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Music at Mass:

What the Church Teaches about Liturgical Music
Part 1

by Matthew C. Hoffman
March 24, 2002

Summary

Despite the confusion reigning in many sectors of the Catholic Church regarding liturgical music, the Church's doctrine on the subject has been well established by Vatican II and by the Church's highest authorities during the post-Vatican II era. This teaching has been consistent throughout the Church's history, beginning with the Church Fathers, running through the writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Pope Benedict XIV, and numerous other authorities, and reconfirmed repeatedly by the popes and Vatican officials of the 20th century, both before and after Vatican II.1

The Church's doctrine on liturgical music can be summarized in seven points (all of the footnoted citations are quoted later in this paper):

  1. Types of Music Appropriate for the Mass. The music of the Mass and of the Sacred Liturgy must be either Gregorian Chant, or must be similar to Gregorian Chant. The primary example of music similar to Gregorian Chant is Sacred Polyphony, exemplified by the compositions of Palestrina.2
     
  2. Characteristics of Music Appropriate for the Mass. The music of the Mass must have "grandeur yet simplicity; solemnity and majesty,"3 and must have "dignity,"4 and "gravity,"5 should be "exalted" and "sublime,"6 should bring "splendor and devotion"7 to the liturgy, and must be conducive to prayer and liturgical participation, rather than distracting the listener from prayer.8 It must be music that befits the profound nature of the Mass, which is the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ.9 As Pope Paul VI put it: "The primary purpose of sacred music is to evoke God's majesty and to honor it. But at the same time music is meant to be a solemn affirmation of the most genuine nobility of the human person, that of prayer."10
     
  3. Types of Musical Instruments Appropriate for the Mass. The instrument that is most "directly" fitted for the Mass is the classical pipe organ.11 Other instruments, however, can be adapted to the Mass, including wind instruments,12 and smaller bowed instruments.13
     
  4. Types of Music Prohibited in the Mass. All secular and entertainment styles of music are utterly prohibited in the Mass.14 The introduction of inappropriate music into the liturgy is regarded as "deplorable conduct."15
     
  5. Types of Instruments Prohibited in the Mass. All "noisy or frivolous" instruments are prohibited for use in the Mass.16 The specific instruments named by the Popes have included guitars, pianos, drums, cymbals, and tambourines.17 "Bands" also are prohibited, as are all automated forms of music (recordings, automatic instruments, etc).18
     
  6. Adapting Musical Traditions of Indigenous Cultures, and "Universality." The musical traditions of particular cultures can and should be incorporated into the Sacred Liturgy, but only in such a way that they will be recognized as sacred ("good" in the words of Pope Saint Pius X) by people of all cultures. That is, all such music must have the characteristic of "universality."19
     
  7. Preserving the Church's Musical Tradition. The treasury of the Church's sacred music is to be carefully preserved, rather than discarded.20
     

This essay will demonstrate, through copious documentation, that these principles represent the mind of the Catholic Church concerning liturgical music. As official and authoritative papal teaching, they must be given religious submission of the mind and will by all Catholics.21 It is possible that, because they have been taught so consistently for so long, by so many authorities, that they are part of the Universal Ordinary Magisterium of the Church; if so, they are part of infallible teaching, and must be given the assent of Faith.22

In summary: the Church, as in all things, has not changed its mind on liturgical music. The faith "once for all delivered to the saints" [Jude 1:3] will never be altered, and the Mass always remains fundamentally the same in nature, despite periodic rubrical and textual modifications. As it is always a participation in the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Mass must always be celebrated with a dignity that befits it. Because the Mass will always remain the same, so will the Church's teaching on liturgical music. As this paper will show, this teaching remains as valid and binding today as it was when it was formulated by the early Church.

The Unchanging Tradition of the Church

The Catholic Church has always held that liturgical music must have a sacred character, and that worldly, "carnal," entertainment-style music is inappropriate for the Sacred Liturgy. Saint Basil (AD 329-379), for example, warns his readers against morally subversive forms of music:

The passions born of illiberality and baseness of spirit are naturally occasioned by this sort of music. But we must pursue that other kind, which is better and leads to the better, and which, as they say, was used by David that author of sacred songs, to soothe the king in his madness. And it is said that Pythagoras, upon encountering some drunken revelers, commanded the aulete who was leading their song to change the mode and to play the Dorian for them. They were so sobered by this music that tearing off their garlands they returned home ashamed. Others dance to the aulos in the manner of the Corybantes and Baccantes. Such is the difference in filling one's ears with wholesome or wicked tunes! And since the latter type now prevails, you must have less to do with it than any utterly depraved thing.23

Saint Jerome (AD 340/2-420) condemns "theatrical" music in the liturgy:

Listen, young men whose duty it is to recite the office in church: God is to be sung not with the voice but with the heart. Nor should you, like play-actors, ease your throat and jaws with medicaments, and make the church resound with theatrical measures and airs.24

Saint Nicetius (d. 563/6) makes similar comments:

