Letters to the Editor 05.06.2007

May 06-12, 2007 Issue | Posted 5/1/07 at 7:00 AM

Abortion in Canada

Regarding “Where Have All the Girls Gone?” (April 22): Sex-selective abortion is happening in Canada. Statistics show that in the lower mainland of British Columbia that have higher Asian populations (Surrey, Coquitlam & Richmond), there are a disproportionate numbers of boys being born.

I deliver hand-sewn book bags to kindergarten students in Surrey. Nearly every classroom I visit has more boys than girls. Because the ultrasound clinics in British Columbia will not reveal the sex of the child, ultrasound clinics in the United States are being visited. When the parents come back to Canada, then get an abortion if they want — no questions asked — and the citizens get to pay for it. The violence against women in the Asian community has been increasing.

Heather Stilwell
Public School Trustee

Surrey, British Columbia

What Is ‘Sacred’ Music?

Regarding “A Choice: Art Music, Bad Music or None” (March 25): I agree with Webster Young that prayer is most easily nurtured in silence. The distracting quality of recorded or live music at times when people can pray privately is, for me at least, overwhelming. It is not a question of recorded vs. live (there is a place for both). Nor is it a question of what kind of music can be called “sacred” (which seems to be a theme that runs through Young’s writings). Everyone would have an opinion on this.

There is a time for silence and a time for music — both can lift the spirit. I can only pray that personal opinion (of Young, the bishops or Pope Benedict) not be the criterion for determining what music is “sacred.”

Rather, like the “sacredness/canonicity” of the New Testament writings was determined by usage in the Church by the Church, so the sacredness of church music should be determined in the church by the church who is uplifted by it, or not.

Greg Malanowski

Baltimore, Maryland

Hunger for Sacred Music

I read with great interest your article in the Register, “Silence Surely Beats Sacred Muzak” regarding muzak of Gregorian chant being played in certain churches throughout the day.

I have heard this only once — during a Lenten penance evening, while confessions were being heard and while people were engaged in praying the Rosary and other prayers. A CD of Gregorian chant was played, and, while it did lend an immediate feeling of solemnity, after a while it became overwhelming, given that no liturgical function was taking place.

Here is what I believe: I have talked with a great number of my fellow Catholics here, and we are literally starved for Gregorian chant to take its “pride of place,” as stated in documents of Vatican II, as well as stated in the General Instructions on the Roman Missal.

Yet, while these documents clearly give Gregorian chant “pride of place,” and while Pope Benedict XVI restated this position recently, in most churches Gregorian chant holds “no place.”

During Mass, we are deluged with Methodist hymns, while Gregorian chant, despite its official supremacy, has been relegated to CDs and, sadly, miscategorized by many bishops and priests as “nostalgia.”

Fortunately, such groups as St. Cecilia’s Schola Cantorum in Auburn, Ala., have been making steady headway in teaching choirs to once again sing that music proper to the Mass, and which (again) holds “pride of place.”

In essence, I believe this muzak phenomenon is a manifestation grown from the absence of Gregorian chant in the Mass. Thus, when it has been relegated to CDs, it is played on CDs.

So, while I agree with the point of your article, I do believe the root cause of this muzak situation is a hunger for that sacred music which the Church gives “pride of place,” but has yet to return to the tongues of choirs during Mass. Without an examination of the root cause, a remedy of the situation is not possible.

I do believe that if choirs were to give Gregorian chant “some place” in the Propers of the Mass, then the need to play CDs at other times would be negated.

Jon C. Morgan

Montgomery, Alabama

Webster Young responds: Thank you very much for your letter — and for your concern about matters of good music. I also believe that Gregorian chant should have more “pride of place” — and I believe it will soon. I was glad to learn from your letter about the St. Cecilia’s Schola Cantorum in Auburn, Ala.

If playing Gregorian chant as a kind of sacred background music is, as you suggest, a result of the interest of Catholic laypeople in the ancient chant — I am glad to know that people are interested.

