THE TAOS TATLER.

Is there no other kind composed these days?

Other than in large cities, where the music of the Church can be superb (I was confirmed in one of them), in most suburban and rural locales it ranges from deplorable to life-shortening. Yet it seems ever more of it is published year after year, with talentless note-scrawlers being paid to put out the stuff. Compounding the horror is tone-deaf miscreants in the choir stalls forcing it upon those poor souls unable to escape easily, the pew sitters.

It is difficult to believe Catholic church music has always been so bad, and of course it hasn’t been, far from it. Alas, this convert is unable to look back at a time in his life when it might have been better. But it had to be, obviously, with the likes of Paolo Agostino, William Byrd, Orlando de Lassus, Guillaume de Machaut, and, more recent, Edward Elgar, César Franck, Charles Gounod, and, most recent, the superb, late Henryk Gorécki.

In these contemporary times there must be church composers similarly gifted as those named above, but where are they? Alas, it seems not only are the talentless ones selling their scores, but the tone-deaf occupying the choir stalls are forcing it upon us. Is it unreasonable for Catholic music lovers to at least hear a smidgeon of good music at the Mass?

In the richly historic church this blogger is blessed to attend, there is no organ, There is however a standing offer from a grouchy parishioner, who has several times offered to buy a small, single-manual electronic organ with traditional voices. The offer also includes from the Tatler the playing of good hymns on the instrument, but only once a month, so those who do not care for the high-brow stuff may have, three weeks out of the four, their All are Welcome and A Fire is Meant for Burning, etc.  Alas, the offer has received no attention thus far, but the potential donor is ready to make good on it. He informs me he is a patient man, as is your Tatler.

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A friend writes this blog post fails to be mindful of Holy Church’s universality; that She is the church for all, regardless of their musical knowledge or taste. Mea maxima culpa. People with musical tastes sharply different from this blogger’s are still his equal. Those privileged with a superior knowledge of Church music are obliged to share it with others, not rub it in their faces–or ears.

Not long ago I was shelving a pile of haphazardly stacked books when, to my dismay, I uncovered the volume you see below, the Rev’d George W Rutler’s, Calm in Chaos.

My dismay had nothing to do with the book’s content, rather that it had been inscribed and presented by the author to this blogger, and he had yet read it.

What to do? Easy, read it. Doing so reveals once again the inimitable style of Fr Rutler: erudite without being pedantic, drole, without being flippant.

Even the book’s title is a wry example of Rutlerian cleverness. Calm in Chaos is a clever pun, for in addition to being a  compilation of Rutler essays, those essays were originally published in Chaos Magazine.

Inside, is a trove of  essays, illuminating and frequently  provoking a grin or more. A short example:

The documents of the Second Vatican Council are wordier than the extant records of all the other ecumenical councils combined. The recent apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia is nearly two-thirds the length of all the Vatican II promulgations. The literary quality of Amoris Laetitia does not challenge the claim that the Authorized Version, or King James Bible, is the only successful work of art composed by a committee.

Enough said, highly recommended.

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One unexpected and happy consequence of reading this book was that it inspired the Taos Tatler to resume blogging. How so? Who knows? It did. That will suffice.

There have been many false starts getting the Taos Tatler tattling again, all flops. Here is another one, but this time your Tatler is hell-bent (if you’ll pardon the expression) to succeed. To begin, the tale of how this blogger came to Rome. Some readers will protest they have read it already. True, but only in bits and pieces. Here is the whole thing, written in the first person to appear less pompous.

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Long ago I was baptized, and partially raised as an Episcopalian. Alas, my mother (Father stayed home Sundays) was on the losing side of an intra-parish squabble over how Sunday services ought to be celebrated, in a catholic or protestant manner. Mother’s side lost, which resulted in her pulling herself and her children out of this Episcopal church. Though attempts were made by her in the ensuing years to find another church for her and her children, none proved satisfactory for various reasons and eventually the family became irreligious.

Some years later, while studying music at Boston University, I joined the University’s chapel choir for both performance credit and, a big plus, pay. The chapel’s services followed Methodist practice in keeping with BU’s affiliation with the United Methodist Church. To my great surprise, I not only found myself enjoying the worship music under the able leadership of the late Dr Max Miller, but the service as well.

