LITURGICAL MUSIC AND THE RESTORATION OF THE SACRED
(This paper was given as the keynote lecture at the symposium
held at Christendom College, Front Royal, Virginia, June 28-30,
1991, to consider the topic of the sacred and liturgical music.)
I. THE SACRUM
It is surely a commonplace that the knowledge gained through rational
discourse is often difficult to separate cleanly from extrarational
knowledge: what Plato referred to as logos is in fact quite closely related
to mythos understood in the fullest sense of that term. That which does not
admit of precise verbal expression will, after long attention and ever
deepening familiarity, arise "like a blaze kindled by a leaping spark, and
thereafter nourish itself" in the soul.1
In other words, man's basic longing to discover meaning in the world is
not stilled by reasoned thought alone, but also through myth and symbol as
mediators of the transcendent to man's level. In the Christian
dispensation, this need is met and satisfied in an important way through
the liturgy, which embodies in its sacraments the eternal renewal of past
events with their saving content of supernatural grace. Christian faith has
replaced the mere mythic tales of ancient (and modern) paganism with the
supernatural, with a personal God Who creates the world and all its
creatures so that He can establish with both a relationship based on His
transcendence and His personhood. The sacred symbols and myths of the
Christian religion are a translation, so to speak, of the supernatural
which is rendered present in the lives of Christians through the cult,
through prayer, ritual, and a sense of the sacred community of believers.
This is the "sacred" component, which is denied by the rationalistic,
scientific, individualistic world of today.
It is admittedly easier to describe the "sacrum" negatively than it is to
define it positively.2 In view of our present purpose, it will be well to
concentrate upon one salient aspect: that of "mediation."3
Rudolph Otto's analysis of religious experience tends to confirm the fact
that the sacred or the "numinous" (to use Otto's term) involves a living
force, "an overpowering, absolute might of some kind," as we observe in the
Bible and in the Semitic religions generally.4 (One thinks of the Hebrew
"gadosh," Greek "hagios," Latin "sacer" etc.). This numinous power
originates in a source beyond the cult, a source which we call God. His
divine reality is not made manifest to the senses in any direct and
immediate way, for like Moses on Mount Sinai, we bare our feet, avert our
eyes, and fall on our knees when the Almighty says, "Vacate, et videte
quoniam ego sum Deus:" Be still, and know that I am God (Ps. 45/11). Hence
the need for "mediation." Just as the Eastern Church refers to icons as
"window to God," so too the sacred mediates between the supernatural on the
one hand, and our openness and receptivity (theologically, our sacramental
dispositions) on the other. The sacred has stability and permanence; it is
able to elevate and inspire; to be transmitted and handed on, which is why
"rite means rote." The "mysterium tremendum et fascinosum" which lies at
the heart of the numinous and its aweful majesty" (Otto) explains why we
feel a sense of awe before sacred objects or in sacred places (though not
in many a contemporary church building); why we experience identical
sentiments during the performance of sacred rites in sacred time using
gestures hallowed by their transcendent significance.
"This is not mere empty emotionalism, nor an appeal to
credulity. It corresponds to a reality more real than what we
commonly call "reality." The unembraceable Divinity is present
through the sacred, by means of which the Divinity transmits a
force it does not employ in contact with humbler forms of life.
We call it: grace..."5
To appreciate the realm of the sacred we need to be aware of a reality
placed by God between humanity and Himself "not as a filter, or a screen,
or an obstruction, but as a mediator" (Molnar). In this basic sense, the
sacred is an element in every religion, but the decisive difference between
the Christian religion and all other creeds and their cultic symbols is, at
bottom, the dogma of the Incarnation. For us,
"...Christ (Himself) is the 'axis mundi;' the story of His birth
is the one reference point of all other and later Christian
stories...and the Cross replaces the intersection of cosmic
forces. More than that, through the Incarnation Christ is now
the only mediator between the divine and the human...He is the
truly sacred channel, present and mediating in every sacrament,
in the Mass and its central elevation, the Eucharist. He is also
present in artistic expressions, from roadside crucifixes to the
pattern of cathedrals, from the retelling and reenacting of the
birth at Bethlehem to Dante's grandiose composition..."6
And from the unassuming melodic miracles of "cantus Gregorianus" to the
monumental double fugue which crowns the "Gloria" of Anton Bruckner's "E
Minor Mass."
