California gay marriage case

Just a few moments ago, the California Supreme Court handed down its decision in the consolidated cases of City and County of San Francisco v. State, Tyler v. State, Woo v. Lockyer, Clinton v. State, Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund v. City and County of San Francisco, and Campaign for California Families v. Newsom. I've just finishing reading skimming it.

In a carefully crafted and very, very long (172 pages, including two concurrences) 4-3 majority opinion, the court specifically said its ruling was on the narrow issue of what to call domestic partnerships in California, and they went to pains to extricate themselves from the issue of whether or not there should be gay marriages, acknowledging that there is still a societal difference of opinion on that matter. So, for the Religious Right doomsayers, this isn't a blatent case of judicial activism (after all, six of the seven justices are Republican appointees), as domestic partnerships already exist in California—the court did not "legalize" gay marriage.

The court was very careful to point out that this applies only to civil marriages and domestic partnerships; nothing in the ruling is to be construed as requiring any church or religious organization to recognize or perform same sex marriages.

California is in the position of being one of only a tiny number of states wherein there are legislative statutes on the books allowing heterosexuals to marry and homosexuals to enter into domestic partnerships (some states use the term "civil unions"). They also don't have a Religious Right constitutional amendment yet (definition of marriage as heterosexual only), but merely a state referendum-imposed Religious Right statute. The court observed that the existing California domestic partnership laws embued gay couples with most of the rights of straight married couples, so they sought to answer the question as to whether or not the state had a compelling interest in maintaining "separate but equal" parallel systems. In dicta, the court found a fundamental right of gay couples to marriage, that the "separate but equal" system wasn't equal, and that the State has no compelling interest in prohibiting homosexuals from marrying. The crux of this ruling is that the referendum imposing the Religious Right definition limiting marriage to one male and one female is unconstitutional under California's state constitution and its equal protection clause.

For years, I've made the argument that marriage is a religious institition that gave an imprimatur to the archaic concept of ownership of females by fathers and husbands, and that governments have no business sanctioning marriage or other religious ceremonies. I submit that if a government wants to recognize a gender-neutral "domestic partnership," that would be fine, but they should not be doing "marriages." The court addressed this issue, too, and decided that, rather than stripping heterosexual couples of the title of marriage, it was better just to use the familiar term and extend marriage to homosexuals.

Now, all those people who were married by the handsome San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom in 2004 will still have to get re-married, since the California Supreme Court invalidated and voided those marriage licenses in an earlier case (Lockyer v. City and County of San Francisco). The question in my mind, though, is what happens to lawful domestic partners in California today. Are they now deemed married? Or do they have to go get a new marriage license or certiticate? Perhaps one of you California lawyers can weigh in on this topic.

We should also note that the Religious Right has already submitted a petition trying to get a constitutional amendment on the November general election ballot. Governor Schwartzenegger has publicly said he will oppose such an amendment, but if it gets on the ballot, there will be a high risk that it could pass.

And I still get confused when my gay friends get married.....what do I call them? Are they both husbands? And, with lesbians, which one is the husband and which one is the wife, or are they both husbands? ;-)

Visiting a new church

For the past several weeks, I've been meaning to visit the Shrine of the Sacred Heart, the Catholic church that's on the border between the Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant neighborhoods. It's a century-old parish that now occupies a 1930s-vintage Romanesque basilica. The parish and its services reflect the growing Washington immigrant community in that neighborhood, and on Sundays, only one Mass is said in English, with four in Spanish, plus others in Vietnamese and Haitian Creole. And, while it's a well-attended church, the immigrant nature of the parish shows in the apparent long-term financial shortfalls of the parish budget and their need for some major capital improvements. The parish is staffed by Capuchin monks (the monastic order after which the coffee drink cappuccino is named in honor of the light brown color of the monks' robes).

Sunday was the Feast of Pentecost, so I showed up at the one and only English Mass wearing my red sweater in honor of the liturgical color of the day. It's a little farther from the Metro stop to the church than I expected, so I was a little worried about being late to Mass. Then, when I got to the church grounds, I was further slowed by a Hispanic street market set up along the sidewalks and the crowds browsing there. But, I needed have worried, since the Mass started about ten minutes late.

