Archbp. Cordileone establishes “Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship”
For your Brick by Brick file, I was sent a link to an entry at Catholic San Francisco about a new liturgical institute established by Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone.
Archbishop explains goal of new liturgical institute
On the eve of the feast of the Epiphany, more than 200 sacred music lovers from around the archdiocese and beyond filled the parish hall of St. Sebastian Church in Greenbrae and practiced Gregorian chant with Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone in preparation for afternoon vespers.
The event, organized by St. Sebastian pastor Father Mark Taheny and a group of parish volunteers, served as the archbishop’s launch point for publicly introducing the new Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship at St. Patrick’s Seminary & University in Menlo Park and its director, Benedictine Father Samuel Weber.
Archbishop Cordileone explained to the assembly that he created the institute to “reclaim the sense of the sacred” in liturgical expression at the parish level and to offer a deeper sense of formation to lay ministers such as lectors, music directors, extraordinary ministers of holy Communion [may advice is elimination of most of them] and those who bring Communion to the sick. The institute’s program – still in development while it seeks funding – will offer liturgical education courses toward certification at St. Patrick’s, at parishes and online.
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Music is at the heart of the institute, the archbishop said as he introduced Father Weber, founder of the Institute for Sacred Music in St. Louis and a highly regarded scholar, composer and practitioner of chant in the English-speaking world.
“We want to reclaim sacred music which is so much at the heart of our celebration of the Mass,” said the archbishop who puts Gregorian chant at the first place of the Mass. [Just like the Second Vatican Council.] “It doesn’t replace other forms of music, but those forms must be in harmony with the sacred traditions of chant.”
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For more information about the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship, and to participate in an important survey that may help shape the program, visit www.benedictinstitute.org.
Fr. Z kudos to Archbp. Cordileone!
I also call back to your minds the musical institute set up by James MacMillan in England and the sacred art institute in Florence and, now, in New York City.
Benedict XVI’s liturgical vision, his “Marshall Plan”, is still best, most viable path to follow.
It is no less important and “valid” today than it was before March 2013.
No initiative of renewal of the Church or any dimension of the Church’s life will get any traction without a renewal of our sacred liturgy. For this renewal to take place, we had better continue in the direction Papa Ratzinger set out for us.
