SSG Summer School 2024 Keynote Address by Dr Sue Price
Music & Liturgy Vol.51.1 (March 2025)
One of my most favourite sounds in the whole world is that of an orchestra tuning up. That might sound a bit daft, but I love it—you hear the practice twiddles, the run of notes of a tricky passage, the trying out of sound. And then comes that incredible moment, when the A rings out, and everyone comes together, in tune, and the anticipation that the tuning up has engendered in me for what is coming next sets me alight. And I don’t know about you, but sometimes when I experience a piece of music that has started in such a way, I am then transported, it becomes transcendent.
There was a particular symphony that did that for me: I know exactly where I was, why I was there, and every note of that piece of music dwelt within me and does still, to such an extent that I only need to hear a couple of bars from that symphony and I know exactly where I am in it, what has gone before and what happens next. It is that powerful.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if that were how powerful a symphony of praise within our liturgy could be too? I know that often within a piece of music there will be discordant passages, alerting us, making us sit up and listen. They are an important and necessary part of the whole. Today I am aware that I may well be the one introducing some discordant notes into the symphony of praise that we are celebrating over these three days.
I want to explore with you some of the discordant notes that I have been grappling with over the past year. These discordant notes are why I have put a question mark at the end of my title, because, despite Pope Francis’ urging that ‘everyone, everyone, everyone’ is to be included”,1 there is still a sense that many do not feel this, many do not feel welcome.
For a moment, think about coming here to this summer school/gathering/conference. Be honest—did you feel welcomed? And what was it that made you feel that way? I wonder if that is the same feeling for you when you attend a liturgy in your parish church, on holiday or somewhere new? Hold onto those feelings, they are yours and important to note.
Out of harmony
When I first proposed this address to the organising group, I thought I would focus on disability issues, and indeed in our workshop we will consider different aspects that can affect the welcome felt by different groups accessing liturgy.
Here, I want to consider those discordant notes. They come from three documents that I have been working with. Of themselves, the documents are not discordant; they are well written, sensitive, necessary and very important. They are documents that cannot be ignored. The discordant notes come from how others have reacted to them or from what these documents have engendered in me. I want to stress that all three of them are an essential part of the ‘tuning up’ necessary within the Church for us to create a place where all are welcome and have a part to play within the symphony of praise that is being created.
The first document is the Prayer and Liturgy Directory for Schools (PLD),2 launched in 2022 by the Catholic Education Service. Now don’t switch off because you are not involved in schools. This document, I want to suggest, is as important for our parishes as it is for our schools. I have also been working with Liam Hayes and his report for the Diocese of Brentwood called Believing, Not Belonging,3 and this is my second document. Liam works with us at Margaret Beaufort in the Centre for Ecclesial Ethics (CEE). His report, available on the Brentwood Diocese website, is important, for he has asked the people who are no longer coming to church: why? Why do they feel so out of harmony with the Church that they can no longer belong? They are some of the voices that have not necessarily been heard in the Synodal process.
My final document is a more sensitive one. It is called The Cross of the Moment.4 It is a report investigating, carefully and appropriately, the impact and implications of clerical child sex abuse upon the Catholic Church in England and Wales. It is published by the Centre for Catholic Studies at Durham University and can be found on the Durham University website. It was launched on 30 April 2024, the day of national prayer for victims and survivors of clerical abuse. The Cross of the Moment report is challenging, but we must not ignore it. We know that to be healthy, difficult issues need to be carefully, gently, transparently, brought out into the light. Difficult issues that remain hidden fester, potentially become toxic and very unhealthy. I am aware how sensitive this issue is, and I am not going into detail about the contents of the report, but it has influenced my thinking over the past year. I do appreciate that even just mentioning this report may make some people uneasy, and perhaps even feel unwelcome. That is not my intention. Please look after yourself, please do not hesitate to find someone to talk to if necessary.
The Church: We are the Church
Out of the work with these documents, three ‘tag lines’ have emerged. The first one emerged from the various gatherings considering these documents. In all three, the Church is continually referred to… the Church needs to do…, the Church should ensure…, the Church takes responsibility for… So much so that I began to question, well, just who is the Church? At one gathering, someone kept pointedly saying you must do this, you should be doing this, you don’t understand what this means, it was you, you, you. Now, this person was speaking from a place of pain and hurt, but it made me very aware that it isn’t you must, it has to be we must if things are to change to ensure all are welcome, because of course, We are the Church, we must take responsibility.
