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Views from the Choir Loft

Church music need not sound “Catholic” says drafter of USCCB guidelines

Jeff Ostrowski · March 9, 2014

749 NPM Mag N 2009, NPM PUBLISHED a lecture by one of the drafters of Sing to the Lord. Generally speaking, I think STL is quite a good document, so I was surprised and troubled to read certain statements made by a key player in its creation.

The lecture itself is by Fr. Anthony Ruff and much could be said about its various sections. For example, he calls Catholics who favor chant “conservatives” and those who don’t “liberals.” I’m not accustomed to seeing such language in a scholarly liturgy paper and, for myself, I find it unhelpful. However, more extensive analysis will have to wait, because today I will focus on just one concept.

Fr. Ruff does not consider “some styles or genres to be holier than others.” Specifically, he says attempting to “distinguish sacred music from secular music” constitutes a “throwback to the 19th-century Cecilian reform movement.” He goes on to assert that the repertoires held up by Sacrosanctum Concilium (Gregorian chant & Roman polyphony) do not, in fact, possess “greater sacrality” than other musical styles. He feels that efforts to make such distinctions are “on thin ice philosophically, historically, and musicologically” and gives as evidence a paragraph from his 1998 doctoral dissertation:

In Franko-Flemish polyphony of the fifteenth century, there is the same vocal style throughout and the same musical technique of cantus firmus development, with no difference in style between church music and secular music. Similarly, one is unable to find any clear stylistic difference between Palestrina’s Masses and his secular madrigals … Monteverdi borrowed the orchestral music from the prologue to his secular opera “Orfeo” for the “Deus in adjutorium” of his Vespers. One is unable to establish a clear stylistic difference between Mozart’s chamber music and his sacred music.

I’m surprised the NPM editors allowed such an inaccurate statement to be printed.

First of all, it is absolutely wrong to assert that secular genres of the Renaissance — frottola, rondeau, villancico, etc. — are composed in exactly the same style as sacred music. While some madrigals certainly resemble sacred works (especially to ears unfamiliar with Renaissance compositions), more diligent study reveals differences: e.g. stronger emphasis on “tone painting” in madrigals. Furthermore, much secular music from that period was improvised, so we have no record of it. Even when it was written down, people of that time often did not preserve it, since it was considered somewhat unimportant. Even Church compositions were frequently discarded in a way that seems strange to us. (To correctly assess the situation, it is necessary to avoid looking at things through a “Year 2014” lens.) Without a doubt, secular music may possess great dignity, and sometimes may resemble sacred styles, but this has no effect on the fundamental distinction. To misconstrue this is every bit as illogical as saying, “My dog is black, so all dogs must be black.”

Some Renaissance composers did use secular melodies for cantus firmi, but they “elevated” the tune by adding elaborate polyphony (in essence “burying” the secular tune). By the way, even this concept can be complex, as you’ll discover if you read about this scintillating discovery regarding the “secular” tunes of Machaut.

Fr. Ruff’s overall claim was often put forward during the 1970s. In essence, it says that if we can prove certain secular forms in the past resembled sacred music of the time, this will “legitimize” the full-scale adoption of secular styles we observe in so many Catholic churches today. For example, a 2011 Mass setting by composer Dan Schutte — extremely popular in the United States — was probably lifted from the My Little Pony theme song.

FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT, LET’S ASSUME that Fr. Ruff is correct. Let’s assume one can find historical periods where little distinction was made between sacred and secular music. (I have often pointed to the Classical period in this regard.) In the end, it makes no difference. Think, for example, of the reform under Pope Pius X. That good Pope wasn’t trying to maintain the status quo — he attacked the status quo! He demanded major changes! The argument for dignified liturgical music and more reverent liturgies rests on whether the genres held up by the Church are intrinsically appropriate for worship, not whether Monteverdi used part of Orfeo for his Vespers.

Let us carefully consider words spoken by Pope John Paul II in June of 1980:

“To the extent that the new sacred music is to serve the liturgical celebrations of the various churches, it can and must draw from earlier forms — especially from Gregorian chant — a higher inspiration, a uniquely sacred quality, a genuine sense of what is religious.”

I hope to explore other troubling statements from that lecture at a later date. In particular, I’d like to examine the following assertion made by Fr. Ruff:

The question is not whether a particular piece sounds like chant or Palestrina or whether it sounds “Catholic.”


This article is part of a series:

Part 1   •   Part 2

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Guillaume de Machaut Polyphony, Secular vs Sacred Music at Mass Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Jeff Ostrowski

Jeff Ostrowski holds his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Kansas (2004). He resides with his wife and children in Michigan. —(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
    I was asked to create a booklet for my parish to use during our CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION on 22 June 2025. Would you be willing to look over the DRAFT BOOKLET (16 pages) I came up with? I tried to include a variety of hymns: some have a refrain; some are in major, others in minor; some are metered, others are plainsong; some are in Spanish, some are in Latin, but most are in English. Normally, we’d use the Brébeuf Hymnal—but we can’t risk having our congregation carry those heavy books all over the city to various churches.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Yahweh” in church songs?
    My pastor asked me to write a weekly column for our parish bulletin. The one scheduled to run on 22 June 2025 is called “Three Words in a Psalm” and speaks of translating the TETRAGRAMMATON. You can read the article at this column repository. All of them are quite brief because I was asked to keep within a certain word limit.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
    Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for Pentecost Sunday (8 June 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. Because our choir is on break this week, the music is relatively simple.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Antiphons Don’t Match?
    A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    When to Sit, Stand and Kneel like it’s 1962
    There are lots of different guides to postures for Mass, but I couldn’t find one which matched our local Latin Mass, so I made this one: sit-stand-kneel-crop
    —Veronica Brandt
    The Funeral Rites of the Graduale Romanum
    Lately I have been paging through the 1974 Graduale Romanum (see p. 678 ff.) and have been fascinated by the funeral rites found therein, especially the simply-beautiful Psalmody that is appointed for all the different occasions before and after the funeral Mass: at the vigil/wake, at the house of the deceased, processing to the church, at the church, processing to the cemetery, and at the cemetery. Would that this “stational Psalmody” of the Novus Ordo funeral rites saw wider usage! If you or anyone you know have ever used it, please do let me know.
    —Daniel Tucker

Random Quote

On 26 July 1916—during the German occupation of Belgium—a student choir led by Van Nuffel performed his setting of the psalm “Super flumina Babylonis” in Saint Rumbold’s Cathedral. The text and the musical setting very aptly expressed the depressed and rebellious mood of the population. The acclaim was enormous, and it laid the foundation for Van Nuffel’s formation of the Saint Rumbold’s choir.

— Unknown

Recent Posts

  • “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
  • PDF Download • “Text by Saint Francis of Assisi” (choral setting w/ organ: Soprano & Alto)
  • “Yahweh” in church songs?
  • “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
  • “Participation” • Recovering its Receptive Dimension

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