Inside, it's a pretty church. The cruciform floorplan used in many churches is something that dates from the late medieval Gothic era; in contrast, this church is laid out as a traditional T-shaped basillica, the design used in the early church and through the Romanesque period. As is traditional with this type of architecture, the windows and arches are all rounded at the top instead of pointed, and there is a large dome over the crossing. There is a beautiful high altar surmounted by its own dome, but they don't use it as an altar anymore. Instead, they have a rather too-small table set up near the altar rail that serves as an altar and it is positioned to allow the priest celebrant to stand behind it and face the people (I would remind the monks that Vatican II allowed the possibility of standing behind the altar, but did not mandate it!).



The interior surfaces reflect the practicality and experimentation of the 1930s, with what appears to be brushed concrete instead of big marble stones making up the walls. The interior decoration is traditional, yet I had a strong feeling of the influence of the Art Deco movement of the period. I didn't get close enough to inspect, but it looked like "mosaic" art was actually painted on instead of being made from small colored tiles.

A large pipe organ is located in the balcony at the back of the nave, but, alas, it wasn't used. They had a praise band with a piano, guitar, and violin up front in the side of the sanctuary with a small volunteer choir to provide musical support.

As usual in Catholic churches, side altars flank the high altar. Here, the Joseph altar is on the left and below the Marian altar is on the right. The shrine to the BVM was quite well illuminated with dozens and dozens of votive candles!

Once we finally got started with Mass, we got fed a diet of bad contemporary Catholic music by Haugen, Haas, and Hurd. The Mass setting was Mass of Light by David Haas (though they took the Gloria at what I thought was a Muzak pace—and I can say that after all the hours I once spent learning to play the very involved accompaniment at the proper faster speed). Hymns included two Marty Haugen ditties, "Send Down the Fire" and "Spirit Blowing through Creation" for the processional and the offertory, then Bob Hurd's mixed Spanish-English song "Envia tu Espiritu" for the recessional. While I saw some Hispanic parishioners singing along to "Envia tu Espiritu," for the most part, the primarily Anglo congregation stood in stony silence during the hymns and the Mass setting. I don't know if they are merely a non-singing congregation or if they just don't like contemporary Catholic music. The choir and praise band sang everything pretty much as a solo performance. My only complaint with them was that they were miked, and the several microphones in their midst were placed in such a way that two or three voices were directly picked up and stuck out over the choral blend.

I'm not sure if it was scheduled or not, but the priest took it upon himself to sing a capella the traditional chant Veni Creator Spiritus in Latin as a solo sequence hymn. He also had to sing the Haas arrangement of the eucharistic prayer, a nasty, mournful composition, and, judging from his lack of familiarity with the "tune," I'm going to guess that it was a special thing just for Pentecost.

The priest gave an interesting (and pleasantly brief) homily talking about how our goal in life should be to act and behave in a way leading to our eventual canonization as a saint.

Liturgically, they did something I didn't like: inclusive language. They did the switch of "It is right to give Him thanks and praise" to "It is right to give God thanks and praise" and one or two other similar incidents.

One thing I noticed about the service was how very undisciplined the congregation was. Lots of families with small children chose to sit in the transepts and they let their children run around wild during Mass, so their noise echoed throughout the church. Lots of babies cried and screamed unabated (no crying room!). Several people tried to pass the peace with more than just their immediate neighbors. Lots of people got up and down during the service (bathroom breaks? cigarette breaks?). Often, I heard the murmur of conversations, especially during the homily and communion. People didn't go to communion in row by row order, but just went up at random. One man walked up to communion early and stood on a kneeler by the altar rail to "sing" with the choir. Several acolytes seemed untrained and had to be prompted to carry out their duties. Parishioners came up at the end of Mass to give 10-15 minutes' worth of announcements (the length was bad enough, but the majority of the announcers didn't speak into the microphone and I couldn't hear them). So, it was a very interesting morning.

On the way home after Mass, I stopped off and had a cappuccino.

