On Sacred Music...

"Let the sober banquet resound with Psalms. And if your memory by good and your voice pleasant, approach this work according to custom. You give more nourishment to those dearest to you if we hear spiritual things and if religious sweetness delights the ears."
-Saint Cyprian of Carthage [A.D. 190-258], Letter to Donatus (Letter 1, n. 16) PL, IV, 227.

"Music, that is the science or the sense of proper modulation, is likewise given by God's generosity to mortals having rational souls in order to lead them to higher things."
-Saint Augustine, Epis. 161. De origine animae hominis, 1, 2; PL XXXIII, 725.

"I feel that our souls are moved to the ardor of piety by the sacred words more piously and powerfully when these words are sung than when they are not sung, and that all the affections of our soul in their variety have modes of their own in song and chant by which they are stirred up by an indescribable and secret sympathy."
-Saint Augustine, Confessions, Book X, chap. 33, MPL, XXXII, 799ff.

"They [Bishops] shall also banish from churches all those kinds of music, in which, whether by the organ, or in the singing, there is mixed up any thing lascivious or impure; as also all secular actions; vain and therefore profane conversations, all walking about, noise, and clamour, that so the house of God may be seen to be, and may be called, truly a house of prayer."
-Pope Pius IV, The Council of Trent, Sesion XXII, Sptember 17th, 1562

"Gregorian Chant, which is, consequently the Chant proper to the Roman Church, the only chant she has inherited from the ancient fathers, which she has jealously guarded for centuries in her liturgical codices, which she directly proposes to the faithful as her own, which she prescribes exclusively for some parts of the liturgy, and which the most recent studies have so happily restored to their integrity and purity. On these grounds Gregorian Chant has always been regarded as the suprememodel for sacred music, so that it is fully legitimate to lay down thefollowing rule: the more closely a composition for church approaches in its movement, inspiration and savor the Gregorian form, the more sacred and liturgical it becomes; and the more out of harmony it is with that supreme model, the less worthy it is of the temple. The ancient traditional Gregorian Chant must, therefore, in a large measure be restored to the functions of public worship, and the fact must be accepted by all that an ecclesiastical function loses none of its solemnity when accompanied by this music alone. Special efforts are to be made to restore the use of the Gregorian Chant by the people, so that the faithful may again take a more active part in the ecclesiastical offices, as was the case in ancient times."
-Pope Saint Pius X, Tra le Sollecitudini, November 22, 1903

"Although the music proper to the Church is purely vocal music, music with the accompaniment of the organ is also permitted. In some special cases, within due limits and with proper safeguards, other instruments may be allowed, but never without the special permission of the Ordinary, according to prescriptions of the Caeremoniale Episcoporum. As the singing should always have the principal place, the organ or other instruments should merely sustain and never oppress it. It is not permitted to have the chant preceded by long preludes or to interrupt it with intermezzo pieces. The sound of the organ as an accompaniment to the chant in preludes, interludes, and the like must be not only governed by the special nature of the instrument, but must participate in all the qualities proper to sacred music as above enumerated. The employment of the piano is forbidden in church, as is also that of noisy or frivolous instruments such as drums, cymbals, bells and the like. It is strictly forbidden to have bands play in church, and only in special cases with the consent of the Ordinary will it be permissible to admit wind instruments, limited in number, judiciously used, and proportioned to the size of the placeprovided the composition and accompaniment be written in grave and suitable style, and conform in all respects to that proper to the organ. In processions outside the church the Ordinary may give permission for a band, provided no profane pieces be executed. It would be desirable in such cases that the band confine itself to accompanying some spiritual canticle sung in Latin or in the vernacular by the singers and the pious associations which take part in the procession.
-Pope Saint Pius X, Tra le Sollecitudini, November 22, 1903

"To this lofty dignity of the Church's prayer, there should correspond earnest devotion in our souls. For when in prayer the voice repeats those hymns written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and extols God's infinite perfections, it is necessary that the interior sentiment of our souls should accompany the voice so as to make those sentiments our own in which we are elevated to heaven, adoring and giving due praise and thanks to the Blessed Trinity; "so let us chant in choir that mind and voice may accord together."[140] It is not merely a question of recitation or of singing which, however perfect according to norms of music and the sacred rites, only reaches the ear, but it is especially a question of the ascent of the mind and heart to God so that, united with Christ, we may completely dedicate ourselves and all our actions to Him."
-Venerable Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei #145, November 20, 1947

