The Catholic church went through some music controversy in the years after Vatican 11, which encouraged the exploration and use of newer types of music. For a while some parishes held separate services for "folk" and traditional music. One service would have a guitar group and the other used the organ and parishoners had strong feelings about which one they prefered. But after a while the split seemed to mend itself as people became more accustomed to the newer music, and now I enjoy singing all sorts of music in church, from the oldest Latin chants to the newer pieces, with all the stops between. However, the REALLY pop styles have not yet made it into the average Catholic church.
I feel as Michelle does, that the words of a song/hymn are most important. To me, the song is a prayer, and as a cantor I try hard to make every word understandable to the people. The music adds a layer of expression to the words, and I love to make it beautiful, but the prayer is the reason for the song.
The Christmas services at my parish were wonderful! The choir sang a half hour of Christmas songs before the main service began, and some of them were those beloved old carols like "Silent Night" and "Adeste Fidelis" and others newer popular Christmas songs, and the last one was a powerful contemporary Christmas song by David Haas called "Great Joy" that began, "Great light in darkness, great joy! A child is born and there will be peace, alleluia!"
I was the soloist for that piece, it was a difficult one to learn and I was SO nervous about it that my knees were shaking like mad, and I was SO glad that I had worn a long skirt so nobody could tell! Luckily I had to sing it at the 2 Christmas day services as well and by the third time I felt much more comfortable belting it out.