Lighting the Cathedral

This past weekend as a part of its celebration of the centennial of the groundbreaking, the Washington National Cathedral brought in internationally-noted Swiss lighting designers for "Lighting to Unite," an unusual event where the cathedral building was used as a canvas for interesting outdoor lighting effects. We went to go look, and it was certainly an interesting thing.

I'm not really sure what "Lighting to Unite" had to do with anything. There wasn't any theme or propaganda presentation associated with the lighting. The lights also weren't really what I was expecting. The press releases talked about he artists "lighting" the cathedral, so I was thinking they would position various lights around the place and turn them on at various times, but in reality what they did was use the building as a projection screen for colored slides. It was still pretty.

Here are a few more views. If you'd like to see a lot more of the pictures, go to my Flickr album to view them. Sorry about the blurry pictures, but I don't have a high end camera or a tripod, and it's difficult doing photos at night without the proper equipment. You can get the idea, though.

Memories of Easter during Ascensiontide

By accident this morning, I happened upon a YouTube video someone recorded at St. Paul's Episcopal Church (K Street) this past Easter. I'm not sure if the recording is from the Easter Vigil or one of the Easter morning Masses, but it's kind of a fun thing. They took a recording of the congregation and choir during the service and paired it with some pretty videography showing the church and it's Easter decorations (I wish they'd had actual footage during the service!). Anyway, these are the traditional Easter acclamations, Christus Vincit, sung every year at K Street, and it's the song where I always blow out my voice, since it demands high Gs! LOL

Vibrato

Yesterday, Robert invited me up to Takoma to go to church at the little Episcopal parish, Trinity, that's across the road and down a bit from his house. I've seen it many times, and it's a very English-looking, 1930s vintage, stone building in the neogothic style with a Normanesque square tower.

We showed up in time to get a good seat for their 10:30 service. It's a small church, but the pews were filled with a vibrant and interested congregation. It seems as though the active membership of the parish is about 90% African-American, African, and Carribbean.

They started ten minutes late, processing in to In Babilone (Hail, thou once despised Jesus). It was a big procession, including a choir that filled the choir stalls in the chancel, and the rector wore a biretta and chasuble in procession. The parish transferred Ascension Day (last Thursday) to Sunday, so I'm not sure how much of the service was "normal" and how much was for the festal occasion. After the collect for purity, the choir sang "I Sing the Mighty Power of God" as an introit.

Other hymns included Lancanshire for the recessional, Old Hundredth as the offertory doxology, and then, using the Lift Every Voice and Sing II hymnal, "God Will Take Care of You" for the gradual, "I Love the Lord" in between the blessing and dismissal, and for the Mass setting. The Gloria (#243) is very pop music familiar sounding; the Lord's prayer (#264) is an arrangement of the Malotte song, and the Santus/Benedictus and the Agnus Dei were the Schubert German Mass settings. They sang Gerald Near's fraction anthem "Christ Our Passover" in the Agnus Dei spot (before singing the Schubert "Jesus Lamb of God"), having already said the fraction anthem words.

A soprano soloist sang the spiritual tune "I Don' Feel No-Ways Tired" as an offertory solo. Two men sang a duet during communion, but it was not listed in the program. The choir was an interesting group of volunteers. It helped me illustrate to Robert, though, why I don't sing in a non-professional parish choir; they had two women with big, trained voices whose voices clearly stuck out over the choral blend of the rest of the choir (and their big vibratos and the occasional jump-up-the-octave big ending notes didn't help). I just can't sing with untrained voices because I don't want my voice sticking out, and as one approaches the higher notes in one's range, one simply must sing with proper technique (and, hence, volume), or not at all. I understand their dilemma.

A seminarian delivered a very good sermon on the "certain women" mentioned in Acts who were in the upper rooms with the apostles after the resurrection of Jesus. She has a lot of potential. I understand she'll be leaving in the fall to work on a doctorate at Duke.