Of course, all this is widely disputed in theory and practice by a
generation which believes it has experienced the verification of
Feuerbach's prediction that the turning point of history would be the
moment when man would realize that his only God is man himself: "homo
homini deus..."
Any attempt to explain the supernatural in terms of the natural, and to
re-interpret the sacred in a scientific or socio-political perspective,
runs the risk of destroying the extrarational or, if you will, the "mythic"
foundation of the sacred, which results in the degradation of the cult to
lifeless routine and in the perception of formerly expressive symbols as
meaningless. Titus Burckhardt puts it thus:
"In every collectivity unfaithful to its own traditional form,
to the sacred framework of its life, there ensues a collapse, a
mummification of the symbols it had received, and this process
will be reflected in the psychic life of every individual."7
Though he refers "exprofesso" to cosmology and modern science, Burckhardt
could well have written those words as a description of the malaise
afflicting such wide areas of the "Ecclesia hujus temporis..."8
But the numinous has another visage, as what may be called a "social
dynamic" (Molnar). This means that the sacred is directed toward a
potentially universal assembly, toward a community and not toward one
single person. Mircea Eliade has shown that manifestations of the numinous
or emanations of power (hierophanies or kratophanies, as Eliade calls them)
are by no means simply an individual affair, but essentially communal. God
can of course dispense with the mechanism of mediation and reveal Himself
directly. But even Moses, Paul and Francis went on to carry the good news
and its palpable effects to a collectivity, the "communio sanctorum," the
fabled "community" of song and story.
Let us sum up our first point. The sacred or the numinous pertains to the
sphere of "mediation" between the ultimately real--the Creator--and the
world of men. And when God enjoins the people (in Deut. 6/4-5) to love Him
with heart and soul and all their might, He is also telling us that all the
faculties and senses of the composite being "man" are to be enlisted in the
act of worship, in the cult. And that brings us to the development of our
theme.
II. MUSICA SACRA
Given the "scandal" of mediation9 which forms the core of the
incarnational principle, it is not difficult to understand why "musica
sacra" may be regarded as a kind of "secondary cause" through which the
believer, singing his prayer "ante faciem Domini," can reach the
transcendent God in worship while opening himself to receive the
supernatural riches which God in turn wishes to bestow upon him.
But what sort of music furnishes the appropriate form for such supremely
meaningful content? Plainly, a music which will permit man to feel that
transcendent attraction or "pull" which elevates him to a higher level, or
at least to higher moments. In practice, the matter is settled when we have
given an honest answer to the one absolutely fundamental question: is the
cult (and here more precisely, the divine liturgy) really a sacred action
("actio sacra") in the strict sense, in the course of which God Himself
becomes present in Jesus Christ? Or is it simply a matter of an event in
which nothing real actually occurs, nothing which would in principle
surpass the merely human? Once this question has been answered in the
spirit of true faith, then nothing more need be said...