However, in regard to the use of chant as recorded background music — I believe that it is a case of “the end does not justify the means.” As my article probably made clear, I think any background music — where great music is concerned — is ultimately counter-productive. I made the point that muzak using good music is always changed, and that the one thing that remains constant in the end is a dependence on the machines. In addition, by replacing live musicians with recordings in the practice of an art that takes care and training, an institution unwittingly helps eliminate it by setting up a form of competition to live performance, and by putting a gulf between the performers of the music and the hearers. When people hear Gregorian chant for free without any musicians around, or own it for a few dollars, the sacrifice and support needed for live performance and true musical education declines even more.

There are better, more wholesome ways to remind the Church of the greatness of Gregorian chant — like the activity of the St. Cecilia’s Schola Cantorum, and I hope they are supported more because of our discussion.

Time to Pray for Peace

Relevant to “Crying Out to God” (April 29): Weapons of war are hateful. Weapons of peace are loving. Self-defense is appropriate. Defense of others is praiseworthy. But a time comes when destruction does not resolve the problem. That is the time to pray, to pray for peace.

However many of God’s children die in war, many more die in sins of self-destruction. That is the war that needs to end, the war against the innocent by the guilty. The lies and deception of those seeking power, seeking their own destructive pleasure, Satan’s world, have led God’s world astray. Learning how to discern the truth from the lie is essential. The father of lies, Satan, continues to deceive mankind through others, through his lackeys in their quest.

Terry Hornback

Wichita, Kansas

Campaign for A.D.

Reading the reader’s opinion, “Responding to ‘BCE’” (April 22), reminded me of getting annoyed with the “BCE” sayers. Maybe 20 years ago I started my “campaign,” every check I write in the section where one writes a date I precede it with A.D. (Anno Domini). That was 20 years ago, and still going strong.

A lawyer, when I wrote him a check, once asked, “What is that?” I told him. (He is Catholic.) He understood.

This brings me to the early ’50s when I still lived in Holland. They did away with capital letters, especially when it referred to God.

And now look at the same Register issue in the same column “Divine Mercy and the Pope.” In the second paragraph where it starts with “Our Lord and asking him to pour out his mercy,” the preceding words him and his should have the letter H capitalized — Him and His. Credit goes to Tan Books and Publishers in the beautiful booklet Words of Love. All references to God are properly referenced. How about it?

Frans J. Vreenegoor

Birmingham, Alabama

Editor’s note: Our style on the capitalization of divine pronouns follows the practice of Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican and the U.S. bishops.

Correction

In our April 22 Inperson interview with Joseph J. Cella, founder of the National Prayer Breakfast, we misstated the numbers of attendees to both the breakfast and the Mass prior to the event. The numbers were 1,700 for the breakfast and 400 for the Mass. We regret the error.

Cella also wished to correct himself regarding the date he was struck with the inspiration for the annual breakfast event: It was precisely Feb. 6, 2003. He also thought readers might like to know that Pope Benedict XVI’s Ambassador to the United States delivered a greeting to the breakfast from the Pope — and thanked Frank Hanna for his “exceptional gift” of the Bodmer Papyrus to the Holy Father and the whole Church.

Blessed Chapel

I read with great joy Ed O’Neill’s article, “The Little Chapel That Could — and Did, and Still Does” (April 22) on the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help located at Robinsonville, Wis. (New Franken, Wis. route). I have been going there almost monthly since 1989 and hope to move there eventually as rector of the shrine.

I would like to add a few things to Ed O’Neill’s otherwise fine article. Although the phenomena at Robinsonville have never been formally approved by the bishop of Green Bay, they have been implicitly approved. Four chapels have been erected since the apparitions of Our Lady to Sister Adele Marie Joseph Brice in 1859. The first brick chapel (the third chapel) was erected in 1880 with authorization from the local bishop. The present church was authorized by the bishop of Green Bay in 1941. Bishops do not authorize chapels to be built when the claimed apparitions are spurious.

In 1871, when the Peshtigo fires occurred, everything within five counties was destroyed. Only the small complex at Robinsonville was spared. On Oct. 8, 1871, the sisters and boarding school students walked around the perimeter, carrying a statue of Mary, praying, singing and begging for rain. The miraculous rains came the next day, 12 years to the very day on which Our Lady had appeared to Sister Adele. I do not believe that this all happened haphazardly according to the laws of nature. I believe that God and the Blessed Mother had a hand in bringing about the needed rains and the preservation of the holy site where Mary had appeared 12 years earlier.

Msgr. Matthew G. Malnar

Independence, Wisconsin

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