The Recovering Choir Director

Mexico City III and Vatican II gives an overview of the meteoric rise and golden age of plainchant and sacred polyphony in 16th-century Catholic Mexico.

In 1568, the inspector of the Council of the Indies, the board that governed the colonial empire of Spain, reported that even the merest hamlet with a resident clergyman had two choirs of fifteen members each which in alternate weeks sang Mass and vespers daily. Churches in larger centers had quite magnificent musical establishments. When the Cathedral of Puebla was consecrated in 1649, there was a fortnight of sacred music to mark the event. It was attended by some 1200 clergy from as far away as Manila. The music rivaled, as it was intended to do, the brilliant music composed by Orazio Benevoli for the consecration of the Salzburg cathedral in 1628. (emphasis A.A.E.)

The above history speaks of one type of inculturation, the recent visit of the Holy Father to Mexico speaks of another.

Could it be possible that the 16th-century Aztec converts, under their own free will, abandoned their pagan rituals to embrace the sacred arts of the Faith? If so, why does the Church of today, as evidenced in the canonization ceremony of Juan Diego, embrace elements of a culture whose ancestors willfully repudiated? Please, someone enlighten me.

As Alice once upon a time said, “Curiouser and curiouser….”