Fr. Dwight Longenecker
John Zmirak rants here about the sappy, dreary hymns sung in so many Catholic churches.
What he doesn’t get into (because he’s too busy being witty) is the reason for such excruciatingly bad Catholic music. The reason is (with apologies to the Holy Father) the dictatorship of sentimentality.
Catholics in English speaking countries (and maybe everywhere else for all I know) have drifted into sentimentality because they are too afraid of embracing the full blooded, supernatural, dogmatic religion we call Catholicism, and the rot began with the clergy who came out of seminary full of the modernistic critical theories about the Scriptures and the faith.
They couldn’t believe that sort of thing in the modern age, so they concocted another gospel which was all about being friends with Jesus and hanging up felt banners with words on them, and making the world a better place and the church a happy fellowship sort of group therapy session.
The music is a bad dream, but when you consider that the music matches the theology the nightmare is even worse.
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