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Society for a Moratorium on the Music of
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Society for a Moratorium on the Music of
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Unsolicited email from Tom Kaczmarek (June 6, 2006):
Nuts to you and your phony Philistine family of malcontents, snobs and smarmy wannabes! Not a true human in the bunch of ya! Even if there’s an element of truth to what you’re saying, So What? There’s always been crap and always will be. Some Palestrina is crap as well…who gives a shaved rat’s as_ what any of you think? There is so much misinformation and garbage on your website it oughta be condemned. Seek the truth. Always. And in every situation. Where does this mean-spirited army of attackers get their “authority”? What year do you all propose that all musical contributions be capped? 1545? After Trent? Who goes around the house singing Palestrina? Maybe you all are proof that what they are doing works. You hate the fact you remember the words and tunes. Better the great unwashed rabble should sit and watch a bunch of tired, fat, paunchy, raunchy pseudo-intellectual musicologists perform the musical history equivalent of masturbation under the guise of “transcendence” and other-worldly holiness that no one has yet been able to define…God is in the Polyphony? God is in the sound that reverberates around the stone walls of a Gothic Cathedral? That’s what God is? You’ve caught God in a bottle and know how to create him, you can make him present at your will? Is God a snob? Did Jesus eat dinner with the likes of you snobs? You’d all step over around and on 10 lepers before you’d give one of them a drink of water. Oh, and then you’d lecture the poor fellow on what constitutes good liturgy and good liturgical music. Nuts! Nuts to all of you fatuous fakes and Ecclesial Eggheads. The Spirit moves where it will…
Unsolicited email from Br. Brendan Brennan, FMS, Marist High School (July 8, 2006):
I came across your website by an unhappy accident. It goes to show what trash can be found on the web. It is obvious that you and your mislead [sic] band of followers know little or nothing about what the documents of the Second Vatican Council had to say about what worship in the Catholic Church should be. They made the point very strongly that it should be a moment when all who are present are encourage [sic] to participate as fully as they are able. That includes singing in the spirit of the liturgy. Liturgy is not a "spectator sport" as it most certainly was when Gregorian Chant and the likes of Palastrina [sic] ruled the day in the church I grew up in. You can condemn and mock the work of others like Hagen and Haas and the St. Louis Jesuits, and Weston Priory and all those who in their response to the movements of the Holy Spirit have spent their time and talent to bring into being a music file that encourges [sic] the participation of all in the enhancement of liturgical celebration in a way the music you advocate never could. Three cheers for them. The back of my hand to you and your crew who criticize and do nothing to make things better. My prayer is that you and your sheep will find your way home.
Unsolicited email from David Stevens, Music Ministry/Youth Dir., Holy Family Catholic Church, San Diego, California (November 28, 2007):
It is people like you who make me so sad and sometimes so angry. I came across your website and was sickened by what I saw. You and your group are so content on holding on to your idea of what good music is that you have lost sight on the real importance of liturgical music. Full active and conscious participation. That is what the liturgy is about. If contemporary music is the vehicle that is used to get people there, then I say Amen to that. I have seen the Spirit moving in these contemporary composers and I have seen first hand what contemporary music has done. The Spirit works in anyone at any time. Not just in some composer from the 15th century. Look up artist [sic] like Matt Maher, Tom Booth, Steve Angrasiano. See what the Spirit has done in them. Go to a youth rally where 10,000 kids are praising God, truly worshiping God. There not doing it with Gregorian Chant. go to a life teen mass where hundreds of kids are there for the Eucharist. People like you disgust me. You think you are so right about everything. But you know what. God is so much bigger than me and you. And at the end of the day if it takes contemporary music to draw people in, then so be it. You need to wake up. Your website is a joke, you are a joke, all the people who agree with you need to stop filling there [sic] hearts with the crap you feed and starting filling it with God. I will pray for you and for all your group. May God's grace be with you. Because it certainly is not now.