What's with the snark on contemporary Catholic church music,

[hedgehog]

especially Marty Haugen? A little googling will turn about a half dozen blogs criticizing him. If you would believe these bloggers, before Haugen and Vatican II, every parish offered the music of Palestrina with full choir on a routine basis every Sunday. One blog criticized Haugen because the tunes are simple, singable and emphasize Peace,Love, Community, etc. At a risk of being snarky myself, quelle horreur!

Haugen is actually UCC. He admires the Catholic Church but doesn't hold with official Catholic teachings on priestly celibacy, women priest or gays in general.

[47of74]

1. You probably answered your own question

Since Haugen is a non-Catholic who believes opposite of what the church officially believes that's probably where some of the snark comes from at least as far as the right wing of church is concerned. And with them it wouldn't matter how bad the music that's played actually is if written and performed by "traditional Catholics." I mean, it could be a series of bowel movements set to music and they wouldn't say a word.

[hedgehog]

2. I think finding out that he is a non-Catholic amounts to a bonus for

these people. There is a lot of snobbery in pre-Vatican II Catholicism. We were better than the Protestants because we spoke Latin and in theory used classical music in our services. Of course, the snobbery extended to fellow Catholics who weren't up on the esoterics.