In robota Christi? Why robots can never be Catholic priests 

CNA Staff, Mar 11, 2021 / 08:31 pm (CNA).- The American Civil Liberties Union has received a major donation from a billionaire heir whose LGBT activism includes both funding for efforts to limit religious freedom and funding for Christian groups – incl… […]

San Francisco, Calif., Jul 27, 2018 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- An initiative in the Archdiocese of San Francisco to form the Catholic imagination through beauty will next month host a workshop on how to teach “chant camps,” in which children and teens are educated in Gregorian chant.

The Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship, founded by Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone in 2014, is holding a Teaching Children’s Chant Camp Workshop in Menlo Park, about 30 miles south of San Francisco, Aug. 9-12.

The institute means to promote the vision of the Second Vatican Council, whose constitution on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, said that Gregorian chant is “specially suited to the Roman liturgy” and that “therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.”

Maggie Gallagher, executive director of the Benedict XVI Institute, told CNA that children are particularly receptive to Gregorian chant.

“Kids, teens, and tweens take to chant like a duck to water. For two reasons: First, music is a language and like all languages it is best learned young,” she said.

“Secondly, kids are fascinated by doing ‘grown-up’ music. People keep offering 8 and 9 year olds ‘children’s’ hymns at the exact moment tween are looking to put aside the babyish and assume older identities.”

Gallagher’s words echoed those of Pius XI, who wrote in his 1928 bull Divini cultus that in “their earliest years” young people “are able more easily to learn to sing, and to modify, if not entirely to overcome, any defects in their voices.”

This is the first summer the Benedict XVI Institute has held chant camps for children. The camps’ director, Mary Ann Carr-Wilson, however, “has taught children’s chant camps for the past ten years, helping to pioneer the form,” Gallagher said.

Carr-Wilson directs choirs at St. Anne Catholic Church in San Diego, has been a soloist with the San Diego Chamber Orchestra and other groups, and holds an M.M. from San Diego State University.

“Learning from Mary Ann is learning from the best. We’re very grateful she’s decided to join the Benedict XVI team,” Gallagher stated.

Rather than teaching solely performance, the camps impart a sense of the meaning of the Mass, and what is participation in the liturgy.

She has said that during the week-long chant camps, children learn how to chant the Mass, in a way that engages them immediately. Older and more experienced singers mentor the younger and weaker ones, and children who thought they couldn’t sing find that they are able.

Most importantly, Gallagher has said, is that the children participants deepen their understanding of the Mass.

Gallagher reported to CNA the words of Fr. Corwin, the chaplain at a recent chant camp, that “These kids get more catechesis at chant camp than they do all year. They learn what the Mass is. They learn than chant is not performance, it’s prayer.”

Fr. Corwin added, “They are intrigued to find out they are singing the same prayers their favorite saints prayed through the ages. They are tasked with mastering the Tradition and then charged with handing it down. They love the responsibility. They love the Mystery. And they love the beauty they offer to glorify God and sanctify the Faithful.”

The Benedict XVI Institute’s promotion of Gregorian chant is in line with the Second Vatican Council, and with popes from St. Pius X to Pope Francis.

In his 1903 motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini promoting active participation in the liturgy, St. Pius X focused on the importance of chant, writing that “Gregorian Chant has always been regarded as the supreme model for sacred music.”

He directed that “special efforts are to be made to restore the use of the Gregorian Chant by the people, so that the faithful may again take a more active part in the ecclesiastical offices.”

Pius XI said, “so that the faithful may more actively participate in divine worship, let Gregorian chant be restored to popular use.”

Ven. Pius XII wrote in his 1947 encyclical Mediator Dei that Gregorian chant “makes the celebration of the sacred mysteries not only more dignified and solemn but helps very much to increase the faith and devotion of the congregation.”