The point is worth repeating: if Holy Mass is indeed a sacrifice, an
"actio sacra praecellenter" (as the last council rightly termed it), then
one of its necessary and integral parts will be a "musica" which perforce
is also "sacra" (constitution on the sacred liturgy, "Sacros. Concilium,"
art. 112). But if something else is being "celebrated," for example, the
fraternal gathering of a given community or a merely commemorative meal,
then a very different kind of musica will be required...perhaps a "polka
Mass," or some "contemporary" music through which "the congregation (and
each individual in it) becomes the Voice of God."10
But how explain the widespread disregard of such a plain truth? Perhaps we
can find a clue in some of the recent studies which have examined the
"sutures" along lines where the Catholic concept and modern liberal society
meet and encourage a fusion of "Weltanschauungen." According to one such
current analysis, this adjustment or "aggiornamento" "is not a process of
mutual accomodation, but of imitation and adaptation to a dominant
model."11 It has been quite plausibly suggested that the ideology of modern
society requires that the adjusting institution become
"democratic" in mentality and structure;
"pluralist" in its acceptance of other institutions, groups and
movements; and
"oecumenical" in reformulating its vocation, making place for
other beliefs that share, at least outwardly, its own primary
concerns.
It will perhaps be profitable to make use of this scheme for our own
musico-liturgical reflections upon the state of musica sacra a generation
after the last council.
We begin with "democratization." In our particular context it is widely
believed that we no longer need choirs led by professionally trained
musicians because now, in a misconstrued interpretation of "actuosa
participatio," "everyone sings everything." Why then tolerate the "elitism"
of the competent choirmaster when the need of the hour is (allegedly) to do
away with liturgical "mystification" intended to uphold the "theologically
worthless ideology" of a cultic bureaucracy?12 The "thesaurus musicae
sacrae" is "out," profane banalities are "in," provided only that they be
in unison (or a least include the omnipresent amplified cantor with his
publicly-indulged "libido dominandi)."
Next, another of today's great shibboleths: "pluralism." During the world
synod of bishops held at Rome in 1985, the assembled prelates described
pluralism as "a juxtaposition of systems of belief that are fundamentallky
opposed to each other," thus implicitly condemning it. Far from uncommon
today is a "pluralistic" mixture of sacred and profane music which, by the
messages and countermessages it conveys within one and the same liturgical
service, completely obscures the true finality of the divine liturgy,
cripples genuine participation on the interior level, and produces boredom
and religious indifference in the communicants. Is it aberrant to ask
whether we of the Latin rite do not have something to learn in this respect
from our sister churches of the east?13 Liturgico-cultural pluralists
claim, of course, that their agendum embodies the very essence of freedom
and hence is not really an imposition upon any individual or group. Sadly,
however, such persons overlook the fact that freedom of viewpoints and
messages leads to the repression of the weak by the strong, elimination of
the good by the bad, substitution of the profane for the sacred--and all in
the name of: freedom...
Finally, "oecumenism." A practicing Catholic church musician and published
composer has recently asked whether hymns with strong non-Catholic
associations do not confuse or even antagonize the Catholic faithful by
furthering "a misunderstanding of the basic premise of Catholic
evangelization."14 The matter is surely worth a moment's reflection. And
since the topical is the key to reality, let us consider some examples.
Many Roman Catholic hymnals published in this country during the past
fifteen years include the Protestant "gospel" hymn, "Amazing Grace,"
presumably because the source of the "American traditional" tune ("New
Britain" or "McIntosh") is the "Virginia Harmony" published in 1831 by
James P. Carrell and David S. Clayton, and most often sung today in the
harmonization of Edwin O. Excell. The tune may be "American traditional,"
but which tradition does the text reflect? A Catholic tradition? A current
non-Catholic hymnal15 prints "Amazing Grace" under the sectional heading
"The Gospel--Repentance and Forgiveness," and one can find the hymn in the
topical index under "Grace," "Salvation," and "Testimony." The author of
the text, John Newton (1725/1807) was an evangelical divine in Great
Britain who "in theology was a pronounced Calvinist," as the standard
theological reference works inform us. "Pronounced Calvinism" implies
adherence to Calvin's doctrine of the inamissibility of divine grace and
the certitude of salvation, as well as those basic doctrines characteristic
of Lutheranism. One is therefore not surprised to find the personal
pronouns, "I, me and my," more than ten times in the text, which leads one
to suspect that the author held a typically Lutheran "reflexive" faith.16
Here, the legitimate liturgist cannot forbear to ask whether the
archetypical attitudes "sola gratia" or "sola scriptura" are in fact
specifically Catholic themes--those central to our Catholic identity"
(Hubley)? If not, then could it be that the presence of such themes in a
hymn text might eventually produce a "lulling effect upon our Catholic
consciousness" (Hubley)?
