Rocking the Church

When Pope Benedict receives the gift of an iPod containing modern interpretations of hymns by British artists Boyce & Stanley, one may well hope that he should pop in the little earphones and listen.

As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he repeatedly suggested that rock and pop music could not uplift the Christian soul. Where his predecessor John Paul II would tap his toes at pop concerts in the Vatican—and even shared a stage with Bob Dylan, against the explicit advice of Cardinal Ratzinger—Mozart buff Pope Benedict has curtailed the performances of pop music on the Church’s bill.

In 1985, the future Pope Benedict described rock music as being a product of the devil. Should he listen to the music of Boyce & Stanley, or any number of artists communicating the Gospel message through the medium of modern music, he may be hard pressed to find the presence of Satan between guitar riffs and basslines.

If, as Cardinal Ratzinger once argued, guitars were the tools of Lucifer, he might find on closer scrutiny that the followers of Christ have appropriated that instrument to praise God, to serve him, and to pray to him—beating the devil at his own song. The Holy Spirit manifests itself in the most unexpected forms; there is no reason why the Spirit should not be found in rock, pop, soul, hip hop, country or dance music (never mind, of course, gospel).

Even if, as the pope has suggested, rock ’n roll has a pagan nature (in itself, this is a sweeping argument which many a musicologist would take issue with), the appropriate response would not be to reject this form of cultural expression, but to find ways of using it to communicate the Good News.

The early Church did just that when it acknowledged and even incorporated elements from the pagan cultures within which it sought to evangelise. From its earliest days, the Church inculturated.

The body of the sacred music of the past itself surely was a result of inculturation; it was as culturally appropriate for the people of its time as rock and pop music is for the people of our times. It may very well be that our Christian ancestors of 11th century Europe would have been as aghast at those musical innovations which we today regard as the treasure of our tradition of sacred music as Pope Benedict is at the idea of a guitar solo allegorising God’s love. But can the sacred be found in only certain genres of music? Was there no virtue in the music of worship that preceded the advent of the great works of choral music?

While Pope Benedict, and many others, obtain no spiritual rewards from modern music, there is no reason why others cannot. Indeed, diversity in music can be a potent tool for evangelisation.

Many of the young people leaving the Catholic Church today do so not on theological or doctrinal grounds, but because they cannot discern God in the Church’s cultural expressions within the liturgy. Many young people cease to be Catholic because the Church knows not how to rock.

The pope’s suggestion that rock music is in some way invariably diabolical—which it demonstrably is not—will not turn young people away from rock music, but more likely from the Catholic Church.

Of course the Church must not abandon its great treasure of sacred music. Indeed, it could be argued that not enough energy is expended to guarantee its preservation. There is no reason, however, why that tradition should preclude the presence of God in modern forms of music, and finding ways of using these in the inculturation of our youth.