The Recovering Choir Director

This article that recently appeared in The Pittsburgh Catholic, a diocesan newspaper, covers a recently concluded conference on sacred music which was held at Franciscan University in Steubenville.

The young people at the conference persisted in asking [Dr. James] Yeager[, professor of sacred music at the Pontifical College Josephinum] what could be done to address the deficiencies they perceive in church music today and to make Catholics aware of the spiritual advantages of chant and polyphony.

“The seminary, naturally, is the place to begin,” he says.

At the Josephinum, Yeager has been in a position to make excellent music “the sine qua non of the seminarian’s life.” After ordination, they report back to Yeager that the powerful liturgical experience they encounter in the seminary continues to sustain them and becomes a model to emulate throughout their ministry. Seminaries like the Josephinum are reversing a trend by implementing the “true progressive solemnity of Vatican II.”