The Recovering Choir Director

Evidently not. Here are two paragraphs from Jessica Duchen’s biography (Phaidon):

“Faure’s Requiem was first performed at the Madeleine for the funeral of a well-known architecht… After the ceremony, the priest summoned the choirmaster [Faure'] and demanded: ‘What was that mass for the dead you’ve just conducted?’ Faure’ explained that it was his own work. ‘Monsieur Faure’,’ sighed the priest, ‘we don’t need all these novelties: the Madeleine’s repertoire is quite rich enough.’

One can imagine the frustration that Faure’ must have felt, working alongside the questionable musical judgment of his employers. The Madeleine’s repertoire comprised a range of works both contemporary and of earlier eras, but its emphasis was on neither quality nor spirituality. Eager to please the fashionable clientele, the clergy’s musical preferences included the occasional Latinization of an extract from Gounod’s Faust, or the meditation from Massenet’s opera Thais. When Saint-Saens had performed his own arrangement of Liszt’s St. Francis of Assisi Preaching to the Birds, one of the clergymen had thought he was tuning the organ. The real church music of his peers did not impress Faure’ inordinately… [snip] Faure’s own austere preference was in fact for plainsong — in a later interview he declared that in his opinion the church should have no music but plainsong.”

What an extraordinary coincidence.