Roman Catholics: A New Way of Worship

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Children's Chorus. Not all Catholics like the new way. Many older priests find it hard to abandon the practices of a lifetime, and tend to obey the letter rather than spirit of the change. Some laymen also prefer the old "church of silence" and complain that spoken prayers are distracting. Says one San Francisco Catholic: "I feel like I'm a member of a children's chorus, having to sing this wretched little hymn out loud."

In part the complaint is justified, since the English texts of the Mass approved by the U.S. hierarchy lack the poet's touch, and there is no easy solution to the problem of suitable music. Gregorian chant does not fit the English words. Many congregations dislike the simple but widely used psalm melodies composed by French Jesuit Joseph Gelineau, and most traditional Catholic hymns in English are so poor that the bishops have had to set contemporary composers to creating new ones.

By and large, younger Catholic laymen and priests are enthusiastic about the new approach to worship, and even some Latin diehards have found after a month or so of practice that the Mass has become a more meaningful and personal encounter with God. Besides, they know by now that the old order returneth not. In Rome a postconciliar liturgical commission is at work on an even more drastic restructuring of Catholicism's central act of worship that will strip away many over-the-centuries accretions to the original Roman rite.