November 2004 Archives

In John Allen's recent column, we read of the appointment of Professor Mary Ann Glendon to the position of President of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

Prof. Glendon is one of those key people, to whom the Vatican turns, when it needs a lay person to say something that clerics cannot say with much credibility. She is a rarity in Catholic circles, because she is a high-profile, well-educated woman, who agrees with the Pope on crucial matters of Church teaching. May God bless her and grant success in the role to which she has been entrusted.

In this article, we read a brief biography of her, whom many faithful Catholics look to, in anticipation of that blessed renewal of traditional music.

As the father of Gregorian chant, Pope St. Gregory the Great was the obvious candidate for patron of singers and musicians. His position went unchallenged for 700 years until the proliferation of pipe organs in churches and a misreading of a line in the Divine Office pushed Gregory into the background and advanced St. Cecilia (3rd century; feast day November 22) as the patron of all things musical.

[via Catholic Exchange]