If texts like "Tu es Petrus" or "Ave Maria" or "Oremus pro Pontifice
nostro" may be regarded as distinctively Catholic, then surely "Ein' feste
Burg" ("A Mighty Fortress is our God") is as characteristically Protestant.
The text is based on Psalm 46 (Deus noster refugium et virtus), though the
original does not contain the trendy references to "guns and nuclear might"
which one finds nowadays. It was in 1529, the year of the Diet of Speyer
and the colloquy of Marburg, that Martin Luther wrote this hymn as a
truculent statement of Protestant identity. For Luther, man is justified by
a kind of legal fiction. That is to say, God regards sinful man as
righteous, owing to the merits of Christ, while in reality man remains as
sinful as before. In this famous hymn, Luther expressed the idea this way:
"Es ist doch unser Tun umsonst,
auch in dem besten Leben...
With might of ours can nought be done,
Soon were our loss effected.
But for us fights the Valiant One
Whom God Himself elected."
No wonder, then, that this hymn became (and remains) the "battle hymn" of
the reformation--and that not only in central and northern Europe.17 The
Protestant Episcopal "Hymnal 1940" listed it as a "general" hymn, with the
third and fourth verses of the Hedge English text marked by an asterisk,
meaning that they could properly be omitted (by Episcopalians, at least?)
without violating the sense. The "Service Book and Hymnal" of the Lutheran
Church in America (1958) included the hymn in a section entitled "The
Church," while "The Lutheran Hymnal" of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod
listed it as a "Reformation" hymn and printed the original syncopated
("rhythmic") form of the melody.
Again we must ask: if a hymn is laden with non-Catholic associations, why
are Catholic congregations asked to sing it? And if it be answered that the
text is patient of an orthodox Catholic interpretation, then why does one
ask our people to sing ambiguous platitudes? This is a point to consider
seriously, since even though the dogmas of the faith remain, strictly
speaking, unchanged, is it not likely that borrowings such as these tend in
reality to deemphasize the importance of the core teachings of our faith,
and to reorientate them toward something more acceptable to the
contemporary climate of opinion and belief? Given the context of the
present day, it is perhaps not so farfetched to perceive here traces of
what one knowledgeable observer recently referred to as the "softer image"
which is increasingly preferred to dogmatic "hardness."18
On the basis of this brief analysis, we may perhaps attempt a
recapitulation. "Musica sacra" worthy of the "Ecclesia orans" as she
performs the "opus Dei inter nos" should be "elitist" and not merely
"democratic" because "musica sacra" is related to the "actio precellenter
sacra" of the Christian cult like color to sunset, like thought to the
mind. "Music sacra" raises the mind (hence, intelligent listenintg to the
artistic music of the choir as well as intelligent rendition of music
suited to congregational singing); "musica sacra" raises the heart (hence,
artistic music which will call up valid emotional response); "musica sacra"
raises both mind and heart to God (and not only to neighbor, for worship is
directed to God).19 "Musica sacra" should be monist and not merely
"pluralistic" because here on earth there is only one problem, and it was
solved on Mount Sinai: it is the problem of adoration (E. Hello). The grace
of the redemption imparted in baptism brings with it the indwelling of the
Holy Ghost, the Pneuma Who enables the "new man" to intone the "new song."
