Hitting the Wrong Note
Thomas Day on Church Music
The telephone voice message, from a stranger, sounds desperate: “I must speak with you. Please call me as soon as possible. I need your help.” I return the call and listen to a long tale of anguish and emotional suffering that comes close to physical pain. The topic of the lament is liturgical music in a particular Roman Catholic parish.
About thirty years ago I began to scribble commentaries on the less-than-perfect state of music in Catholic parishes. Ever since then I have been receiving these distress calls with their requests for some kind of advice and consolation. Now these messages are also arriving by e-mail. The details of the complaint will vary. Musicians might give precise descriptions of things that are wrong, such as the parish’s musical repertory or organ pipes that do not function. Others are not as clear about what irks them and refer only to “the loss of the sacred” or “those people,” who are denounced as liberal or conservative or ignorant.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door with Full Online Access
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
- Six print issues per year
- Full digital archive access
Subscribe (Print + Online)
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95.
Subscribe (Online Only)
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
33.3—May/June 2020
Maternal Body: A Theology of Incarnation from the Christian East by Carrie Frederick Frost
Fertile Ground: A Pilgrimage Through Pregnancy by Laura S. Jansson by Agnes R. Howard
33.1—January/February 2020
on a Saint's Charism That Cures Toxic Perfectionism by Colleen Carroll Campbell
33.2—March/April 2020
on How Bodily Resurrection Informs Social Justice by W. Ross Blackburn
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
