The Recovering Choir Director

On the New Liturgical Movement, Jeffrey Tucker focuses on “Sing to the Lord’s” citation of Sacrosanctum Concilium ¶116; specifically, its use of ceteris paribus — “other things being equal” — in describing Gregorian chant’s pride of place in the Sacred Liturgy. An excerpt (my emphasis in boldface):

We add “other things being equal” as a means of making possible a mental experiment. We hold all things still while we change one factor in order to illustrate an effect. If other things were changed, such as taste and a change in demand, the observed effects would be different. But the important factor here is that the principle would STILL apply. Indeed, the reason for the experiment is to underscore the fixed principle.

So it is with chant in liturgy. There might not be any singers who can sing chant. The acoustics might not cooperate. There might be other factors. Whatever they might be, the existence of these changing conditions that somehow make chant unviable under some conditions do not in any way diminish the truth that chant still retains pride of place. In other words, Ceteris Paribus strengthens rather than weakens the place of chant in liturgy.

As they say, read the whole thing as well as the NLM’s discussion thread. This passage is also being discussed on the MusicaSacra forum.

In 2002 I focused on this passage and how it defines Gregorian chant’s relationship to other styles of sacred music and came to a similar conclusion, while identifying the loophole that defines the vast majority of parish music programs.