Robert C. Morlino, the Catholic Bishop of Madison, WI, recently wrote a column for the diocesan newspaper called, “The Beauty of our Worship in the Liturgy.”  In this piece, Morlino tries to set the record straight about what is and is not to be considered “beautiful” in the liturgy.  As I understand his argument, for too long U.S. Catholics have relativized their notion of beauty to the trite phrases, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” or “everything is beautiful in its own way.”  The bishop then lays out his definition of “Beauty” as “embodying the truth.”  He explains this by choosing a liturgical song that he claims does not embody religious truth, namely, “All are Welcome.”  Any Catholic who has attended Mass in the past 20 years knows this song.  I find his argument, at best, weak–but this is not what I wish to focus on in this post.  Instead, I would like to examine a statement the bishop makes in passing that I find objectionable.  “To be beautiful, indeed, is to be good and is to be true.  As much as some people may enjoy the musical antics of Lady Gaga, these cannot honestly be described as beautiful.”

I would like to briefly respond to this comment and explain why I believe it is misguided.

1. First of all, for a bishop to dismiss Lady Gaga in the diocese that holds one of the biggest college towns in the Midwest is a bad idea.  Not that college students (even Catholic ones) read the diocesan newspaper, but word is likely to get out that the bishop made such a statement.  This will make the Catholic Church seem out of touch with popular culture and even less relevant to young people.

2. One should not dismiss a music artist (or anyone, for that matter) without providing some evidence for the claim.  What does the bishop mean by “musical antics?”  To what antics is he referring?  He posits the claim as if it is a widely accepted truth, like the conservation of mass or some such proven scientific law.  Where is the evidence?  I am open to the possibility that someone could carefully construct such a claim, but just stating it as the bishop does is not sufficient.  It comes across as a statement of personal taste.  This, too, is fine–but he needs to make that clear.

3.  The bishop clearly does not read the Rock and Theology blog, for if he did, he would have at least had to acknowledge the theological reflection on Lady Gaga that my colleagues Tommy Beaudoin and Rachel Bundang have achieved here and here.

4. Finally, I have a problem with the bishop’s insistence that Lady Gaga has no claim on the truth.  I am not a rabid Gaga fan, but I do appreciate her role as an entertainer and, even more than that, her ability to connect with many young (and not so young) people.  Something in her music must be resonating with others–it helps them to make sense of their life story, the music touches their soul in some way, or it empowers them to achieve one of the most important (at least in the tradition with which I’m most familiar–that of Ignatian-flavored Catholicism), yet often elusive, spiritual foundations: knowing oneself as a beloved creature.  If Gaga’s music achieves this in even a small way, I say that she DOES offer truth and, thus, DOES participate in creating Beauty.

Here I offer one of Lady Gaga’s most recent attempts at beauty:

David Nantais, Detroit, MI

1 Comment »

1. 

   Dave, if your post helps facilitate a dialogue between Lady Gaga and a representative of the Diocese of Madison — or any Catholic church official or theologian — on the topic of the relationship between beauty and truth in popular music, so much the better. I am sure, however, that I was not the only person raised Catholic who laughed out loud at the attempted take-down of the progressive Catholic hymn “All Are Welcome.” I am guilty of having sung this as earnestly as anyone, and while I believe in the radically inclusive image of the church that it presents, I personally have found the hymn cloying, didactic, and sentimental — which, according to the logic of congregational singing, only typically made us all sing it more loudly, so as to try to force it to escape those rhetorical chains.

   Comment by T Beaudoin — October 26, 2011 @ 8:14 pm

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