So it is that Christians as members of Christ's Mystical Body, in union
with Him Who is the "primus cantor Novae Legis," praise and glorify the
Father in a "logocentric" manner. For after all, the God-Man, Jesus Christ,
Who alone can lovingly adore the Father in a completely adequate way, is in
fact the "logos tou theou," indeed the "logos pros ton theon." He is the
"fore-Word" to the word sung in the "new song" (L. Ziegler). Just as men
are cleansed of sin through the grace of baptism, so too any music must be
"purified" and thus "transformed," which desires to "elevate" to the Father
in the Pneuma. In the words of St. Pius X, "musica sacra" must needs be
"free from all that is profane, both in itself and in the way it is
performed."
Finally, "musica sacra" should be firmly grounded in Catholic truth and
tradition, and not in a vague and euphoric oecumenism, because the
protological principle of religion and its cultic expression is that the
truth coincides with or is convertible with Being, and that human truth is
a participation in this primary truth, just as finite being is a
participation in the "ens primum." Is it in fact true that the "reversion"
of the separated brethren to the true Church of God has now been replaced
by the "conversion" of all confessions to the total Christ Who is found
outside of them and in Whom all of them must converge? After all, there
does exist a "status" of each Christian within which his personal religious
perfection takes place and from which he does not need to transfer or
convert himself to some other status. In other words, conversion--
understood as the continuous progress of each Christian toward perfection--
is necessary in itself for the work of reuniting the Church, but it does
not constitute the essence of this work, since it is but one moment of each
man's personal destiny.20
III. RESTORATION OF THE SACRED
The approach of the second millenium, and the profound and unexpected
changes which have affected so many nations in the very recent past, have
helped rouse a growing chorus of voices calling for a restoration of
Christian culture, for example, in Europe or in the West as a whole.21
But is there a truly realistic prospect of such a restoration in the
foreseeable future? The question is surely justified, since the chief
elements of such a potential restoration seem to be lacking. Perhaps it is
not so much a question of certain new initiatives or of pursuing what is
already there, but rather a question of the spirit. Is the challenge not
one of spiritual presence?22
The forms of culture depend upon something more than human decisions.
Cultures derive their content and their contours from their cosmology, for
communities form and organize themselves in accord with what they believe
to be the transcendent reality of the cosmos.23 But once the cosmos itself
has become "opaque, inert, mute," then it can no longer transmit a message,
and as a result the metaphysical significance of symbols is no longer
perceived.24
To the degree that contemporary man considers himself absolute--"homo
homini deus," a view encouraged by modern science and ideology--man has no
need for symbols, myths, or the sacred which formerly mediated man's
understanding of a transcendent Being. But many of our contemporaries hold
that one cannot know being, but only signs: a thing is its perception by a
perciever.
And thus, when the mediating function of "musica sacra" is no longer
appreciated in these latter days, the apostolate of the competent
choirmaster all too often seems "bound in shallows and in miseries." And
yet, he must not leave the "land flowing with milk and honey," to follow
the pied pipers of profanation into the city of confusion and the house of
bondage.25
What, then, is to be done? One should recall that the very word "culture"
contains the word "cult," and that "the Christian ideal lives and works in
the ceremonies of the cult."26 The reason is plain: both cult and culture
demand faith in the supernatural, and that total dedication to such faith
which furnishes a solid foundation for religious belief as well as for
artistic creation. It is the Church's "firm grasp of the supernatural"
(Molnar) which links individual experience with the collective phenomenon
we call culture. The cultic energy of the Church cannot be renewed without
our own absolute devotion to the supernatural through all those sacramental
and sacred channels by which it is mediated to man. The cultic lies buried
in the soil of faith, and it will not do to let this soil lie fallow.27
To be sure, the propagation of the faith through catechesis, homiletics
and formal instruction is not the primary apostolate of the church
musician. But he too must do his part, from his position at crossroads
where the final clash between Christ and the world takes place. "If ye were
of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the
world, but I have chosen you out of this world, therefore the world hateth
you" (John 15/19). T. S. Eliot reminds us that the proximate cause of the
fading of European culture is the enfeeblement of Christian faith.
