Comparison of Catholic Hymnals / one-page

[Peter Jones]

393. ........
In England and Wales:
.........Bearing in mind the important place that singing has in a celebration as a necessary or integral part of the Liturgy, all musical settings of the Ordinary of the Mass, texts for the people’s responses and acclamations and for special rites that occur in the course of the liturgical year must be submitted to the Conference of Bishops of England and Wales for review and approval prior to publication.
Likewise it is for the Conference to judge which musical forms, melodies, and musical instruments may be lawfully admitted into divine worship,insofar as these are truly suitable for sacred use, or can be made suitable.

Is that what you are thinking of JW? That's about Mass texts, not hymnals.

If, however, you are thinking of paragraph 48: "............ and whose text has been approved by the Conference of the Bishops of England and Wales", the whole Conference has surely given approval for the entire contents of the new Laudate and CFE collections in that the Liturgy Office has facilitated the grant of an imprimatur for those collections by the local Ordinary of the publishers.

Implicitly, the contents of the new editions of these two hymnals is, to date, the Bishops' approved list. It's a list that will expand as other publications are submitted in the future.

What has not been made known, as yet, is the hoped-for, approved core repertoire that Martin Foster and others were working on. I think the idea behind that could have been to say to publishers that if you are going to publish a Catholic hymn book, then here are X number of hymns and songs - a basic repertoire - that the Bishops want you to include. Whether or not that will ever happen is anyone's guess.

[JW]

Thanks for that clear explanation, Peter. So, on the basis that hymns contained in 'Laudate' and 'CFE' are approved, those in the Vatican 2 hymnal are also approved. BUT - what happens when the hymn is substantially altered in the Vatican 2 hymnal as I pointed out earlier with "Crown Him with many crowns" - surely those added verses, written by an Anglican, are is not approved by the bishops of E&W, even though approved by the local Ordinary. So the safest thing for an English parish is surely to buy one of the approved hymnals.

I am vaguely aware of the proposals for a core repertoire but I guess that the 3 major hymnals in use in England & Wales already contain most of what would be identifed as the core Catholic repertoire?

BTW, I intend to start a thread this Friday on a matter closely related to this thread - watch this space!

Please note, nothing in the comments I've made on this thread should be construed to mean that I have anything else but the greatest respect for Jeff Ostrowski and his colleagues for making a wealth of good Catholic music, both old and newly composed, freely available on the web.

[Peter Jones]

BUT - what happens when the hymn is substantially altered ........

Two brief points -

Alteration of hymn texts is a decision taken by the editor of the hymnal - these are the texts he/she wants to publish and by submitting them for approval, seeks permission so to do.
(In other words, Bishops and/or their theological advisors are not editors. They simply work on the texts submitted.)

If hymn texts that have been altered in some way are found to be without doctrinal or moral error, there's no reason to deny an imprimatur.

I only needed to go down to "Faith of our Fathers" to find a hymn that is altered in the Vatican 2 hymnal: the 3rd verse (Faith of our Fathers, Mary's prayers) appears to have been omitted, presumably not because of political correctness? Poor Fr. Faber...!

Well that's because of the specific reference to England in the verse, which would be a little odd in the USA (England = Mary's dowry).
I must admit that if I was editing a collection for England and Wales, I would be having difficulty with that verse now. Not only did the people of pre-reformation Wales have a great devotion to Our Lady, present day Welsh Catholics do too.

[JW]

As far as the 'Faith of our Fathers' problem is concerned, many English hymnals have kept the verse but plumped for "our land" instead of "England." I guess a lot of the Irish catholics still sing "Ireland" anyway! It possible that there may also be a more fundamental problem in that, if the verse were retained in the USA, even with 'our land,' it suggests that the USA may not be the "land of the free" - to the extent that the USA is not wholly Catholic.

I await the wrath of the Bear at any instant!

[dmu3tem]

I think all this legalistic stuff is very sad. I appreciate that lots of people want to feel that they have 'got things right'; but this surely is not what the Christian faith should be only about. I note that at several points in the Gospels Christ condemns this sort of thinking in the minds of the Scribes and Saducces when it is disconnected from practical behaviour in everyday life.

In the end Christian faith and action concern the needs of individuals and groups of local people meeting together. A religious service, in the final analysis, is simply a formalised occasion when people come together to engage in act of worship. If it does not resonate with their thinking and experience it is of no value whatsoever, however 'correct' it may be liturgically.

Given that hymn singing has been and is so important a facet of people's worship experience I am dismayed by the way legalistic obstacles seem to be put in the way of its practice.

