(Modern) Roman Catholic Music: Now Sucks Two-Thirds Less

For those who have read my previous post, Why (Modern) Roman Catholic Music Sucks So Much, I am happy to inform you that two of the three causes for its sucking so much have now been removed.

To summarize that post, I said that the three reasons were (1) That ICEL had had a policy of prohibiting people from posting its translations online; (2) That ICEL had had a policy of preventing people from using ICEL texts without paying royalties; and (3) That ICEL's contractual and royalty requirements were so onerous as to prevent any composer from thinking seriously about using those texts for any music which he or she should wish to publish for pay.

It appears that the first two reasons have been recently eliminated by ICEL. The New Liturgical Movement has recently reported that ICEL has graciously decided to change its internet policy to permit web sites to have copies of ICEL texts online. It has further decided to allow people to publish musical settings of ICEL texts without restrictions, as long as they do not charge for those texts. I believe that the members of ICEL are to be commended for these forward-thinking policies.

Now, if only ICEL would make provision to reduce its royalty requirements from ten to eleven percent to five percent or less for those wishing to make for-purchase musical compositions, and would eliminate the expropriative restrictions from its sample contract for such composers, Modern Roman Catholic Music would be likely not to suck at all.

And, to put a plug in for three Roman Catholic Musical and Liturgical websites which definitely DO NOT suck, may I recommend MusicaSacra, The New Liturgical Movement, and Confessions of a Recovering Choir Director. Between the three of them, they give materials whereby RC choir directors, singers and priests can provide RC churches with decent (as in "fitting") music for liturgy. They give me hope that someday, modern Roman Catholic music may not suck at all.