"If Christianity goes, the whole of our culture goes. Then you must
start painfully again and you cannot put on a new culture ready-made.
You must wait for the grass to grow to feed the sheep to give the wool
out of which your new coat will be made. You must live through many
centuries of barbarism. We should not live to see the new culture, nor
would our great-great-great granchildren. And if we did, not one of us
would be happy with it."28
Of the "three which now abideth," the apostle rightly says that the
greatest of these is charity. But the most topical for church musicians
today is surely "hope," because our apostolate involves a share in God's
redeeming action and is consequently a type of "mediation." After all, it
is from God that the cultic singer receives the words of prayer which he
intones, and it is to God that the singer directs his prayerful song--but
at the same time he passes this song on to others. Thus the cultic singer
shares in the sacramental and liturgical action of Christ and the Church as
His interpreter, His herald, His spokesman, as the intermediary who through
sacred song interprets the signs of salvation by reflecting "the light of
the knowledge of the glory of God (tes doxes tou theou) in the face of
Jesus Christ..."(2 Cor. 4.6).
Our final cadence is therefore a hopeful one, even though contemporary
church history, which studies the recent past, cannot escape the conclusion
that the efforts made thus far toward realizing the intentions of the last
council have not produced the benefits envisioned by that sacred synod.29 A
perceptible change will come about only through greater willingness toward
interior conversion which leads to a new and more profound reflection on
the spiritual level. Without this pre-condition, any "re-evangelization "
will experience the same fate as did the council.30 The true path to real
change is indicated by Saint Paul: "And be not conformed to this world: but
be ye transformed by the reenewing of your mind (tou noos symon), that ye
may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God" (Rom
12/1).
Therefore, "Say not the struggle availeth naught." The soul of all culture
is and will remain the culture of the soul.31 And what way lies our hope,
which is the last gift from Pandora's box.
REVEREND ROBERT A. SKERIS
ENDNOTES
1. On this see Plato, Ep. VII (341 D) and compare his description of the
"mystic" vision of the Idea in Symposion 210 E.
2. See e.g. R. Caillois, L'homme et le sacre (Paris 19502 ); J. Pieper,
Zustimmung zur Welt. Eine Theorie des Festes (Munchen 1963); G.
Heilfurth, Fest und Feier: Worterbuch der Soziologie (Stuttgart 19692 )
275/7 with further literature; J.-J. Wunenberger, Le Sacre (Paris 1981).
3. Th. Molnar, Twin Powers: Politics and the Sacred (Grand Rapids 1988) 7/9
has recently proposed a helpful distinction between the sacred as a
reality, and as a social dynamic. The paragraphs which follow are
indebted to his analysis.
4. R. Otto (tr. J. W. Harvey), The Idea of the Holy (London 1970 = 1923)
8/40, here esp. 13/24.
5. Molnar (note 3) 7.
6. Ibid., 23.
7. T. Burckhardt, Cosmology and Modern Science: J. Needleman (ed.), The Sword
of Gnosis. Metaphysics, Cosmology, Tradition, Symbolism (Baltimore 1974)
173.
8. It will be helpful to note that "community" or "fellowship" (Greek:
koinonia) means that a large number of men receives or has a share in
something which is greater and more inclusive than they themselves (e.g.
koinonia of Jesus Christ, of the Holy Ghost, or the sufferings of Christ),
and precisely through their common participaton they are related to each
other. Far from meaning that one can "build community" through naively
superficial "togetherness," NT usuage indicates that the reality denoted
is simply that a multiplicity of men participate existentially in a more
sublime reality through which they are joined to each other at the level
of existence. See R. Skeris, Via Nova, Viator Novus, Canticum Novum. The
Theology of Praise in Song according to Augustine's Discourses on the
Psalms: Divini Cultus Studium = MuSaMel 3 (Altotting 1990) 57/82, here 70
n. 29.
