The Recovering Choir Director

Ack! Articles like this make me so angry! (Not angry at the guy who wrote the article, angry at the fools who make us suffer through Haugen and Haas songs!) I lucked out to a point and grew up in a parish where you hear the occasional “On Eagle’s Wings” or “Here I Am Lord”, but no Haugen or Haas in my parish (we did have them at my grade school though). We did a lot of traditional songs at home (like Virgin Full of Grace, On Jordan’s Bank… most of the song’s on Mike R’s list), but we don’t have Gregorian chant or polyphony (but we also don’t have a choir). I can’t imagine growing up and never having sung “Holy God We Praise Thy Name”! I’m going to stop venting now

The Haas/Cotter split was an acrimonious affair. I was in a diocese which invited them to give workshops around the time they were going their separate ways. Haas was an arrogant SOB about it, demanding of those who invited him that he needed a separate room, and this, and that, and the other thing. He could have just simply called up and said, “You know, I’m in a difficult situation here, can you help me out?” Nope.