The congregation seemed very involved in the service. They applauded after the sermon and after all the choir anthems and solos. The acolytes were all trained and very focused on doing things the old, traditional ways. During the prayer of consecration, not only was the tower bell rung at the elevations, an adult acolyte in the sanctuary thrice rang the sanctus bells for each elevation. The priest also fully incensed the altar, but they didn't seem to have any smoke coming from the thurible! They had parishioners reading explanations of the readings before the reader, and one woman was so verklempt from her explanation she dropped her papers and had to run back to her seat. Another woman introduced the preacher. And, then, there was the passing of the peace. OMG! It seemed to take hours as everyone wandered around visiting and chatting and greeting everyone in the church....and one man even sat down at the piano to play a little music whilst people were peace-passing. Then, they did lots of announcements, including having someone out in the nave with a microphone so visitors could introduce themselves; I resolutely avoided looking at the microphone bearer as she kept trying to get my attention to offer me the mike.

The service was long. We didn't get out until nearly 12:30! So, considering their late start, their service was about 1.75 hours.

Trinity is a very warm and friendly parish. I wish them well.

Church music news

St. Paul's Episcopal Church (K Street) here in Washington has hired Robert McCormick, currently organist and music director at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin ("Smoky Mary's") in New York City, to be the new music director at St. Paul's. He starts August 1.

The rector has invited my friend John to stay on as assistant organist/choirmaster/music director, and I certainly hope he does!

New York's turn

Pool Photo: Chang W. Lee/The New York Times.
Copyright © 2008 The New York Times Company.
The papal Mass from Yankee Stadium in New York is being broadcast now. I am, unfortunately, having to watch it on a Spanish broadcast station that isn't coming through with a completely clear signal, and their broadcasters not only have been chattering constantly during the hymns and music (and not even talking about the music!), but they are providing simultaneous Spanish translation of the English Mass on top of the English. They are also talking and interjecting comments during the Mass itself. It's going to drive me crazy by the end of the Mass! Nevertheless, I'm going to write this as a play-by-play for those of you (if any) who care. I'm writing this in a long thunderstorm, and my DSL connection keeps flickering on and off, so I hope I can get this posted without losing it in a power failure.

They have a very different approach to things in New York, from what I can see. The stadium platform design is very dramatic and theatrical, and they had priests processing in in a way that required the lines to cross. While in Washington, the focal point behind the altar was a large crucifix, the focus of the New York altar is a large banner bearing the papal coat of arms. New York also has a big papal coat of arms over the pitcher's mound. Both Masses are votive Masses of the Holy Spirit; Washington, though, vested the pope and concelebrants in red—the traditional liturgical color for Masses of the Holy Spirit—but New York has chosen to use white, perhaps thinking that it's still the Easter season. New York also put the Holy Father in a striking (but I hate it) contemporary mitre with stylized crosses all over it that I think are supposed to be evocative of flame. Also, in Washington, the music was led by someone appointed by the archbishop (who happened to be the person who directed the music at the archbishop's enthronement as bishop of Pittsburgh) who lived out in the Maryland suburbs and who assembled an archdiocesan-wide choir of about 500; in New York, the cathedral's music director has done all the music planning and it appears (from what I hear from Catholic musician friends in New York) they are using the cathedral choirs and supplementing by specific invitation to get up to about 200. NY is getting a much more professional sound from their choir, though. I wish my television were clearer, because I can't quite figure out what the cantors are wearing as vestments. At first, I thought the guy was wearing a purple Nike warm-up suit with flowing sleeves! New York's music seems to be more orchestral; in Washington, the instruments were more of an accompaniment to the organ.

The preliminaries were interesting. I saw one priest talking on a cell phone as he processed in. They also made use of the vast green space of the baseball field to use a bunch of liturgical dancers, something I didn't see in Washington (and for which I am thankful). Couldn't hear the music over the announcers. They had a lot of pop star singers slated to perform/entertain, but the only one I got a glimpse of was Harry Connick, Jr., playing a grand piano over home base.