[Peter Jones]

In the end Christian faith and action concern the needs of individuals and groups of local people meeting together. A religious service, in the final analysis, is simply a formalised occasion when people come together to engage in act of worship. If it does not resonate with their thinking and experience it is of no value whatsoever, however 'correct' it may be liturgically.

Cough, cough.......... catholic acts of worship are actions of the Church, not simply actions of groups of individuals.

[JW]

I'm with Thomas on this one. Christ did not lay down minute instructions as to liturgy and skated round a specific liturgical question asked by the Samaritan woman.

A particular worshipping community, part of the universal Church, expresses their worship in communion with the Church but in a particular location, language and mode. That the highest authorities in the Church accept this is evidenced by recent overtures to Anglicans and the SSPX as well as by the liturgies to be encountered at St Peter's in Rome (assuming the very few I know of are representative!) and the liturgies approved during the Papal Visit. Nevertheless, we have to be guided by the norms of the universal Church to which we belong and to some extent the 'freedoms' exercised during the late 1960s onwards were abused. The main guidance for me subsists in the GIRM.

In my part of the Church right now we are being reminded that we "celebrate" Mass. Our Sunday Mass should be a celebration and we are being challenged as to how we can possibly celebrate when we are fearful about every last item in the rubrics? We are being instructed to be more relaxed in order to celebrate.

My original post was simply to point out that over-reliance on what we consider to be liturgical certainties can come back to bite us. Hence a Catholic hymnal which ticked all the boxes in the one-page Comparison of Hymnals had left out a verse of 'Faith of our Fathers' for apparently political reasons; the same hymnal had incorporated verses written by an unacknowledged Anglican in 'Crown Him' whilst omitting verses written by the acknowledged Catholic hymn writer.

[Peter Jones]

Lest we get confused, I suggest that there are two levels of assessment:

Level one: Episcopal oversight - basically concerned with doctrinal and moral matters leading to an Imprimatur.

Level two: the local level. What is the best hymnal for our worshipping community? It's a this level that questions of musical style arise and also considerations of how editors have dealt with texts.
If a local community is not happy with the results of the method by which a hymnal has been compiled and edited, don't buy that hymnal. Buy one that suits your particular group.

In extreme - as is evident in a place not too far away from me - buy two sets of hymnals: one for use on a Saturday evening and one for use on Sunday morning.

I myself would still like to see an approved core repertoire in all our hymnals.

[Nick Baty]

We no longer use a hymnal, quite simply because there isn't one that suits our needs. We bought Laudate a few years ago but it's no longer used on a Sunday. Instead we produce weekly service sheets which draw materials from many sources. I've never really understood why hymnals include service music as the repertoire grows and changes from year to year.

[nazard]

...I myself would still like to see an approved core repertoire in all our hymnals.

This could rapidly turn tragic. It would mean agreeing a set of words for each hymn, which would lead us down the thee/you, male or female/gender neutral, full english vocabulary/ english for Sun readers arguments. In forty odd years the church has not managed to give us a universally acceptable translation of the missal. I would prefer if they kept their hands off the hymnbooks. Praise my soul the monarch of heaven,to the monarch's feet your taxes bring, the ransome paid, our sickness got over, things put back right, let off our sins, who like us the monarch's praise should sing...

[Peter Jones]

This could rapidly turn tragic.......

Only, I suggest, if the aimed-for core repertoire is too large. (We do have a whole section of the forum on this topic, by the way - not that it's very active now.)

[Peter Jones]

It would mean agreeing a set of words for each hymn, which would lead us down the thee/you, male or female/gender neutral……

I wasn't suggesting that a core repertoire of hymns/songs might need to be rigid or absolute and policed in a way parallel to that of the text of the Missal. Suggestions might suffice - e.g. in the section of the book concerning Entrance Songs at Mass, make sure there is a setting/paraphrase of Psalm 99 (100); in the section concerning the Communion Procession, make sure there is a setting/paraphrase of Psalm 33 (34). Under the topic Holy Spirit, make sure that translations of (or at least songs based on) Veni Creator and Veni Sancte are included. That sort of thing.

[Peter Jones]

We no longer use a hymnal, quite simply because there isn't one that suits our needs. We bought Laudate a few years ago but it's no longer used on a Sunday. Instead we produce weekly service sheets which draw materials from many sources. I've never really understood why hymnals include service music as the repertoire grows and changes from year to year.

I bet you still have a core repertoire though.

[Nick Baty]

We most certainly do although it changes with time. Several pieces we introduced a few years ago have since been replaced either because we found better pieces based on that text or the assembly voted with their voices!

[musicus]

...the assembly voted with their voices!