In his 2007 apostolic exhortation Sacramentum caritatis, Benedict XVI wrote that “while respecting various styles and different and highly praiseworthy traditions, I desire, in accordance with the request advanced by the Synod Fathers, that Gregorian chant be suitably esteemed and employed as the chant proper to the Roman liturgy,” adding that “nor should we forget that the faithful can be taught to recite the more common prayers in Latin, and also to sing parts of the liturgy to Gregorian chant.”

The 1967 instruction on music in the liturgy, Musicam sacram, which was an implementation of Vatican II, stated that “the study and practice of Gregorian chant is to be promoted, because, with its special characteristics, it is a basis of great importance for the development of sacred music.”

And in an address marking the 50th anniversary of Musicam sacram, Pope Francis praised the instruction and its focus on active, conscious, and full participation in the liturgy.

In his March 4, 2017 address to participants in a sacred music conference, Francis lamented that “At times a certain mediocrity, superficiality and banality have prevailed, to the detriment of the beauty and intensity of liturgical celebrations.”

He urged that musicians and others “make a precious contribution to the renewal, especially in qualitative terms, of sacred music and of liturgical chant.”

Among the participants in the Benedict XVI Institute’s Aug. 9-12 workshop are the Missionaries of Charity, who Gallagher has said “told us they wanted our help to learn both to improve their own prayer life and so they can teach children how to participate in the Mass in this special way.”

Gallagher told CNA that “if you’d like to bring a chant camp or a chant camp workshop to your parish or school or youth choir, contact us Rose Marie Wong at wongr@sfarch.org.”

She added that one or two slots with scholarships for the Aug. 9-12 How to Teach Children Chant workshop are available.

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Washington D.C., Oct 6, 2017 / 09:46 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a set of memos issued Friday, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions outlined principles of religious freedom that federal agencies and departments are to incorporate into their work.

“Our freedom as citizens has always been inextricably linked with our religious freedom as a people,” Sessions said in an Oct. 6 statement. “Every American has a right to believe, worship, and exercise their faith. The protections for this right, enshrined in our Constitution and laws, serve to declare and protect this important part of our heritage.”

The memos were issued in response to an executive order signed by President Trump in May, declaring, “It shall be the policy of the executive branch to vigorously enforce Federal law’s robust protections for religious freedom” and instructing the attorney general to “issue guidance interpreting religious liberty protections in Federal law.”

Friday’s memos do not resolve specific cases currently in the court system. However, they were issued on the same day that the administration announced changes to the federal contraception mandate, allowing broad religious and moral exemptions to the regulation.

The first memo lists 20 principles of religious liberty that should govern all administrative agencies and executive departments in their work as employers, contract- and grant-makers, program administrators, rule-makers, and adjudicators.

These principles recognize religious freedom as “an important, fundamental right,” expressly protected by the Constitution and by federal law. This freedom extends to both individuals and organizations, and it is not surrendered when Americans engage in the marketplace or interact with the government.

Furthermore, the guidance says, religious freedom is more than the right to worship or believe privately. It includes “the right to perform or abstain from performing certain physical acts in accordance with one’s beliefs.”

The document notes the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which says that the federal government may not substantially burden the exercise of religious freedom, unless there is a compelling state interest in doing so, and it is carried out in the least-restrictive manner possible.

This law “does not permit the federal government to second-guess the reasonableness of a sincerely held religious belief,” the guidance says, and it places a demanding standard on government interference with religious belief or practice, including when the religious party is seeking “an exemption from a legal obligation…to confer benefits on third parties.”

The guidance also reiterates that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employers covered by the regulation from discriminating based on an individual’s religious belief, observance or practice, “unless the employer cannot reasonably accommodate such observance or practice without undue hardship.”

Furthermore, the memo clarifies, religious employers are entitled to limit employment to people whose beliefs and conduct adhere to their religious precepts.

“Generally, the federal government may not condition federal grants or contracts on the religious organization altering its religious character, beliefs, or activities,” the document says.

A second memo by the attorney general directs implementation of the guidance within the Department of Justice. It instructs the department to vigorously defend religious liberty protections in federal law.

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