When it comes to diversifying the Catholic Church needs start singing black spirituals.

The Cincinnati Enquirer ^ | Friday, March 12, 2004 | Valerie Christopher

[yankeedame]

Friday, March 12, 2004

Author says start singing - and diversify the church

By Valerie Christopher
Enquirer contributor

FINNEYTOWN - When it comes to diversifying the Catholic Church, America needs to start singing.

Specifically, black spirituals.

That's what Father Joseph Brown, a Jesuit author and head of the Black American Studies Program at Southern Illinois University, told an audience of about 85 people during a speech titled, "To Sit at the Welcome Table: Black Catholics and the Future of the Church," Tuesday night at St. Xavier High School.

"If you want to diversify your community, hire yourself a black choir director," Brown said. "People will come to your church because he's singing right.

"You don't need to be black to sing, 'Precious Lord, take my hand,'" he said. "You just need to be suffering."

Brown said there are so many different interpretations of black spirituals that one must stick with them until their meaning is clear. He believes that singing spirituals in all churches will save the country because it "brought us out of slavery to freedom."

"If you never have black people in your church," he said, "at least you'll have black presence in your prayers."

Brown is author of A Retreat With Thea Bowman and Bede Abram: Leaning on the Word (St. Anthony Messenger Press; 1997) and To Stand on the Rock: Meditations on Black Identity (Orbis Books; 1998).

According to the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, African-Americans make up 8 percent of Greater Cincinnati Catholics and 11 percent of the half-million Catholics in the 19-county region.

Brown doesn't believe there is any true diversity in the Catholic Church in this country because "we are so proud of segregating culture."

"Walk into the church like it's yours, and sit at the welcome table and demand equality," he urged his audience.

Catholic attendee Anne Thomas of Price Hill applauded Brown's message, but questioned whether anyone will take heed.

"His message is invigorating because he challenges those who would like to think that things are going along fine," Thomas said. "It's a speech that is designed to unsettle the complacent."

Father Brown's lecture was the ninth installment of St. Xavier's Diversity Lecture Series, which began in 2001.

E-mail valerie_christop@hotmail.com

[ClearCase_guy]

I would like to see the Black Community diversify by learning Latin and attending Tridentine Masses. Is that under consideration? No? It's just the white Europeans and their institutions that need to change? Why is that? Because we have a long history of success and that needs to end? So we should act more like the people who have a long history of being downtrodden?

Diversity isn't about diversity.

[Sacajaweau]

I like my nice quiet church. I appreciate the organ. Guitars belong on the range under a moonlit sky and handclapping belongs at a hoe down.

[uncbob]

Maybe they ought to read outta the KORAN to attract Muslims to mass

[GraceCoolidge]

Oh, geez, I wish there would be less singing altogether. One reason I like to go to the earliest masses is that they usually tend to have less singing. Unfortunately, so often you get a singer who views the mass like his or her own personal stage. The worst I ever heard of was my mother's old church, where they had a guy (my dad insisted on calling him "Perry Como") who sang everything... the petitions, the names of the deceased and ill of the parish... everything. When did the mass become "entertainment"? Don't even get me started on this topic!!!

[AnAmericanMother]

Funny!

You'll have to import a choir that can sing gospel.

Our choir is singing "As We Are" (by Uzee Brown - choir director at Ebenezer Baptist) this Sunday. Choir practice last night was a hoot! Every so often the director would roll his eyes at us and hold up the thumbs and index fingers of his hands to make a little "square". We WERE a little square. Usual heckler from the back of the choir (that would be me) asks, "You want us to SWAY?" "No, we tried that once."

I have an unfair advantage, having attended church with my nanny for most of my youth . . . but getting a Catholic choir into the black gospel style would require a first-class miracle . . .

[gunnrmike]

Bingo!! White Christian males=extinct species

Gunnrmike

[kittymyrib]

Please don't use the term "hoe down" in an inner-city setting.

[NeoCaveman]

"If you want to diversify your community, hire yourself a black choir director

Got any that can do Gregorian chant?