Liam, in his work for the CEE, has a tag line of ‘building a good and better Church’— and this has morphed for me into the need for us, as Church, to build a safer, healthier and better Church, where ‘everyone, everyone, everyone’ is welcome.
My third tag line comes from Martin Foster, who, at another gathering, I heard say ‘Liturgy is Pastoral Care’. I wrote it down—it is such an important statement.
One of the serious anxieties within schools that has arisen from the PLD has been the implications of the Church teaching that has always been there, but not always known, that for any liturgical ministry within the Church, ministers need to be baptised Catholics. As I have repeatedly pointed out in various workshops, this is how we live out our baptismal vocation of being ‘priest’. Once the implications of this begin to sink in, the understandable protests arise—we only have one Catholic teacher in the school, we are 50% non-Catholic among the children, this doesn’t fit with our mission to welcome everyone. This is not for debate here, but one of the ways that I have been suggesting to schools is, OK, who can you collaborate with? What is your relationship with your parish like? Who in your parish can help you with this? There is much in the PLD that parishes would benefit from. And if we want to ensure the future of our Catholic schools then I suggest that collaboration between schools and parishes is essential, it is part of We are Church, we are responsible, and could build a better safer, healthier Church. Schools have much to teach parishes, especially with regard to creating safe spaces, reporting low levels of safeguarding concern. By collaborating in this way, everyone could benefit. There is a clear statement in the PLD that what goes on liturgically within our Catholic schools is part of the whole Church, therefore the Church has responsibility for this: we are the Church, we have that responsibility.
One of the themes that Liam identified in his research was what he termed ‘liturgical discord’. He noted that many respondents had ‘little or no voice in the style or composition of the various liturgies that were celebrated in the parish’. We need to hear the discordant notes that are sounded when liturgy is perceived to be inauthentic. For me, it is discordant when the liturgy becomes focused on the whims of the liturgical ministers. And I mean all liturgical ministers: Liam quotes one respondent who saw the liturgy as ‘a celebration of the priest rather than the community celebration of the Eucharist’.5
But this is also true of readers, eucharistic ministers, welcomers and music leaders. As liturgical ministers we need to be aware of the power we may have and pay attention to how that power is used so that the focus is on the purpose of the liturgy, which is to allow the whole community to experience in some way a personal encounter with Christ. If the focus is on individuals, there is a real danger for that to become abusive. Remember ‘person’, understood theologically, needs to be seen within ‘community’. That has to be part of our understanding that we are the Church, we have responsibility. When there is any abuse of power, we are not creating a safer, healthier, better Church.
Courage and faith in our baptismal vocation
There is a need for ‘liturgical belonging’. Do you remember that scene in Sister Act where the young people are drawn into the church by the music, and are welcomed? Now there is lots to dispute about that particular liturgical celebration as represented in that film, but the point I am making is that all the liturgical ministries contribute to creating a sense of liturgical belonging, from the essential role of the welcomers, through the music, the readers, the eucharistic ministers and the congregation as a whole. Interestingly, from Liam’s research, ‘The experience of liturgical music and singing was also cited by numerous respondents as something that they significantly missed from their lives following separation from the Church’. I suggest that Liam has identified that people need to feel that they ‘liturgically belong’.6
Liturgy and liturgical ministries play a significant part in creating a safe, healthier, better Church where all are welcome. As Liam states: ‘in parishes where people are noticed and valued, listened to and appreciated, Catholics want to be present. When communities are welcoming and accepting of all peoples, when they notice the absence of others and reach out to those in need beyond the visible congregation, such Churches tend to flourish.’7
This is where I think we do need to have courage and faith in our baptismal vocation to challenge power, using the synodal process. The synodal process does work, and it provides a safe and healthy way, if properly facilitated, that enables truths to be told and power to be challenged through graceful listening and graceful responding. However, in order for it to work well, we need to have skilled facilitators or, if you prefer, conductors for the symphony, and that does not mean it has to be a priest.
I also want to suggest that we need to develop our understanding and practice of Liturgy as Pastoral Care. Or maybe we need to refine that statement to Good Liturgy provides good pastoral care. I have experienced poor liturgy that has most certainly not provided any pastoral care, in fact has so
irritated and frustrated me that I now have to avoid that particular Mass, for I am most definitely not drawn into a personal encounter with Christ.