Despite that, I felt there was something  missing, but not being a church goer, I did not know what that was. I spoke to a friend and colleague in the music school, who was musically and liturgically knowledgeable, about this incompleteness I felt at the BU chapel. My friend asked me what I remembered from my early church days. When I told him, he said the Church of the Advent on Beacon Hill was the only church for me. He was right on the mark. Advent, which happily still thrives, is an Anglo-Catholic, or irreverently, “smells and bells,” church. To paraphrase the leader of another faith, this was the place. I was at home. I became a regular attendee and was later confirmed by our bishop and Advent’s rector, the Rev’d G. Harris Collingwood. For the first time in many years I was a church goer again, in an Anglo-Catholic parish.

Skipping ahead a few decades, my last Anglo-Catholic parish, and my favorite, was the Church of the Resurrection, in East 74th Street of Manhattan. As a happily ensconced parishioner at that church, I was unprepared for a  strange occurrence I experienced there.

At a Good Friday service (no mass, as per catholic practice), during a procession, with incense billowing, I heard a voice in my head I did not know tell me, “Jesus is not here.”

That was disturbing. Our Lord, I thought, must surely be present in this church, with its glorious liturgy and music. There was a similar occurrence a few days later, this time while walking to work on the far West Side of Manhattan. Another voice spoke to me, but this one I did know. It was mine and it told me, “You must become a Catholic.” Surprisingly, I found myself agreeing with that voice.

Accomplishing that, however, I was at sea. I knew not one Catholic priest, and my Episcopalian reticence disallowed walking into a Catholic Church and telling whomever I saw, I want to be a Catholic.

I had, however, heard of a Catholic priest, owing to his writings, interviews et al, Father George Rutler. Poor fellow, he was my nominee. At my job the next day, instead of archiving job parts of classical recordings for Sony Music, I tapped out a letter to Fr Rutler telling him what I wished to do. Not knowing his email address, I mailed it to his postal address at the Church of Our Saviour in Midtown and included my email address should he wish to respond in more modern medium.

Fr Rutler responded via email only two days later with the encouraging message, “Come see me.” I did. Father told me what was involved, and after seven months of intense instruction by two able catechists, at the Easter Vigil at Our Saviour’s Church, this sinner, was received into the Holy Catholic Church, along with several others, with impressive ceremony.

Results shall be posted.

Please know I have not dropped off the face of the earth and shall resume blogging soon. Know how grateful I am for your reading of the blog.

More to come.

ACF

From a wise man, Victor Davis Hanson.

Thanks to GWR.

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apa­thy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property—either as a child, a wife, or a concubine—must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Churchill,W.,The River War, Vol. I, pp. 248-49, 1899

Remembering The New Yorker of old’s droll headline to a spacer filler with amusing items from Blighty, There will always be an England, read below the disturbing item suggesting that soon there will  no more be an England. The item is taken from Gavin Ashenden’s journal New English Catholic and is well worth reading in its entirety. It gives us a hair raising account of results from the recent elections in Britain.

Here’s a number that should shock us all in its implications. It spells the end of the shape of British politics as we have known it.

In 2019, 86% of British Muslims voted Labour. This week, it was reduced to 33%.

This is not a swing, it’s a collapse. Actually, it’s a veto.

Indeed it is, and it gets worse. Continuing:

In 2019, 86% of British Muslims voted Labour. This week, it was reduced to 33% . . . and the votes didn’t go to Reform. They went to pro-Gaza independents — that’s another name for Muslim candidates, euphemistically rebranded. They also went to the Greens because there’s a red-green alliance with them, and to a network of Muslim community candidates.

And they have one message for every mainstream party in Britain:

Cross us as Muslims and we, the Muslim voters, can and will remove you.

Labor is on the way out and is being replaced by Islam at an alarming pace, and Ashenden reminds us, “Hitler was able to take power in democratic Germany with just 12% of the popular vote being committed Nazis.” Unless non-Islamic voters (there are too few real Christians in Britain today to matter) by organizing, rallying, and campaigning against these ill-liberal newcomers, Britain is doomed to become the first Islamic state in Europe since the Emirate of Granada in southern Iberia was defeated by forces of Catholic Isabella and Ferdinand; this in the signal and ironic year of 1492.

May God save the King

Special and grateful thanks to Professor William Tighe and Fr George Rutler, both of whom over the uears have provided much valuable fodder for this blog.