26 October 2009

Theme Song Selected For Papal Visit

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5 comments:

Londiniensis said...

All well and good, but why are they singing this great hymn to that awful tune?

There doesn't seem to be another version on YouTube, but I scanned an old hymnal and put it on my Twitpic site here.

26 October 2009 at 16:22
Anagnostis said...

Not my place to comment on the merits or otherwise of C19 ultramontanist kitsch.

I suspect Benedict would prefer something more liturgical.

26 October 2009 at 18:23
Londiniensis said...

Moretben, Good to see signs of life. The Undercroft has been deserted of late ......

27 October 2009 at 10:51
Ttony said...

Yes, 19th century kitsch, but meant for the laity in procession to the venue, not for greeting the man himself. The thought was inspired by two traces of the sort of popular religion common in Europe but rarer here. First, the news that a camp of Irish gypsies was set up at Aylesford to enable them to venerate the relics of St Therese on their way to the Stow horse fair. Second, news from a friend's parish in which the matriarch of a clan of nominal (for about four generations) Catholics, hearing that the Bishop will be doing confirmations next year, enrolled all of her teenage grandchildren, much against their will. The trendy PP persuaded the teens at the first meeting that they didn't want to be there. The resolutely untrendy Grandmother came up with a "compromise": the kids and the PP would do as they were told.

I started to imagine the effect on the Suppositoristas of lines of people converging on Wembley, or wherever, reciting the Rosary, and singing 19th Century Marian hymns and absurdly triumphalistic ultramontane ditties, like the one illustrated, holding rosaries and medals up to be blessed as the Holy Father passed, strewing the roads with petals - manifestations of real Catholicsm that would cause greater pain and grief to that sort of Catholic than to any sort of Protestant. Fantasy, but of a pleasant sort.

The real theme song could be either "Faith of our Fathers" of "Soul of My Saviour": I don't mind which. I don't intend to hold my breath, either.

27 October 2009 at 13:44
Dorothy B said...

As long as it isn't "Our God Reigns".

29 October 2009 at 08:57

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