Once the Mass itself started (it was a little late, in contrast to Washington's two minutes early), they opened with the very same hymn tune used in Washington, Lasst uns er freuen (a/k/a Vigiles et Sancti, a/k/a "Ye watchers and ye holy ones," but with different words. ) The arrangement was different, and, what with the television miking and all, I can't tell if the congregation is invited to sing along or not. It sounded almost like it was a male soloist with the choir singing backup, and it vaguely reminded me of a contemporary English arrangement of the hymn by the well-known English atheist John Rutter. Once the hymn finished, the choir sang a Renaissance polyphonic anthem that sounded like one of the Tu es Petrus (You are Peter) settings.

So far, for the Mass setting, I didn't recognize the Kyrie (it was mildly contemporary), but the Gloria is from de la Victoria's Missa O Magnum Mysterium. The Psalm is something contemporary with a rather saccharine sound that reminds me a bit (but it isn't him) of Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber's earlier works (Evita is popping into mind). They are also mixing English and Spanish both with the verses and in the antiphon. The Gospel Alleluia appears to be a glitzy arrangement of the hymn tune Victory. The deacon is doing a good job chanting the Gospel; it was just read in D.C.

The homily appears to be interestingly supportive of immigrants and the Holy Father is praising the contributions of immigrants to American society and the American Church. There was a bit of the usual spiel about protecting unborn children. Otherwise, nothing surprising or controversial. The homily is over now; the stadium has erupted into baseball park-like cheers for the pope. LOL

They're calming down now, as they've moved into a chanting of the Nicene Creed in Latin. The intercessions are all being read in different languages. The response is being sung to a mixed language antiphon I've heard before (but I can't recall the name/composer).

How lovely! The choir is singing the offertory: "How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place" from Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem, in English. It's nice to have a proper offertory anthem for a change. Choir sounds good. I want to choke me some announcers who won't shut up during the music. The organist is improvising on the "How Lovely" theme as the pope finishes up censing the altar.

The Mass setting for the Sanctus, Benedictus, Memorial Acclamation, Great Amen, and Agnus Dei is from Schubert's Deutsche-Messe. I can hear harmonies being sung by the choir. My home parish back in Oklahoma used to sing this setting (at least for the Sanctus) all the time, but I never really liked it, thinking it was too simplistic and childlike. The television feed musical miking is a lot better in New York than it was in Washington, picking up good choral sound and full, rich organ sound; in Washington, I didn't hear much more than the melody lines and a thin electroniccy organ.

It's communion time. This is a long Mass. Washington was over in an hour and a half; it's already been two hours since they started at 2:30 and they've just started communion for 60,000 people. I wonder if they'll have the cute little yellow umbrellas to mark the communion stations like they used in D.C.? I think the Holy Father is getting tired after his big American Tour. I heard him say a lot of "ze" instead of "the," "undt" instead of "and," and his voice seemed to waiver a bit here and there. Communion music (that I can hear over the chattering announcers) includes Palestrina's Sicut Cervus and that 20th century hymn "This Is the Feast of Victory for Our God" but I can't remember the composer....Dirksen? Hillert? I think it was a National Cathedral (Episcopal) organist-choirmaster....called Festival Song or Festival Canticle or something like that. There was some Renaissance polyphonic stuff, but I couldn't hear enough to recognize it. Hmm. Marcello Giordani from the Metropolitan Opera is singing something, but I can't hear over the announcers chatting to hear what it is. Oh, there it is....it's "Panis Angelicus," like Domingo sang Thursday. I wonder if Giordani will get to kiss the Holy Father's ring? Ick, they moved a mike right over a second violin and it's picking up and sticking out. Nope, Giordani didn't get to kiss the ring. Idiots in the congregation keep trying to start up more baseball park chants for the pope. Now they're playing an odd, heavy orchestral, version of the spiritual "Let Us Break Together on Our Knees." Eeeuw, now they're singing it, and it's a really obnoxious arrangement with the cantor singing and the choir singing backup. I like the cantor's baritone voice.....and you very seldom hear me (a baritone cantor) say that about another male cantor. LOL

It's over....sounds like the closing hymn is an arrangement of the Beethoven Hymn to Joy with "Joyful, joyful we adore thee" words. Hard to hear over the ballpark cheers and the announcers "recapping" the Mass. I don't think the congregation is singing, they are just cheering. LOL....the priests in the congregation are like a bunch of teenaged girls at a rock concert falling all over themselves to touch the pope and maybe even kiss his ring as the Holy Father processes out.

