看到一篇花邊報道，但對熱愛音樂的信友來說是個令人悲哀的消息。

Sir James Macmillan

英國作曲家兼指揮 麥美倫爵士 (Sir James Macmillan) 在最近的一篇文章說，他放棄再寫禮儀音樂。他說：

This has sometimes led to tensions. The professionalising of music in church is sometimes regarded with suspicion by clerics and laypeople dedicated to the “modernising” and “democratisation” of religious idea and practice, nervous of the alienating resonances of old-fashioned, hierarchical “elitism”. The churches went through their 1960s revolutions too, and in some things these were necessary and liberating. The musical fallout from these has been problematic, though, especially to those involved in maintaining high standards.

This has been especially dire in the Catholic Church, where deliberately misapplied readings of “the spirit of Vatican II” has turned much of the musical practice in liturgy into a pitiful laughing stock. Anglicans will know what the problem is too — those aisle-dancing and numbskull jogging for Jesus choruses, maudlin sentimental dirges, faux American folk music and cod-Celticness. The American musicologist Thomas Day described this kind of liturgy as “a diet of romantic marshmallows indigestibly combined with stuff that grabs you by the scruff of the neck and shakes you into submission with its social message”.

大意就是說，一些志於「現代化」及「民主化」宗教理念及習俗的神職及平信徒，對教會內的專業化音樂抱有質疑態度，認為這是古舊的精英主義。這在公教尤其嚴重，因為按「梵二精神」的錯誤閱讀使很多地方的音樂變得「可憐可笑」。

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