Online Edition – July-August 2006
Vol. XII, No. 5
News & Views
FCS Convention: Sacrosanctum Concilium and the Reform of the Liturgy | Cantemus Domino! | BCL to Hold Consultation on Music and Liturgy | SCL Conference: “The Sacraments of Healing” | African Congress to Promote the Liturgy | Sistine Concert Honors Pope — An Authentic Renewal of Sacred Music
FCS Convention: Sacrosanctum Concilium and the Reform of the Liturgy
“Sacrosanctum Concilium and the Reform of the Liturgy” is the title of the 2006 Fellowship of Catholic Scholars convention, to be held at the Hilton Kansas City Airport Hotel, September 22-24. All sessions will focus on the liturgy: sacred music, art and architecture, liturgical texts and translation, and the theology and mission of Catholic liturgy.
The conference will open with a Mass at noon on Friday, September 22, celebrated by Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph. An address to the Convention from Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, will begin the program Friday afternoon.
The keynote address Friday evening will be presented by Dr. James Hitchcock, of St. Louis University, and author of Recovery of the Sacred.
Other speakers through the weekend include Father Samuel Weber, OSB, Susan Treacy, and Father Chrysogonus Waddell, OCSO (on music); Denis McNamara and Duncan Stroik (on art/architecture); Father Paul Mankowski, Kenneth Whitehead, Monsignor James Moroney and Helen Hull Hitchcock (on liturgical texts and translation); and Monsignor Stuart Swetland and Russell Shaw (on liturgy and mission).
[added 10/3/06, links to related stories — Link to story on the FCS Convention in The Catholic Key (KC diocesan newspaper) 9-29-06 – Scholars meet in KC to discuss Vatican II’s Liturgy Constitution
Link to From blogger Rocco Palma "Whispers in the Loggia" October 1]
A unique opportunity is offered this year to convention attendees who like to sing — to become part of a schola to bring the Church’s treasury of sacred music to the FCS convention. The schola will lead the congregational singing and also provide Proper chants for the liturgical day. Singers will receive electronically — in advance — all music needed for liturgies during the convention. Latin and English chant will form the bulk of our repertoire, but there might be an opportunity to sing some polyphonic music, in parts. Singers, please contact Susan Treacy at [email protected].
FCS convention schedule and registration information is accessible at http://www.catholicscholars.org — or contact convention managers, Jack and Marlene Rook, Ave Maria University, 1025 Commons Circle, Naples, FL 34119.
BCL to Hold Consultation on Music and Liturgy
The Music and Liturgy Subcommittee of the US Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy met on May 19, 2006 in Washington, DC to discuss the revision of two BCL documents, “Music and Catholic Worship” (1972) and “Liturgical Music Today” (1982). The committee decided to begin this process by seeking the advice of organizations and groups dealing with questions of music and the liturgy. A consultation has been planned for October 9, 2006, in Chicago, Illinois.
Organizations interested in sending a representative to this consultation are invited to post an e-mail indicating their interest to [email protected]g before August 1, 2006.
(Source: BCL Newsletter, May-June 2006)
SCL Conference: “The Sacraments of Healing”
Cardinal James Francis Stafford will be the keynote speaker at the Society for Catholic Liturgy’s annual conference, “The Sacraments of Healing”, to be held September 21-24 at the Mary Immaculate Center in Northampton, Pennsylvania.
SCL members will also hear addresses from Douglas Bushman, Monsignor Bruce Harbert, Abbot Marcel Rooney, OSB, and others.
For more information about the SCL and its journal, Antiphon, go to http://www.liturgysociety.org.
African Congress to Promote the Liturgy
The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (CDW), in collaboration with the Ghana Bishops’ Conference, organized a congress to promote the liturgy in Africa and Madagascar, held in Kumasi, Ghana, July 4-9.
According to a communique released by the CDW, the congress aims “to evaluate, promote and relaunch liturgical life” in the African continent. Among the participants in the congress listed: superiors of the CDW, members and consultors of African origin belonging to that dicastery, the presidents of SECAM (Symposium of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar) and of the liturgical commission of CERAO (Regional Episcopal Conference of West Africa), and the apostolic nuncio to Ghana, as well as bishops, priests and religious.
The congress, opened by Archbishop Albert Malcolm Ranjith, secretary of the CDW, focused on four themes: the history of liturgical life in Africa, liturgical formation, the translation of liturgical books into various African languages, and inculturation in the liturgy.
(Source: Vatican Information Service, June 20, 2006)
Sistine Concert Honors Pope — An Authentic Renewal of Sacred Music
The Sistine Chapel was the site of a concert held June 24 in honor of Pope Benedict XVI, sponsored by the Domenico Bartolucci Foundation.
The concert featured works of Palestrina, as well as new compositions of Maestro Domenico Bartolucci, who directed the Sistine Choir for 40 years.
In his address following the concert, Pope Benedict commented on the “spiritual intensity of the compositions performed”, and observed that the newly composed music paralleled the historic tradition of sacred music. Following are excerpts of the Holy Father’s comments:
All the passages we have heard — and especially the performance as a whole in which the 16th and 20th centuries run parallel — together confirm the conviction that sacred polyphony, particularly that of the so-called “Roman School”, is a legacy to preserve with care, to keep alive and to make known, not only for the benefit of experts and lovers of it but also for the entire ecclesial community, for which it constitutes a priceless spiritual, musical and cultural heritage.
The Bartolucci Foundation aims precisely to safeguard and spread the classical and contemporary tradition of this famous polyphonic school that has always been distinguished by its form, focused on singing alone without an instrumental accompaniment. An authentic renewal of sacred music can only happen in the wake of the great tradition of the past, of Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony.
For this reason, in the field of music as well as in the areas of other art forms, the Ecclesial Community has always encouraged and supported people in search of new forms of expression without denying the past, the history of the human spirit which is also a history of its dialogue with God.
(Text: Vatican web site)
***
*