You know, I think we need to design some new liturgical vestments for the Secret Service to wear when they are walking around a pontiff.

Alright, it's 4:46 p.m., and Benedict has left the building. Over and out.

Post-script: As a postlude, the choir and orchestra are doing the entire final movement of the Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in D minor.

Papal Mass

Both photos by Bill O'Leary-The Washington Post.
Copyright © 2008 The Washington Post Company.

Over 46,000 people made their way early this morning to the new Nationals Stadium baseball park in Washington to hear Pope Benedict XVI say Mass, with several thousand other people outside, either as worshippers or protestors, and tens of thousands of people worldwide watching via television. All four of the local major network stations preempted their programming this morning to carry the Mass live.

Since I'm not anybody important, and since I didn't "win" a ticket in the parish lottery, I got to watch the Mass on television. That may not have been such a bad thing, since people were told to be at the stadium in time to be in their seats and seated by 8:30 a.m. for the 10:30 a.m. Mass. They had to show up even earlier, too, because everyone had to go through security screening. Also, it was a lovely, bright, warm, sunny day....and, it got hot sitting there in the sun, with many people having heat-related illness issues.

It was a beautiful service, though, and I have to say that I was very, very impressed with the work done by the planners. Several years ago, I was on the committee that planned and executed the consecration of a new diocesan bishop (I was in charge of all ushers, procession marshals [we had a dozen simultaneous processions], and acolytes), and I think we probably only had 6,000 or so people, not the 46,000 they had today, so I'm fully aware of how much work this is. Everything seemed to go off without a hitch today, and they managed to start two minutes early and end three minutes early. On top of that, they gave everyone communion in less that twenty minutes! (Of course, they only gave out hosts [bread] to the people, as the Catholic Church routinely gips the common people out of their swig of wine, and today was no exception.)

I thought the music ended up being much better than I had anticipated. It was hard to hear things in their proper context on the television, but I think it was probably pretty good in the stadium. They had a choir of 250, plus several "specialty" choirs, bringing the vocal musician count up to nearly 500. They had a good sized electronic organ, plus a 25-30 member orchestra with lots of brass, and some of the specialty choirs had special instrumentalists with them, especially for the "ethnic" choirs. I recognized the voice of the music director at the cathedral as the cantoress. There were a couple of male cantors I didn't know, and the main one did not seem to have as trained a voice as I would have liked to have heard at a papal Mass, but it was still acceptable. Some of the featured soloists in the choirs had very nice voices for their brief moments of song. Because of the television miking, the organ sounded thin and electronic and it was difficult to get a sense of harmonies (if any) being sung by the choir. That's the one main reason I wish I'd been able to have been there in the stadium, since I can't adequately judge things remotely.

Some of the major music was surprisingly acceptable this morning. They didn't get too weird or too contemporary. I haven't been able to get a service booklet yet, so I'm having to guess from memory the music. The opening hymn was Lasst uns er freuen (a/k/a Vigiles et Sancti) with one of the Catholic alternative word sets (instead of "Ye watchers and ye holy ones"). The closing hymn was Hyfrydol ("Love divine, all loves excelling"), with the "Alleluia! Sing to Jesus" words (I think). The Gloria sounded like it came from the Peloquin Mass of the Bells. The Sanctus, Benedictus, Memorial Acclamation, and Great Amen all came from Haugen's Mass of Creation—and this inclusion created a little outside controversy; more on that later. Didn't know the Kyrie or Agnus Dei....they sounded newish. The psalm setting, though, was an awful "modern" thing with weird tonalities (but that's usually required in "modern" music). Someone told me they thought the psalm was a Peloquin setting. So, for the most part, the music was selected for it's comfort and familiarity level for most of the worshippers.

I think the music planners missed an opportunity to do a fabulous anthem during the offertory. It sounded like they had the choir singing a hymn arrangement then. Because of the television miking, I could never tell when, if at all, the congregation was singing. The local stations all had minor news anchors covering the Mass, each with their own local priest "expert," so naturally they had to talk during all the music, especially the offertory and communion, so I'm sure I missed a lot.

