The following came from Thomas D.
[We usually redact names for anonymity’s sake.]
OUR ORGANIZATION has hammered home that the ADALBERT PROPERS were created for one purpose only: recited Masses, not sung ones. So imagine my astonishment when I cracked open the Ignatius Press Propers (the work of Father Samuel Weber, OSB) and discovered he did precisely what your group has spent years warning against. He took the spoken texts and dropped them into Masses with music. Consider Pentecost. The Church has sung “Factus est repénte” as the Communion for over a thousand years. Weber discards it in favor of “Repléti sunt omnes”—a text no composer has ever set, because it was never meant to be sung. You have shown real courage in taking on progressive liturgical celebrities. Why, then, do conservatives get a pass? It makes you look craven. Dr. Christoph Tietze did not hold back, writing in 2006: “When a choir sings the Gregorian antiphon whose text may be different from the missal on that day, an uninformed priest will regard the Gregorian proper as the wrong text.” Don’t give me diplomatic fluff. Straight answer: why did the Ignatius Press collection avoid the GRADUALE ROMANUM? Is Father Weber just (adopting Tietze’s term) uninformed?
Jeff Ostrowski responds (below).
Posted on 9 May 2026.
(1 of 6) • We aren’t affiliated with IGNATIUS PRESS in any way. Queries about their decisions should be directed to them, not us.1 Your suggestion that Father Samuel Weber is unaware of the GRADUALE ROMANUM is (if you’ll pardon my bluntness) extremely foolish. I say this because some of Father Weber’s adaptations mimic GRADUALE melodies. Did you think that was a random coincidence? Moreover, the actual neume figurations themselves used by Father Weber are taken directly from Dom Pothier—so your statement is without foundation.2 Moreover, the ADALBERT PROPERS omit the Offertory antiphons. As a result, Father Weber was forced to take those from the GRADUALE ROMANUM.
(2 of 6) • That being said, your question is excellent. After decades of inquiry, I’m still waiting for someone to offer an answer. When it comes to recited Masses (“Masses without singing”) an English translation of the ADALBERT PROPERS done by ICEL is conveniently printed in Roman Missal, Third Edition. But those are for spoken Masses. Catholics don’t go to the priest’s Missal for the propria missae; nor do they go to the priest’s Missal for the readings. When it comes to approved translations of the GRADUALE ROMANUM, there are many. For instance, in 1950 Father Louis Hartman published an English translation which—15 years later—was inserted into the 1965 Missale Romanum. Indeed, Hartman’s translation (1950) of the propers in the Roman Gradual received the highest approval possible:
(3 of 6) • Father Hartman’s translation was very popular, and served as the basis for other translations (which subsequently received approval for liturgical use in the United States). Various collections chose Hartman’s translation for their approved settings of the GRADUALE ROMANUM: e.g. the O’Fallon Propers, the collection by the organist-priest Paul Arbogast, and so forth. The famous and ubiquitous Saint Andrew Missal also adopted verbatim Father Hartman’s translation of the Psalter. Indeed, the Catholic Church in these United States has used Father Hartman’s translation (verbatim) for the Responsorial Psalm since 1970. Around 2011, the bureaucracy in Washington D.C. publicly declared they were going to replace Hartman’s Responsorial Psalms with the so-called “Revised-Revised Grail” (now called Abbey Psalms & Canticles) … but so far this hasn’t happened.
(4 of 6) • Appealing to Church documents when it comes to such issues is pointless because alius cantus congruus made its way into every liturgical book of the 1970s. Professor László Dobszay famously called alius cantus congruus “the anthrax in the envelope” of post-conciliar reform. Indeed, an American adaptation of the GIRM recently recommended chanting (!) the ADALBERT PROPERS, in spite of the fact that they were created for Masses without singing. Like the ‘leisure suit’ of the 1970s, the ADALBERT PROPERS were very much a product of their time—and disturbing statements by the person who created them have surfaced in recent years.
(5 of 6) • When performed in a dignified, peaceful, traditional manner, is singing the ADALBERT PROPERS preferable to the “sacro-slop” found in too many churches? Undoubtedly—but that’s not the question. The question is: “Why would a composer create musical settings for texts created for Masses without singing?”
(6 of 6) • Let me wrap this up before I go in circles. As stated, I’ve been chewing on this question for decades, yet no answer I’ve found makes any sense. I would consider it a tremendous gift if someone could explain why any composer would deliberately set the spoken texts (a.k.a. the “ADALBERT PROPERS”) to music. I’ll conclude with a quotation by Father Ronald F. Krisman, who was associate director for the Secretariat of the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy—and note that the emphasis is from Krisman’s original quotation:
“The 1972 GRADUALE ROMANUM does contain Offertory propers. But the entrance and communion antiphons in the Roman Missal have always been intended to be read (without any additional psalm verses) when the proper introit or communio chant from the GRADUALE ROMANUM or a substitute song is not sung.”
Hoc Unum Restat • Finally, regarding your assertion that CCW contributors never criticize conservatives: that’s patently absurd. For instance, we’ve pointed out it was wrongheaded for ADOREMUS to pretend that a huge liturgical issue of the 1990s was calling the priest’s book a “Missal” rather than a “Sacramentary”—especially since the latter is more accurate. We’ve also criticized conservative influencers who stubbornly insist that “accurate” liturgical translations must be stilted, unidiomatic, inartistic, and slavishly literal. Since your impression of our 10,000+ articles is to label us as “craven” (your word), perhaps you should start your own blog. Then you can do everything exactly the way you want. 😊
1 Personally, I doubt IGNATIUS PRESS had anything to do with the choices made for their 2015 publication: “Proper of the Mass for Sundays and Solemnities.” I say this because that same book began its life as a different book: viz. “The Saint Louis Gradual.” So I doubt IGNATIUS PRESS had input. If you write to them and receive an answer, I would love to see their response (provided they give you permission to share it).
2 Needless to say, Father Weber can’t do that for many of ADALBERT PROPERS because they were created circa 1969—whereas authentic Gregorian Chant was composed 1,000 years earlier. Sometimes the ADALBERT PROPERS correspond to the authentic propers, but sometimes they don’t. Broadly speaking, they match about 50% of the time.
