Lifeindfastlane

Hi. Just wondering what your rationale is for removing text from several articles about Catholic liturgical music that discuss the controversy that some churchgoers have with it. I happen to like the newer music quite a bit myself, including the St. Louis Jesuits and its members. But I'm not going to stick my head in the sand and pretend there aren't elements within the church who aren't so enamored of it and would rather return to more traditional music, and neither should Wikipedia. --Mwalimu59 21:24, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Controversy

Thanks for asking. I also appreciate (and practice) many different styles/periods of liturgical music.

I chose to remove some material that I found to unfairly represent the entry. Yes, there is a vocal minority in the Church that finds fault with contemporary Catholic music.

I did not find these entires to be fair or balanced, focusing entirely too much on the negative while barely mentioning the positive.

For every person one could find who dislikes contemporary Catholic music, one could also find a person who dislikes chant, traditional hymns, Latin, etc. Opinions are like elbows - everyone has a couple.

Yet when I view the entry for Gregorian Chant, 2/3 of the entry is not focused on how "controversial" it is or how widely disliked it is.

I believe these entries should focus on the positive aspects and not place undue emphasis on minority views.

You will notice that I did not remove the pros and cons listed on the Contemporary Catholic Music entry, because these seem fair and balanced representing both sides of the coin. Well done. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lifeindfastlane (talk • contribs) 19 March 2007

Hi. I rolled back your changes on those pages, since you didn't explain them in the "Edit Summary" box or on the Talk pages. But then I came across this discussion, and so I figured that maybe we can hammer out a solution that makes everybody happy.

The "template" that is currently used on these pages appears as follows:

Controversial aspects of his [or her] music

Main article: Contemporary Catholic liturgical music

[Name] 's music, along with that of several other musicians who compose music in the same or similar styles, is commonly used in the Mass and other Catholic liturgies today throughout the English-speaking world. The style of this music, along with its widespread use, engenders strong feelings both for and against this music. For many years there has been a lot of controversy regarding the quality of this music and regarding its suitability for Catholic liturgies.

My question to you is, do you believe that this template, as it currently appears, does not speak from a neutral point of view? If not, why not?

It seems to me that it is neutral. It says there are strong feelings both for and against the music (without saying that one of these is stronger than the others), and that there has been "controversy" about it. From my perspective, this sounds neutral, but I believe that the genius of Wikipedia is that many different perspectives are better than one. So if you think it's not neutral, what in particular is bad about it?

A related question is this: is this entire section too long? We definitely need more than just "Also see Contemporary Catholic liturgical music", because the reader needs to know something more than that. But maybe this could be shortened. Perhaps we could work something out that makes all parties happy.

Maybe I should also explain the reasoning behind this paragraph. Some months ago, various Wikipedians with various opinions about contemporary liturgical music were making comments, pro and con, on the pages of a number of different contemporary Catholic liturgical artists: Marty Haugen, the St. Louis Jesuits, David Haas, etc. This was turning into a mess. Moreover, it was repetitive, because folks who really love the music of David Haas usually also like the music of Marty Haugen, and those who hate the music of Haas and think it should be banned from the Mass inevitably feel the same way about Haugen, the St. Louis Jesuits, etc.

So I rearranged this material. I created a new page, Contemporary Catholic liturgical music, which includes all the arguments (pro and con) regarding this type of music. This page is meant to have a neutral point of view (see the Five Pillars of Wikipedia for details): it gives the different opinions on this music but doesn't say which of them is correct.

And then I removed this material from the pages of each individual artist, and replaced them all with a short paragraph that basically says "This music is controversial. If you want to learn about this controversy, go to the Contemporary Catholic liturgical music page."

Anyway, that's the history of this subsection of these pages. If we can work out a better phrasing, that would be great! — Lawrence King ^(talk) 06:53, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't around yet when that controversy was taking place, but I can see where it would be a good overall solution. But I can also see Lifeindfastlane's point, that it looks awkward to have an article that's not that long to begin with about one of the liturgical composers, and then to have this spiel about controversy taking up half the article or more. Do you think it could be reduced to no more than a sentence or two.

And I would concur with moving this discussion to Talk:Contemporary Catholic liturgical music. --Mwalimu59 17:48, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Taking your last point first -- I am moving this discussion to Talk:Contemporary Catholic liturgical music#The "blurb" on each composer's page. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 06:42, 21 March 2007 (UTC)