Now, about the Haugen thing. When a list of papal Mass music got leaked to the blogosphere, a lot of the traditionalists (the boring people who think only Gregorian chant and Palestrina should be sung at Masses) were chagrinned by the planned use of Marty Haugen's Mass setting. Well, Haugen's Mass of Creation and Richard Proulx's A Community Mass are by far the two most commonly used and sung Mass settings in modern American Catholic worship. Whether or not they like it, most Catholics know the music to these settings. Now, I'm not at all fond of Haugen's hymns, but this particular Mass setting isn't offensive. In fact, dressed up with choral harmonies and a bunch of brass this morning, it sounded appropriate and pretty good. So, I thought it a bit unfair for the major Catholic bloggers to be making statements like "Marty Haugen is responsible for ruining Catholic music and worship in America." Well, you know, Haugen isn't even Catholic—he's a Lutheran—and he's not the one responsible for ruining Catholic music and worship. I can't even assess that blame on the St. Louis Jesuits (although they come close!) or even the originally-Presbyterian-now-nondenominational Taizé community (source of those inane, repetitious, mantra-chants). The problem is with the bishops and priests who were so quick to throw out millennia of beautiful liturgical music in favor of hippie folk tunes that belonged on a Catholic contemporary music radio station, not as a part of the divine liturgy. There's a whole generation of Catholics who grew up with crap music, but, fortunately, I see a great interest—coming from young people—in restoring more traditional music and hymns in services. In fact, I often hear the younger people refer to contemporary Catholic music as "old stuff" and "lame" music that geriatric priests try to throw at the youth to be "relevant" and "modern" in worship, and they hate it as much as I always have.

During the two hour long prelude and during communion, they did a wide, wide variety of music, singing in all kinds of languages and performing in all kinds of styles. Not all of that music was to my taste. But, I think the musical planners were trying to make the effort to include all the different fringes of Catholic worship and music that regularly occur in this archdiocese, and I think they pulled it off fairly well.

The last song during communion was "Panis Angelicus" sung by Washington National Opera general director Plácido Domingo. I thought he did a serviceable job (perhaps I'm just over exposed to the maestro, but I wasn't wowwed by his performance). He got lots of applause afterwards (I hate it when people applaud during church), and then he went to the pope and kissed his ring. None of the other soloists got to kiss the pope's ring.

Speaking of applause, the pope got a lot after his homily. I've found it interesting how many "unpleasant" issues this pope has been addressing and confronting head-on during this week's appearances. The news has been covering how he's mentioned the priestly pedophilia scandal multiple times, and he spoke of it during his homily. He also spent a portion of his talk expressing his regret for the treatment and exploitation of Native Americans and African slaves in the early history of the country. That surprised me.

Incidentally, the homily and Mass were all said by the pope in English. He seems to speak English quite well, though you can detect his German accent.

The pope got lots of applause and cheers all morning. He was cheered after the local pointy-hat's welcome and introduction of the Holy Father at the beginning of Mass, and the crowd went crazy when, an hour before Mass started, he made a circuit of the stadium in his Popemobile. As he left the Mass at the end, everyone seemed to want to touch him. And, it wasn't just the laity that was wild, it looked like a lot of the priests in procession had cameras and were just as star-struck!

So, it was a very interesting morning. The big screens at the new ballpark got an interesting workout. And, I still snicker at the irony that, just a couple of years ago, the spot where the pope was standing during the Mass was occupied by a gay bathhouse. Meanwhile, I'm anxious to see this weekend if the New Yorkers at Yankee Stadium do as interesting a Mass as was done in Washington.

Papal visit

Washington is decorated with the flags of the Vatican this week in honor of the official visit of Pope Benedict XVI, who was formally received at the White House yesterday, and today (as I write this) is celebrating Mass at the baseball stadium. Here are a few views of the flags.

Oh, for those of you not local, the red and white barred with red stars flag is the "state" flag of the District of Columbia.

He's here

Photo by Doug Mills/The New York Times.
Copyright © 2008 The New York Times Company.