9. Ch. De Koninck, Le scandale de la mediation (Paris 1962) 267: "It is
natural for man to grasp even the most certain principles under the
dependence of the senses." Four hundred years earlier, the Council of
Trent recognized the same ageless truth. Cf. Denzinger-Schonmetzer
(196332) 1746, for example.
10. T. Day, Why Catholics Can't Sing. The Culture of Catholicism and the
Triumph of Bad Taste (New York 1990) 65; R. Skeris, Divini Cultus Studium
(note 8) 236, 16.
11. T. Molnar, The Church, Pilgrim of Centuries (Grand Rapids 1990) 31/43.
The elements of this analysisare followed in the succeeding paragraphs.
12. The expressions are those of F. Rainoldi-E. Costa, Jr., Canto e Musica: D.
Sartore-A. M. Triacca (edd.), Nuovo Dizionario Liturgico (Roma 1984)
198/219, here 200A, 206A, 211A.
13. On this see e.g. R. Skeris, Divini Cultus Studium (note 8) 83/91, here
esp. 89/90.
14. Mary Oberle Hubley, Stones instead of Bread. Reflections on
"Contemporary" Hymns (Huntington 1990) 23/6, here 25/6.
15. Worship and Service Hymnal (Chicago 1958) No. 227.
16. The sort of faith in which the ego bends back upon itself within the very
act of faith, is fittingly called "reflexive" faith by Paul Hacker, The
Ego in Faith. Martin Luther and the Origins of Anthropocentric Religion
(Chicago 1970) 9. This penetrating study should be consulted in close
conjunction with the author's Das Ich im Glauben bei Martin Luther (Grazz
1966).
17. For example, the connection between the typically Lutheran doctrine and
the hymn is explicitly made by ODCC (1961) 833.
18. T. Day, Why Catholics Can't Sing (note 10) 67/9.
19. On this and the following, see R. Skeris, Divini Cultus Studium (note 8)
114/23, here 114/5.
20. Thus R. Amerio, Iota Unum. Studio delle variazioni della Chiesa cattolica
nel secolo XX (Milano: Ricciardi 19862) 457; 464/90, here esp. 464/5, 467.
21. For instance, Chr. Dawson, Christianity in East and West (Lasalle 1981)
87.
22. The question is put thus by Th. Molnar, The Church (note 11) 131/2.
23. Th. Molnar, Twin Powers (note 3) 69.
24. R. Guenon (tr. M. Pallis-R. Nicholson), The Crisis of the Modern World
(London 1962) 36/47; M. Eliade (tr. J. M. Cohen), The Two and the One (New
York 1965) 100.
25. Cf. J. Kerr, John Henry Newman. A Biography (Oxford 1988) 509.
26. Thus A. Loisy, Memoires pour servir a l'histoire religieuse de notre temps
(Paris 1930) 1/364.
27. This is the apt phrase coined by Th. Molnar, The Church (note 11) 111/12.
28. T. S. Eliot, Notes Toward the Definition of Culture (New York 1949) 122.
On the relationship of cult and culture, see also ppl 19/32, esp. 26/32.
29. KUL. Bomm, Kultgesang als tatige Teilnahme am Gotteswerk: CVO 80 (1960)
5/14, here above all 9, as cited in R. Skeris, Divini Cultus Studium (note
8) 30.
30. Alf. Fischer, Kirche und Seelsorge in der Ara des Konzils und der
Kulturrevolution = Pastoral in Deutschland nach 1945 Bd. 3 (Wurzburg 1990)
312. The author is a Catholic priest who since 1948 has played a leading
role in the central office of German National Catholic Charities as head
of the Department of Pastoral Care.
31. Die Seele aller Kultur bleibt die Kultur der Seele. M. Card. v.
Faulhaber, Our religious culture: Rufende Stimmen in der Wuste der
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