But seriously aything would be better than the fresh hell that is the OCP hymnals.

[AnAmericanMother]

Oh, geez, I wish there would be less singing altogether.

No, what you need is BETTER singing. Good, solid, centered singing of quality traditional church music.

I agree with you 100 percent that the Mass is neither a performance stage nor a cocktail lounge. But good music done well is an aid to worship. And a cantor who knows his or her business can be very, very good. I was taught to cantor in the English style - very clear, very pure, no vibrato and no emotion in the voice at all. You take your personality completely out of it and let the words sing themselves.

[FormerLib]

Actually, my in-laws' parish has put this into practice.

My in-laws absolutely hate the change (they've put up with enough changes in their church, they tell me). Fortunately, the Saturday night Mass and one of the Sunday Masses includes no singing so they go at those times.

Being elderly, sometimes getting there on time is a problem. I can always tell when they attended one of the singing Masses 'cause they're in a bad mood for the whole week.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

Black spirituals? C'mon, that's so 60's.

What the Catholic Church needs is Hip-Hop and Hardcore Rap. Yeah, that'll help 'em diversify.

[FITZ]

You should see what goes on in the churches in the SW --- not close to organ music. Here you'll get the matachines doing rain dances inside Catholic Churches --- even during Mass.

[Vinnie_Vidi_Vici]

I used to love the old Hymn "Et in Terra Pax Hominibus" (and on earth peace to men of good will) I guess the fact that it was sung to the tune of "Deutchland deutchland Uber alles" was a contributing factor in its removal.

[AnAmericanMother]

You know, you can overdo the "outreach" stuff . . . really.

We're doing Mozart's Laudate Dominum the following Sunday, just for "balance." :-)

[GraceCoolidge]

"Cantor"... that is the word that I couldn't remember. You may be right, but I would bet you that 90% of American parishes would select the "feelings, whoa, whoa, whoa, feelings" style of singing for mass over what you describe as the English style. It seems that like so much of the mass, the singing has been "dumbed down" to appeal to attendees, often with the opposite result of what is intended. I see it as part of the whole "mass as entertainment" problem. One of our parish priests even opens his homily each week with a joke, that is his little personal signature. I can't tell you how jarring it is... to go from the holy Gospel reading to "now, my joke of the week." I find, though, a pretty wide disparity between parishes. I used to attend one that was much more traditional, but then I moved. I keep hoping our parish will change, or I can find another one to attend...

[The_Outlaw_Josey_Wales]

Father Brown needs to start worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ and stop worshipping diversity.

[AnAmericanMother]

"Glorious things of thee are spoken" is another one set to that tune. Just call it "Austria" - its original name. It's by Papa Haydn anyhow, originally set "Gott erhaltet Franz den Kaiser". What could be wrong with that? :-D

[yankeedame]

Guitars belong on the range under a moonlit sky and handclapping belongs at a hoe down.

Very nicely put,my friend. :o)

[AnAmericanMother]

I am on a one-man (woman) campaign to bring the English choral style into the Catholic church. I had to leave those heretical loons in the Episcopal church behind, but have no intention of leaving the good music back there with the apostates. No letting the Catholics get away with sloppy music!

Fortunately, the choir director in our new church is an excellent musician and my husband and I are 100 percent behind his efforts to raise the standard of music. I have told him several times how pleased I am to hear such good hymns and his choice of anthems. (Many of the hymns on Sunday are also in the Episcopal hymnal - lots are Lutheran or Methodist in origin, it's amazing the reach of the Wesley brothers' contribution to church music!) But he needs encouragement (Catholic congregations are not traditionally very music oriented and do tend to fall into what you call the wo-wo-wo feelings, LOL!)

All I can do as a choir member is (1) sing my very best and (2) ask intelligent questions that instruct the other choir members. Have to be careful not to overdo it, especially as a newbie, but I think that continuing to model "doing it right" is going to influence everybody in the choir over time.