Time to say "Yes" to the new Missal...

[Nick Baty]

.... says Father Michael Ryan of the Wait if we just said wait? campaign in this week’s Tablet.

The Tablet is also carrying a piece about music for the new texts by Frances Novillo – pdf attached.

[HallamPhil]

What a turn around! I suppose we have seen that before for all manner of reasons. His closing sentence is probably realistic except that it overlooks the fact that folk have a tendency to reject change and that negative responses are frequently aired by a minority. Most of the faithful will do as they are told and get on with it unquestioningly. It would be interesting to ask dissenters their opinion in 2 years time. Perhaps they will have experienced the same sea change as Fr Ryan ... or have no comment at all.

[HallamPhil]

Thanks Nick for appending the other Tablet article. I don't think it says much that will be new to readers of this forum. However I would take issue with the idea that we should learn the chants of the Missal. One has to be selective with this and a good place to start may be greeting, gospel and preface dialogues and dismissal, The revisions provide the opportunity to revisit these but I'm not so sure about the rest of the Ordinary.

This article in its printed form would have received a 'withheld editorial' by our Bishops Conference as there is a significant error in punctuation in the Frances' quotation of the text for the 'Holy' !!

Perhaps litigation will follow?

[alan29]

Seems to me there is no alternative to accepting it, unless those of us who object to both the process and the result wish to turn ourselves into the sort of carping rump that others would seem to have been.

[quaeritor]

What a turn around!

Really? - it reads to me more like "If you're determined to go ahead with this you do just that - it'll crash and burn and I'll say "I told you so!"!" (Got my punctuation in a knot there.)

Q

[contrabordun]

Yes, that was how I read it as well!

[keitha]

It seems to me that what is really being said is (i) the notion of a limited trial has been rendered obsolete, so there is no real choice but to get on with it, (ii) it is now for the people to form a judgment and they should be given the text in an unadulterated form to enable them to do so, and (iii) the people's judgment will come out against the new translation.

For what it is worth, in my view (i) is simply pragmatism, (ii) the new text has to be used, and that's an end to it, and (iii) it's got nothing to do with the people forming a judgement. 'People' may or may not like it, but I suspect that most will (i) accept it and (ii) find bits they like and bits they don't like/like less - but that's nothing new.

[John Ainslie]

However I would take issue with the idea that we should learn the chants of the Missal. One has to be selective with this and a good place to start may be greeting, gospel and preface dialogues and dismissal, The revisions provide the opportunity to revisit these but I'm not so sure about the rest of the Ordinary.

In Westminster archdiocese, we don't have a choice. The word has gone forth that the ICEL chants are to be standard in the diocese, though mercifully this does not appear to apply to the ICEL settings of Lord's Prayer, for which the RK version may continue to be used.

Word has also gone forth that a second diocesan standard setting is to be chosen in the next few months. We shall see - or hear.

[nazard]

..settings of Lord's Prayer, for which the RK version may continue to be used.
...

Excuse my ignorance, but what is the RK setting?

[NorthernTenor]

However I would take issue with the idea that we should learn the chants of the Missal. One has to be selective with this and a good place to start may be greeting, gospel and preface dialogues and dismissal, The revisions provide the opportunity to revisit these but I'm not so sure about the rest of the Ordinary.

In Westminster archdiocese, we don't have a choice. The word has gone forth that the ICEL chants are to be standard in the diocese, though mercifully this does not appear to apply to the ICEL settings of Lord's Prayer, for which the RK version may continue to be used.

Word has also gone forth that a second diocesan standard setting is to be chosen in the next few months. We shall see - or hear.

Rehearsing it and enjoying it. In that respect it's akin to many of the new texts, which have concerned some on reading them but which work well when heard (in a similar way, I remember the revelation of hearing The Wasteland and In Parenthesis spoken aloud for the first time).

