You can count on one hand the number of Novus Ordo churches in this country that feature a fully Catholic music program of any quality, consistent with the Roman rite tradition.

Then suddenly the Roman liturgy disappeared as we knew it.

Record stores have whole sections devoted to the chant.

Inaudible prayers, particularly of the Canon, which at first don't seem to have anything to do with music, end up being a very important part of the aesthetic of the traditional structure of the Mass.

But nowadays hymns are the norm, because people don't have much else to sing.

All you hear Catholics turning out these days are pop versions of the old Protestant anthems.

It would be difficult to discover the truth about the universe if we refused to consider anything that might be true.

You can count on one hand the number of Novus Ordo churches in this country that feature a fully Catholic music program of any quality, consistent with the Roman rite tradition.

When the truth is that there would be no great Western music, and certainly no decent choral repertoire, without the Catholic faith.

Music had always been the handmaid of the Roman liturgy.

As for sacred polyphony, there is no reason to be afraid of it.

Catholic liturgical music, it would seem, is everywhere but in the Catholic Church itself.

Once the Mass is restored to its rightful place, we will again see choirs being developed.

The tunes, rhythms, and messages are drawn mainly from secular culture.

The democratic and pedestrian character of the new Mass itself seems to invite the ditties that pass for hymns these days.

At St. Francis de Sales in Atlanta, we do not have an organ. We do not have rehearsals during the week. We do not have a professional choir.

And this speaks to the larger problem that no one wants to talk about: the restoration of the Roman rite is a precondition for a long-term fix for the problem.

The pastor of a parish will typically have no education in the chant or in music, and he will hire the first music director who walks through the door.

You can read about it all you want, but there is no substitute for just doing it.

There's nothing stupider than bursting into song for seven seconds and then falling silent again.

For two thousand years, the Church has guided the development of music, carefully legislating to fuse artistic talent and aesthetic beauty with the demands of the Faith.

Participation is easily obtained with Latin chant.

Ironically, we live in times that are awash in authentic sacred music.

It bothers me when I hear it in a car commercial or some such. But for the most part, it's better than seeing sacred music relegated to the scrap heap.

Even Catholic parishes today are not wanting for talent. But no serious singer or organist will get anywhere near the typical music program, at least if he wants to retain his self-respect.

Thus the slogan should be reversed: Catholics taught the world what music is supposed to sound like, and, more importantly, what it is supposed to mean.

Never have so many recordings of the great Masses and motets been in wider circulation.

Yet through history gays have always dominated religious life and churches.

The more I do bookstores, the more people come up to me from church groups. I spoke at Pittsburg State College and had 2 or 3 ministers and book groups from a couple of churches.

Some hypocrites and seeming mortified men, that held down their heads, were like the little images that they place in the very bowing of the vaults of churches, that look as if they held up the church, but are but puppets.

I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its Churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

All churches and all religions contain aspects of the truth, but only God is truth.

You can count on one hand the number of Novus Ordo churches in this country that feature a fully Catholic music program of any quality, consistent with the Roman rite tradition.

The result has been that although few conservative Presbyterian churches actually worship in the Puritan way, the Puritan theology of worship remains the standard orthodoxy among them. This discrepancy sometimes leads to guilty consciences.

Praying privately in churches, I began to discover that heaven was my true home and also that it was here and now, woven into this life.

If real churches exist, such persons are not called on to make them.

Marriage is the mother of the world. It preserves kingdoms, and fills cities and churches, and heaven itself.

They cannot make it say what they want it to say. And this is the beginning and the end of the case for retaining the old language: If the churches give it up, who will remember how to say what is said?

And they turned around and leased it to The Assembly Of God Churches - their headquarters are in Springfield, Missouri. They leased it to them for the first year. Then, after the first year, they will donate it to the church.

The fault seems to me to have been that men have taken ancient country churches as their models and have failed to discover that between them and churches in towns there ought to be a most distinct and marked difference.

But I have been in some very beautiful churches, then I've looked outside and seen people starving to death.

As of essential importance in town churches which are not at all equally necessary in the country.

You get more churches burned down in the United States in the last two years than in the last hundred, because of the lack of understanding of culture and diversity and the beauty of it.

Why did men worship in churches, locking themselves away in the dark, when the world lay beyond its doors in all its real glory?

I support mosques, obviously. We need churches, temples, mosques. Whatever people use to speak with their god or to receive spiritual inspiration is good for the country. But the symbolism of it at ground zero, within two blocks or three blocks, I believe is wrong.

One may as well dam for water tanks the people's cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.

Every one who has a heart, however ignorant of architecture he may be, feels the transcendent beauty and poetry of the mediaeval churches.

Those churches have closed down or have been merged with a church that has a more positive vision.

While attendance at traditional churches has been declining for decades... the evangelical movement is growing, and it is changing the way America worships.