"Guitar-totin' Nuns and Hand-clappin' Love Songs": How the Implementation of the Vernacular Transformed American Catholic Church Music

Abstract

Abstract:Between 1964 and 1969, permission to use the vernacular in worship fundamentally transformed U.S. Catholic church music. Following the vernacular's implementation in November 1964, Catholic music's inseparable connection to Latin chant disappeared, enabling completely new genres of music and instruments to be played during Mass and inspiring significant creativity and experimentation among young Catholic composers. But, the faithful polarized over how music should be affected by the Second Vatican Council's call to aggiornamento, divided as to whether church music should reflect a progressive post-conciliar Catholicism or function to preserve tradition. Ultimately, existing preferences among most American Catholic faithful for the use of the vernacular and hymns, relatively little experience by congregations with the sung High Mass or Latin, and American publishers' choices to promote vernacular and popular music resulted in the widespread adoption of folk-inspired hymnody—nothing less than a seismic shift in the repertoire of American Catholic church music.