The music or the form of melodies that should be executed is that which is in harmony with holy Religion and not expressions of tragical chant; it should show that you are true Christians; it should not be like that which is heard at the theater, but should produce in you sorrow for sin.25

In the 13th century, Saint Thomas Aquinas defended Saint Jerome's statement as follows in the Summa Theologica, and commented on Saint Augustine's opinion on liturgical music:

Jerome does not absolutely condemn singing, but reproves those who sing theatrically in church not in order to arouse devotion, but in order to show off, or to provoke pleasure. Hence Augustine says (Confess. x, 33): "When it befalls me to be more moved by the voice than by the words sung, I confess to have sinned penally, and then had rather not hear the singer."26

Saint Thomas also commented on the use of "coarse" and "carnal" instruments in worship, noting that such instruments mentioned in Old Testament worship are not appropriate for Catholic worship:

As the Philosopher says (Polit. viii, 6), "Teaching should not be accompanied with a flute or any artificial instrument such as the harp or anything else of this kind: but only with such things as make good hearers." For such like musical instruments move the soul to pleasure rather than create a good disposition within it. On the Old Testament instruments of this description were employed, both because the people were more coarse and carnal-so that they needed to be aroused by such instruments as also by earthly promises-and because these material instruments were figures of something else.27

The Council of Trent, in 1562, also distinguished between appropriate and inappropriate liturgical music:

They [the ordinaries of each diocese] shall also banish from churches all those kinds of music, in which, whether by the organ, or in the singing, there is mixed up any thing lascivious or impure; as also all secular actions; vain and therefore profane conversations, all walking about, noise, and clamor, that so the house of God may be seen to be, and may be called, truly a house of prayer.28

Almost two hundred years later, in his Encyclical letter Annus qui,29 Pope Benedict XIV made extensive statements about liturgical music, again denouncing the use of secular, entertainment-style music in the liturgy:

56. ...each one can easily imagine what opinion pilgrims, from regions where musical instruments are not used, will have of us on coming to Our cities and hearing music common to theatres and other profane places ... there is certainly no one who does not desire a certain difference between ecclesiastical chant and theatrical melodies, and who does not acknowledge that the use of theatrical and profane chant must not be tolerated in churches.

70. We also said that all condemn theatrical chant in churches and want a distinction made between the sacred chant of the church and the profane chant of the theater...

71. ... The Fathers of the Council of Toledo, in 1566, after a long exposition of the qualities of the chant of the Church, conclude as follows: "It is absolutely necessary to avoid all that is theatrical in the music used for the chant of divine praises and everything that evokes profane themes of love or warrior feats dear to classic music."

Numerous and learned writers severely condemn the patient tolerance in churches of theatrical music and chant and ask that such abuse be banished from them.

72. To conclude what We have to say on this argument, that is, on the abuse of theatrical compositions in churches (the abuse is evident and requires no words to demonstrate it), it suffices to mention that all the authors whom We have quotes above as being favorable to figurative chant and the use of musical instruments in churches, clearly say and testify that they have always meant and wished by their writings to exclude that chant and that music proper to platforms and to theaters, because they, like others, condemn and despise such chant and music...

He also denounced the use of inappropriate instruments, and named the instruments he had in mind, commanding the bishops to remove them from the liturgy:

90. ...you, Venerable Brethren, will see that, if in your churches musical instruments are introduced, you will not tolerate any instruments along with the organ, except the tuba, the large and small tetrachord, the flute, the lyres and the lute, provided these serve to strengthen and support the voices. You will instead exclude the tambourines, cors da classe, trumpets, flutes, harps, guitars and in general all instruments that give a theatrical swing to music.

Footnotes

  1. Letter of Cardinal J. Villot to Cardinal J. Garibi y Rivera, Archbishop of Guadalajara, 1969 (Notitiæ 6 [1970] pp. 309-310). The relevant quotation: "... During the last seventy years, from Saint Pius X to Vatican Council II and since then, the Apostolic See has expressed itself repeatedly on the place of sacred music in the liturgy. As a result the documents issued on this topic constitute a very sizable doctrinal corpus. Anyone interested in the theme should pause attentively over this teaching in order to penetrate and take hold of its riches [see SC ch. 6; the Instruction Musicam sacram, 5 March 1967]. Principle also stated in: Vatican II, Sacrosanctum concilium (1963), n. 112.
     
     
  2. Pope Pius X, Motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini (1903), nos. 3-4; Vatican II, Sacrosanctum concilium (1963), nos. 112, 116.
     
  3. Pope Paul VI, Address to the Associzione Italiana di Santa Cecilia (September 18th, 1968) [Notitiæ 4 (1968) pp. 269-273].
     
  4. Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Musicae sacræ (1955), nos. 21, 34; Pope Paul VI, Address to the Associzione Italiana di Santa Cecilia (September 18th, 1968) [Notitiæ 4 (1968) pp. 269-273].
     
