Catholic Music (Part 1)

I have been told by several trustworthy people that having “Catholic Music” as one of the sub-headers on my music site is probably not a good business move.  And they are probably right.  First of all my music is not overtly Catholic, and second of all it might be a turn-off to the lowest common denominator of music lovers.  Catholicism is publicly misunderstood as irrelevant and intolerant, and Catholicism is an irresistible target.  But it is my belief that it is the only complete system of thought that exists in the world, encompassing social justice, the unique and irreplaceable value of each individual person, rational philosophy, paradoxical mystery, and most of all sacrificial love.

My music is an outpouring of my belief, so I tag it as such.

It is different from what is known as “Contemporary Christian Music.”  This music has been primarily dominated by an industry that markets itself to a wider group of Protestant and Evangelical audiences.   I think I understand why this has become so, and I would like to share these ideas.

There are basically two types of Christian group worship – 1) liturgical ritual, and 2) Bible commentary intertwined with entertainment.  Liturgical ritual, or rites, such as the Catholic Mass is also found in more traditional Protestant churches and is a series of prayers and physical postures performed by the entire congregation that are repeated from week to week and usually accompanied by some sort of sacramental remembrance of the Last Supper as Jesus requested (“Do this in memory of Me.”).  The other common type of group worship is generally led by a preacher or minister who leads the congregation in prayer and who spends a large percentage of the time commenting upon a book or passage or verse of the Holy Bible and giving Christian guidance.  Usually there is a focus on the preacher’s entertaining style of prayer or emotionally-charged entertaining music.  These two types of group Christan worship have similarities and differences that I will not get into on this post, but a good personal reflection on the subject is Thomas Howard’s Evangelical is Not Enough.

The contemporary Christian music industry is largely rooted in this latter form of group Christian worship where there is a strong component of entertainment.  Because there is not a repetitive liturgical rite, the congregation returns to Sunday worship not only to give praise to God, which I have no doubt is just as (or more) sincere as any liturgical rite, but also to be stirred emotionally.  These churches often get touring Christian musicians to play at their service to keep the music fresh.

Evangelical and Protestant Christian musicians who wish to play their music live to a large number of congregations have a built-in network of churches with pre-packaged audiences who buy CD’s and spread the word.

Christian musicians who worship in and promote a liturgical rite (i.e. Catholics) do not have this built-in framework of ready-to-listen audiences.  The liturgy’s purpose is far from being entertaining – prayerful rites are not meant to produce any emotion that is not focused directly upon God, not on the priest nor on the musicians.  And it is a shame that people will not gather together as Christians more than once a week, perhaps to fulfill the desire to listen to a touring contemporary Catholic musician, but that is the unfortunate reality in our time-starved culture.

Part 2 will focus on the recording industry and what type of music sells.  Please be sure to sign up for my RSS feed in order to continue reading.