The complete & utter disorganisation of the Liturgy Office

[NorthernTenor]

It is now months since I notified Bishop Hopes of my wish to appeal the Decision of the Permission to Publish Panel against my mass setting. Since then, there has been almost a complete silence on the matter, apart from an initial reply saying that the matter would be passed to Bishop Roche, and a recent admission from the Assistant Secretary that there is no appeal process - they were waiting until receipt of the first appeal to devise one. Of late my repeated enquiries about progress have been met with a deafening (and I assume embarrassed) silence.

The Process as implemented in England & Wales is fatally flawed. It is characterised by uncertainty, inconsistency, failure to stick to poorly drafted terms of reference, secrecy and gross inefficiency. It tells us that the Liturgy Office is incapable of doing its job.

I strongly recommend English and Welsh composers and publishers of mass settings consider publishing elsewhere in the UK and the rest of the English-speaking world, in order to avoid entanglement with this farce. In my own case, I will quite legally publish and be d****d within the week should matters fail to improve.

Ian Williams.

[Eastern Promise]

Yes, but has anyone really thought about this. All these new masses that we are talking about - hardly any of them will ever be used. The non-musically trained clergy want to get back to said masses ASAP, or we will all get used to the American masses again. Why else [moderated] do we fawn over the GIA/OCP smiley composers if we were not going to give them continued pride of place? All this chat and umbrage at the liturgy office is just waste of time and energy. We've all bent over backwards for the American cheese mass; why undermine all our hard work by complicating the matter with all this irrelevant English material? The Americans have achieved the undermining of the Roman liturgy in ways that we could only dream of. We are amateurs compared to them! Only the yanks can truly de-romanise the Church. We're just playing at it.

[NorthernTenor]

You do talk some insular cheese, EP. A great deal of the cheese we hear played and sung in our parishes is home-grown and fit to stand with its head held high in the company of cheese from other countries. Indeed, the trade in cheese has been two-way. An awful lot of British cheese is sung in North America.

But that's not the point of the thread, and if you're not careful I'll call down the wrath of the champagne-swigging bear upon your head for deviation from the subject, which is the utter inability of our Liturgy Office to get its cheese together.

[Eastern Promise]

Yes, but if we are not careful the Liturgy Office will just roll over to these new Institute of Liturgical Music Rightists, and what a disaster that would be.

[NorthernTenor]

Sometimes I wonder whether it's not incompetence, but a desperate hope that I will circumvent the process and publish anyway, so the points I have raised in my notice of appeal won't have to be considered; but push come to shove I think ****-ups are much more common than conspiracies, especially in Ecclestone Square.

[SOP]

Why does there have to be a personal attack on a composer?

The point NT is making sounds valid and is obviously frustrating but for a response to name an American composer just seems to be either shockingly petty or jealous.

No doubt this thread will be pulled which would be a shame as it could have brought to light frustrations others feel about things.

Ah well.

[NorthernTenor]

Why does there have to be a personal attack on a composer?

The point NT is making sounds valid and is obviously frustrating but for a response to name an American composer just seems to be either shockingly petty or jealous.

No doubt this thread will be pulled which would be a shame as it could have brought to light frustrations others feel about things.

Ah well.

Agreed. Thanks.

[musicus]

I have moderated the personal reference (and will moderate any subsequent specific references to it).

[Eastern Promise]

Au contraire, I am one of [his] greatest fans on this board, which is really saying something, since his most enthusiastic advocates are to be found in these parts.

[moderated]