Thanks to the CMAA's web guru and "Recovering Choir Director", an article by Prof. Laszlo Dobszay has come to light which is important reading for those involved in restoring the sacred to Catholic sacred music.  Granted, this is not light reading, but it's good to exercise the brain cells from time to time (and to keep on learning - after all schola does mean "school").

There is certainly a lot to this article that could be discussed (some of it you would probably need a PhD to discuss so I won't go there).  Prof. Dobszay brings to the forferont a wish that congregations will not only tolerate or enjoy/not enjoy the music at Mass, but be able to internalize it, "own" it, actually pray with the liturgical texts as they are intended to be prayed.  He addresses the real problem of people understanding, for example, what the Propers are saying, but more to the point, he addresses the obstacles preventing the small parish from implementing Sacrosanctum Concilium's call for the pride of place of Gregorian Chant. 

Some of Prof. Dobszay's suggestions are surprising; for example, from what I understand it is the schola or cantor's role to sing the Propers.  Yet Prof. Dobszay suggests that the congregation could achieve the ability to sing the Propers if they were in a simpler format, perhaps in the vernacular.  Also, he suggests it would be wise if rather than the full repertoire of music for the Propers, "a relatively few model-melodies were adapted to all texts."  But to me this seems to fly in the face of the illustrative articles by Prof. Mahrt which show how the word-painting in chant helps illuminate the text (such as "Passer Invenit: A Communion On A Simile" in the Spring 2008 issue of Sacred Music). Wouldn't it be too high a price to relogate a good portion of the musical repertoire preserved in the Graduale to disuse (or more likely, it would be heard only in the Extraordinary Form, not in the Ordinary Form in this example)? 

Putting aside those things that gave me pause, Prof. Dobszay is proposing an action plan that could actually bring Gregorian chant alive in Catholic churches around the world.  He calls for flexibility in the approach to restoring the sacred, and I find this corresponds well to the CMAA's suggestions during the Colloquium last summer.  The variety of the music and the manner in which the Masses during the Colloquium were offered were meant to be examples of different approaches that a parish may take, only a taste of what is possible.  It does seem, though, that the ideal they are holding up is more along the lines of a sung Ordinary Form Mass with the prayers, ordinary, and propers (from the Graduale Romanum) in Latin.  I think Prof. Dobszay makes a point that this may be too rigid an expectation to realistically propose to the smaller congregation with less resources than, say, a cathedral.  He concludes that what he proposes

would bring whole communities, countries, languages, and social strata closer to the spirit of the liturgy, to ecclesiastical thinking and to the ecclesiastical 'vocabulary' of the rite. Thus it is not against traditionalism, but rather a tool for becoming familiar with tradition.

What he suggests is oriented toward building a bridge between today's Catholics and a living experience of Gregorian chant, which it is hoped will also lead toward a restoration of the sacred in the whole liturgy.  I agree with him when he (basically) says it is time to stop giving lip service to incorporating Gregorian chant by allowing a Salve Regina or Adore te devote into the Mass, but rather to give Gregorian chant true pride of place.  What he is asking though, is far more than just getting a higher percentage of the music to be Gregorian chant.  He is really calling for new life to be breathed into what was once a developing style of music which does adapt to various circumstances.

On a practical level, I think he is right about the need for flexibility.  There is a vast difference in the approach to restoring the sacred that a more traditional-minded parish would take to one that is recovering from a recent invasion of Call to Action.  I liked his suggestion that a Latin introit be paird with a vernacular version of the same thing (he suggested intoning the Latin and doing a more melodic version for the vernacular - I would and have done it the opposite way). I do think it is important that those who can are striving for the ideal, and can set an example of how timeless Latin and Gregorian chant are.  These places serve as an important piece of the picture in the "hermeneutic of continuity."  In many music programs, it may be the need for a paradigm shift - rather than spending much of choir practice time preparing beautiful motets like Ave Verum to be sung during Communion, the priority would be placed on first learning the Ordinary in Latin so as to assist the congregation in singing them, then moving on to the Propers by whatever means possible in their situation.  There are places where there are a few people willing and able to work at chanting the propers. 

It will take a lot more than learning to read neumes to achieve what Prof. Dobszay is proposing in this article, though.  Composers, this is your time.  Someone asked on the musicasacra forum what the guidelines are for new Catholic music... a question which actually brought me to learn more about Catholic sacred music myself, and introduced me to Gregorian chant.  I think this article provides an excellent guide for composers to work from. 

There's my $.02.  After hours of Nick Jr. and diapers it was nice to think a little.  I hope the article does get circulated and some truly helpful analysis and commentary gets posted out there.