I take back my previous remarks about the absence of interpretive symbols, too. This leaves us free to employ a sensitivity to the text that would be limited by an excess of editorial guidance. Fr. Ruff is to be congratulated.

Ian Williams.

[NorthernTenor]

This article in its printed form would have received a 'withheld editorial' by our Bishops Conference as there is a significant error in punctuation in the Frances' quotation of the text for the 'Holy' !!

Perhaps litigation will follow?

Not possible, I'm afraid - the "Holy, Holy" is in the public domain

[Southern Comfort]

..settings of Lord's Prayer, for which the RK version may continue to be used.
...

Excuse my ignorance, but what is the RK setting?

Rimsky-Korsakov, arranged by the late Fr Joseph Gelineau for the French text, then arranged by the late Fr Daniel Higgins for the English text.

This article in its printed form would have received a 'withheld editorial' by our Bishops Conference as there is a significant error in punctuation in the Frances' quotation of the text for the 'Holy' !!

Perhaps litigation will follow?

Not possible, I'm afraid - the "Holy, Holy" is in the public domain

That fact has not prevented the Panel from giving "withheld editorial" to a number of submissions of this text. They don't own it, nor act as agents for those who do, but they reserve the right to police it (see the Composers' Guide). So, NT, you are correct in saying that litigation would not follow, but approval to publish would certainly not be given.

[Southern Comfort]

Tomorrow is the first outing of the new Order of Mass, rather than the new Missal. While considerable problems remain in several of the Eucharistic Prayers, I predict that this transition will pass fairly painlessly. Indeed, many people in parishes still appear not to know that it is coming, and there is also much misinformation out there. I had an email today from someone saying that they had heard that until Rome had officially approved the new music settings we could carry on using the existing ones!

On the other hand, the letter from Australia in today's issue of The Tablet, stating that congregations have relapsed into silence rather than use the new texts, is not encouraging. They began the new Order of Mass on Pentecost Sunday, so you would have thought things might have settled down by now (though, of course, things in South Africa are still turbulent, several years after they started). A priest acquaintance in Australia who presides at Mass in a prison each Sunday reports that on the Sunday after Pentecost he arrived at the prison to be greeted by one of the inmates with the following: "I hope we're not using those new texts again today, Father, 'cos they're sh*t!"

The real crunch point will come in Advent, when bishops and priests start to use what is in the rest of the Missal. I think they will then realize exactly what it is that they (and we) are being asked to attempt to pray with (the collects, in particular), and I think we may well see a reaction to that.

[contrabordun]

So, NT, you are correct in saying that litigation would not follow, but approval to publish would certainly not be given.

So what would then happen if the publisher sued the panel for attempted restraint of trade?

[NorthernTenor]

So, NT, you are correct in saying that litigation would not follow, but approval to publish would certainly not be given.

Quite so, SC. And that really should focus Ecclestone Square’s mind. Loyal English and Welsh catholic publishers and composers will be happy to go along with this Process if it is administered in an open, fair, predictable and efficient manner, in accordance with the purpose stated at the head of its self-defined terms of reference. In the absence of copyright constraint they will become less inclined to do so in proportion to the extent those reasonable expectations are not met. I suspect, too, that the proportion will be logarithmic over time, as patience turns to dismay, to disappointment and finally to a suggestion I would hesitate to employ here.

I speak as one who could perfectly legally publish the whole of his setting, but who has delayed while awaiting an appeal against the Liturgy Office’s refusal of its ill-defined permission, on an issue arising from a part of the text over which ICEL has no copyright, and on grounds outside its purpose. I still await details of the arrangements for my appeal, or even the courtesy of a note explaining or regretting the delay. Indeed, I still await the courtesy of a reply to my two direct enquiries of the Assistant Secretary of the Liturgy Office about this inexplicable silence. Now, I know Alium Music has very little significance in the grand scheme of things, but it occurs to me that if decide to publish and be damned it may be a signpost that the more significant will note and inwardly digest.