Pope Francis spoke about the “banality” of contemporary Church music
as he addressed 400 people who were taking part in a Vatican conference
on sacred music.The conference commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of Musicam Sacram, the Sacred Congregation of Rites’ 1967 instruction on music in the liturgy.
“Certainly, the encounter with modernity and the introduction of [vernacular] tongues into the Liturgy stirred up many problems: of musical languages, forms, and genres,” the Pope said on March 4 in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace.
“Sometimes a certain mediocrity, superficiality, and banality have prevailed, to the detriment of the beauty and intensity of liturgical celebrations,” he continued, as he called for improved musical education for seminarians, “in dialogue with the musical trends of our time, with the demands of the different cultural areas, and with an ecumenical attitude.”