A Choir Director's Lament on Lyrics for Liturgy

Another great article in this month's Adoremus Bulletin by Lucy Carroll:

Is there a real choir in your parish? If there is a choir, it is more probably a song group accompanied by guitar, perhaps with drums and bass guitar. The traditional choir, a mainstay of Catholic liturgy -- with a repertoire of great beauty -- has all but vanished in the parishes.

Where once Catholic choirs sang the great masterworks of Palestrina, Nanino, Victoria, Mozart, etc., now song groups gabble the pop-style pablum churned out by the powerful music publishing industry...

Today, however, choirs have virtually disappeared in most parishes. Usually soloists perform up front, with keyboard “backup”. (Why be lost in a group when one can sing solo?)