That the Catholic Publication Society, now successfully founded, needs the influence of a congress to extend its operations to the different cities and towns of the Union, is plain to be seen. There are hundreds of zealous persons of every condition of life who are waiting to be told what to do to advance its interests, who want to see some system of local organization proposed and sanctioned by some proper authority. Its friends wish to meet together, to know each other, and after due deliberation to frame fitting resolutions for action, which upon their return to their respective homes they may carry into effect.
This important project cannot be fully realized, and be fruitful, under God, in instructing and edifying thousands of souls unto salvation, unless a public and general interest be excited in its success, and with the active co-operation of the great charitable associations and pious confraternities now established amongst us.
There is also a pressing necessity for us to obtain fuller information, and come to a decision about the subject of church architecture, and all that relates to the exterior of divine worship. We are building cathedrals and churches in every style, and on principles which are as various as there are fancies and theories in the brains of architects. Immense sums of money are needed and collected for this purpose, and it is of the greatest moment that they be wisely expended.
The time has come when every church we erect should be an honor to us for its architectural beauty, its substantial character, and adaptability to our needs, and when the generous alms of the faithful should no longer be thrown away upon unsightly, badly planned, and worse built edifices, of which so many exist in our country, to the great discomfort of both priest and people, and monuments (happily not lasting ones) of the want of knowledge and experience of those who constructed them.
It becomes us, therefore, to encourage our Catholic architects who understand the meaning and use of a church. We cannot look for Protestants to care much for the requirements of the ritual in their designs, or to appreciate the necessity of insisting upon what the church insists. Their chief aim is to please their patrons, and carry out whatever is proposed to them. Few of our Protestant architects know any more about the proper interior disposition of a Catholic church than they do of a Moslem mosque.
See, again, how much we suffer from the wretched altar furniture and sacerdotal vestments imported for our use, and which our clergy are obliged to take and make a display in their sanctuaries of things belonging in style to every age of the church. How often have we not seen a priest clothed in Roman vestments celebrating mass at a Gothic altar furnished with Byzantine crucifix and candlesticks, and a miscellaneous job lot of tawdry French artificial flowers, while the sacred precinct of the sanctuary would be furnished with carpet and chairs that smack of the drawing-room or the kitchen?
These evils existed and do exist in other countries besides our own, and we see that the congresses of Belgium have done a great deal to correct them by calling Catholic architects together in council, and offering prizes for designs of perfect churches built and furnished according to the Ritual, the Ceremoniale Episcoporum, the Missal, and the decrees of the Congregation of Rites.
The music of our churches, what shall we say of it? Are our city churches to be turned into fashionable concert-rooms where hired Protestant, Jewish, and infidel artists are to sing their morceaux de l'opera for our edification? Are our country churches never to witness a high mass celebrated in them, and the people in those localities never to be convened for the Vesper service or comforted with the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament because there is no one to teach the children at least to sing a Tantum Ergo? Are our organists always to be irresponsible musicians, guided by no rubrics, ignorant of fast days and festivals, outraging every sense of propriety, and banishing all sentiment of piety and devotion by their ad libitum roulades and fantasias of the most degraded taste? If we must pay others to sing the praises of God for us, why not also engage others to do our praying likewise? Cannot we have, as other countries have, voluntary choirs? Why cannot all the people sing at proper times and seasons, and join in that part of worship which from its very nature is the best calculated to awaken the deepest emotions of the soul!
The question of the feasibility of voluntary choirs or of congregational singing is no longer wholly a doubtful one. We know of several churches in the country that have always had voluntary choirs, and we were present during the past Lent at the services of one of our city churches where the whole congregation joined with full voices in a popular Lenten service, and in the solemn recitation of the Way of the Cross, for which they were prepared at a single public rehearsal in the church.
The subject of church music, as we have already said, was one to which the Belgium congresses paid a great deal of attention. The March number of the Revue Generale of Brussels gives a most interesting report, by Canon Devroye, of the proceedings of the jury to whom were referred the adjudication of the prizes offered for an original popular mass, composed, as says the worthy canon, "according to the rules laid down by the church, and enforced by our general assembly;" and he observes in another place that they must "redouble their efforts to procure universal observation of the rules adopted by the congress, and which are also the rules of the church and of common sense." Let us hasten to imitate this example of zeal for the glory of God's house and for the decency and dignity of divine worship. If we have not many original composers, we have, at any rate, several good judges among our organists and directors of choirs. Their united opinion would have a powerful influence in bringing about, what we do not fear to say is greatly needed, a thorough reformation in our church music.