But I have also experienced good liturgical practice providing good pastoral care. In my own parish, we have got some things right, and there are other parts needing attention. As a good example, at the distribution of communion, all those who have difficulties walking up to receive communion are ministered to first in their places. There is something very powerful about this prioritisation, and about the Body of Christ moving through the body of Christ in this way. We have also reflected the diversity of our parish community in our readers, eucharistic ministers and welcomers.
Pastoral care is not soft and fluffy—good pastoral care, as well as providing comfort and nourishment, will also provide challenge in a safe and empowering way. Good pastoral care enables people to belong. Good pastoral care involves personal encounters where we are known, we are in relationship with our worshipping community. I do think this can be achieved through good liturgy. This means that we have to know what is good liturgy and we have it spelt out for us in Desiderio Desidereravi. It states, ‘Good liturgy enables a personal encounter with Jesus Christ,’8 in other words, good liturgy is pastoral care.
Pope Francis, in his Apostolic Letter Vos estis lux mundi (You are the light of the world), has proposed that we need ‘a continuous and profound conversion of hearts attested by concrete and effective actions that involve everyone in the Church.’9 Good liturgy, as concrete action, can enable healing to take place. That is urgently needed if we are to engage with and move forward as a response to the Cross of the Moment report.
An example of good practice in this area is the beautiful initiative being developed by Bishop Peter Brignall at the Shrine of St Winefride in Holywell, North Wales. It is an example of good liturgy in practice providing good pastoral care. In 2023, after Pope Francis asked all bishops to designate a regular day of prayer for victims and survivors of clerical abuse, Bishop Peter dedicated St Winefride’s shrine as a place of healing, peace and hope where, on the national day of prayer, there are short prayer services for anyone to attend, and an opportunity to speak about what they have experienced. According to her legend, St Winefride herself suffered sexual attack by her murderer, and the healing springs of the shrine burst out of the ground where her head fell. Today pilgrims can seek healing in the pool fed by the spring, prayer and liturgy at the shrine proving a recognition of suffering and an invitation to dialogue, reconciliation and healing.
Conclusion
Mahler, considered by some to be the greatest writer of symphonies, apparently said that a symphony needs to reflect the world; it needs to include everything. I am very aware that I haven’t been able to include everything—I haven’t referred to diversity, disability or gender issues or concerns about clericalism, all of which contribute to whether or not people feel welcome within the symphony of the Church. However, what I hope I have done is to start you thinking and reflecting on some of the issues in relationship to liturgy and liturgical ministries.
Consider what might your own ‘note’ be within the symphony of praise that we are creating. It takes many notes to create a symphony; it starts with a few and then builds. So, I invite you to consider one action that you could realistically do in response to the issues I have covered. You might be able to contact the headteacher and offer to go into school to teach a hymn that is sung in the parish, or to go in and meet the children who can receive communion so that they are known in the parish. You might have the time to help in the school and be a link between the school and parish communities. You could find out about low level concerns within safeguarding and work with your parish safeguarding link, hold a silent liturgy for Prayer for Victims of Abuse next year, whatever is feasible and realistic for you.
Think about it, pray about it, ponder it… and take some action to demonstrate that we are the Church, we have responsibility. We are all notes within the symphony of praise. It may take a while until we can get that perfect ‘A’ sound, but let’s give it a go.
Dr Sue Price is Director of Pastoral Outreach at the Margaret Beaufort Institute, Cambridge, and presented this paper as part of the 2024 Society of Saint Gregory Summer School ‘A Symphony of Praise’ at Liverpool Hope University.
Notes
- To Love You More Dearly: Prayer & Liturgy Directory for Catholic Schools, Academies and Colleges (Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales 2023)
- Liam Hayes, Believing not Belonging: Research into why Catholics no Longer Come to Church (Diocese of Brentwood 2023)
- P. Jones, M. Pound, C. Sexton, The Cross of the Moment: A Report from the Boundary Breaking Project (University of Durham 2024)
- Hayes p.91
- Hayes p.92
- Hayes p.102
- cf Desiderio Desideravi nn.10-12
- Vos estis lux mundi p.1