern schooling. The mind and the body are separate,\u00a0so classrooms have chairs and desks so that the body can be turned off while the mind works. Children are blank slates on which knowledge is imparted by the teacher. And finally,\u00a0education is about the imparting of abstract knowledge, not a mystagogic participation of the whole person in the true, the good and the beautiful<\/em>. (This excellent chapter<\/a> (PDF) by Prof Angeline S. Lillard does a great job of laying out the disaster of the Modern vision of education.)<\/p>\n

When we talk about how Catholic schools should be different from secular schools, we talk about all the great\u00a0treasures of classical learning that we should impart\u2013Augustine, Dante, Aquinas\u2013, and\u00a0amen<\/em> to that. But we should also talk about how the ideal Catholic school should also stand out by its commitment to art and beauty, which is also as Catholic as anything else.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"