  5. Pope Pius X, Tra le sollecitudini, n. 5. The principles in Tra le sollecitudini were reaffirmed by Vatican II in Sacrosanctum concilium (1963), no. 112, and by Cardinal J. Villot in his Letter to Cardinal J. Garibi y Rivera, Archbishop of Guadalajara (1969) [Notitiæ 6 (1970) pp. 309-310).
     
  6. Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Musicae sacræ, n. 34. The principles in Musicae Sacrae were generally reaffirmed by Vatican II in Sacrosanctum concilium (1963), no. 112, and by Cardinal J. Villot in his Letter to Cardinal J. Garibi y Rivera, Archbishop of Guadalajara (1969) [Notitiæ 6 (1970) pp. 309-310].
     
  7. Pope Paul VI, Address to the 10th International Congress of Church Choirs (April 6th, 1970) [Notitiæ 6 (1970), pp. 154-157].
     
  8. Saint Augustine, Confessions, x, 33; Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 2a-2ae, q. 91, art. 2; Pope Pius X, Motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini, n. 23; Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Musicæ sacræ, n. 34; Vatican II, Sacrosanctum concilium (1963), n. 112; Pope Paul VI, Address to the Associzione Italiana di Santa Cecilia (September 18th, 1968) [Notitiæ 4 (1968) pp. 269-273].
     
  9. Vatican II, Sacrosanctum concilium (1963), nos. 112, 113; Vatican Secretariat of State: Letter of Cardinal J. Villot to Cardinal G. Siri, Archbishop of Genoa, on the occasion of a national meeting on sacred music, September 1973.
     
  10. Pope Paul VI, Address to the Associzione Italiana di Santa Cecilia (September 18th, 1968) [Notitiæ 4 (1968) pp. 269-273].
     
  11. Pope Benedict XIV, Encyclical Annus qui (1749), n. 90; Pope St. Pius X, Motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini (1903), n. 20; The Sacred Congregation of Rites, Instruction De musica sacra (1958), n. 68. Vatican II, Sacrosanctum concilium (1963), n. 120.
     
  12. Pope Pius X, Motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini (1903), n. 20. The principles in Tra le sollecitudini were generally upheld by Vatican II in Sacrosanctum concilium (1963), n. 112.
     
  13. Sacred Congregation of Rites, Instruction De musica sacra (1958), n. 68. The principles in De musica sacra were upheld in the post-Vatican II period in the Instruction of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, Musicam sacram (1967), n. 63.
     
  14. Saint Jerome, quoted in the Summa Theologica, 2a-2ae, q. 91, art. 2; Saint Augustine, Confessions, x, 33; Saint Nicetius, quoted in the Encyclical Annus qui, Pope Benedict XIV, February 19, 1749, to the Bishops of the States of the Church; Pope Benedict XIV, Encyclical Annus qui (1749), nos. 56, 70, 72; Pope Pius X, Motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini, n. 5; Pope Pius XI, Apostolic Constitution Divini cultus; The Sacred Congregation of Rites, Instruction De musica sacra (1958), n. 55; Sacred Congregation of Rites, Instruction Musicam sacram (1967), n. 63.
     
  15. Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Musicæ sacræ, n. 21.
     
  16. Pope Pius X, Motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini (1903), n. 19. Principle upheld by the Instruction of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, Musicam sacram (1967), n. 4. The principles in Tra le sollecitudini were generally reaffirmed by Vatican II in Sacrosanctum concilium (1963), n. 112.
     
  17. Pope Benedict XIV, Encyclical Annus qui, n. 90; Pope Pius X, Motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini, n. 19. Principle upheld by Vatican II, Sacrosanctum concilium (1963), nos. 112, 120, and by the Instruction of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, Musicam sacram (1967), nos. 4, 63.
     
  18. Pope Saint Pius X, Motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini (1903), n. 20; The Sacred Congregation of Rites, Instruction De musica sacra (1958), n. 71.
     
  19. Pope Saint Pius X, Motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini (1903), n. 2; Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Musicæ sacræ (1955), n. 41.
     
  20. Vatican II, Sacrosanctum concilium (1963), nos. 112, 114.
     
  21. Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, par. 25.
     
  22. Vatican I, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, chapter 3; Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, par. 25.
     
  23. Saint Basil, Exhortation to Youths as to How They Shall Best Profit from the Writings of Pagan Authors VII. Quoted in Cole, Basil, O.P., Music and Morals: A Theological Appraisal of the Moral and Psychological Effects of Music (New York: Alba House, 1993), p. 55.
     
  24. Quoted in the Summa, 2a-2ae, q. 91, art. 2.
     
  25. Quoted in Encyclical letter Annus qui, Pope Benedict XIV, February 19, 1749, to the Bishops of the States of the Church.
     
  26. Summa, 2a-2ae, q. 91, art. 2.
     
  27. Summa, 2a-2ae, q. 91, art. 2.
     
  28. Council of Trent, Session XXII, Decree Concerning Things to be Observed, and to be Avoided in the Celebration.
     
  29. Issued February 19, 1749, to the Bishops of the States of the Church.
     

Copyright © 2002 by Matthew C. Hoffman.
Reprinted with permission.

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