"As regards music, let the clear and guiding norms of the Apostolic See be scrupulously observed. Gregorian chant, which the Roman Church considers her own as handed down from antiquity and kept under her close tutelage, is proposed to the faithful as belonging to them also. In certain parts of the liturgy the Church definitely prescribes it;[171] it makes the celebration of the sacred mysteries not only more dignified and solemn but helps very much to increase the faith and devotion of the congregation. For this reason, Our predecessors of immortal memory, Pius X and Pius XI, decree -- and We are happy to confirm with Our authority the norms laid down by them -- that in seminaries and religious institutes, Gregorian chant be diligently and zealously promoted, and moreover that the old Scholae Cantorum be restored, at least in the principal churches. This has already been done with happy results in not a few places."
-Venerable Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei #191, November 20, 1947

"St. Paul showed us clearly that sacred chant was used and held in honor from the very beginning in the Church founded by the Divine Redeemer when he wrote to the Ephesians: "Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs."[Eph. 5. 18ff; cf. Col. 3. 16.] He indicates that this custom of singing hymns was in force in the assemblies of Christians when he says: "When you come together each of you has a hymn."[I Cor. 14. 26.]
-Venerable Pope Pius XII, Musicae Sacrae #8, December 25, 1955

"The choral chant began to be called "Gregorian" after St. Gregory, the man who revived it. It attained new beauty in almost all parts of Christian Europe after the 8th or 9th century because of its accompaniment by a new musical instrument called the "organ." Little by little, beginning in the 9th century, polyphonic singing was added to this choral chant. The study and use of polyphonic singing were developed more and more during the centuries that followed and were raised to a marvelous perfection under the guidance of magnificent composers during the 15th and 16th centuries."
-Venerable Pope Pius XII, Musicae Sacrae #14, December 25, 1955

"Thus, with the favor and under the auspices of the Church the study of sacred music has gone a long way over the course of the centuries. In this journey, although sometimes slowly and laboriously, it has gradually progressed from the simple and ingenuous Gregorian modes to great and magnificent works of art. To these works not only the human voice, but also the organ and other musical instruments, add dignity, majesty and a prodigious richness."
-Venerable Pope Pius XII, Musicae Sacrae #16, December 25, 1955

"It must be holy. It must not allow within itself anything that savors of the profane nor allow any such thing to slip into the melodies in which it is expressed. The Gregorian chant which has been used in the Church over the course of so many centuries, and which may be called, as it were, its patrimony, is gloriously outstanding for this holiness."
-Venerable Pope Pius XII, Musicae Sacrae #42, December 25, 1955

"We are not unaware that, for serious reasons, some quite definite exceptions have been conceded by the Apostolic See. We do not want these exceptions extended or propagated more widely, nor do We wish to have them transferred to other places without due permission of the Holy See. Furthermore, even where it is licit to use these exemptions, local Ordinaries and the other pastors should take great care that the faithful from their earliest years should learn at least the easier and more frequently used Gregorian melodies, and should know how to employ them in the sacred liturgical rites, so that in this way also the unity and the universality of the Church may shine forth more powerfully every day."
-Venerable Pope Pius XII, Musicae Sacrae #46, December 25, 1955

"The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services."
-The Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium #116, December 4th, 1963

"The singing of the Church comes ultimately out of love. It is the utter depth of love that produces the singing. “Cantare amantis est”, says St. Augustine, singing is a lover’s thing. In so saying, we come again to the trinitarian interpretation of Church music. The Holy Spirit is love, and it is he who produces the singing. He is the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit who draws us into love for Christ and so leads to the Father."
-Pope Benedict XVI, "The Spirit of the Liturgy", (SF, CA: Ignatius, 2000), p. 142.

" 'Rock' . . . is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship. People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the experience of being part of a crowd and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their defenses torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental force of the universe."
-Pope Benedict XVI, "The Spirit of the Liturgy", (SF, CA: Ignatius, 2000)

On the Sacred Liturgy...

"I am convinced that the crisis in the Church that we are experiencing today is to a large extent due to the disintegration of the liturgy.”
-Pope Benedict XVI, "Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977" (SF, CA: Ignatius), p. 149.

“It is known, in fact, that the Latin liturgy of the Church in its various forms, in each century of the Christian era, has been a spur to the spiritual life of many saints, has reinforced many peoples in the virtue of religion and fecundated their piety”.
-Pope Benedict XVI, Summorum Pontificum, July 7th, 2007

"A sizable party of catholic liturgists seems to have practically arrived at the conclusion that Luther, rather than Trent, was substantially right in the sixteenth century debate; one can detect much the same position in the post conciliar discussions on the Priesthood...It is only against this background of the effective denial of the authority of Trent, that the bitterness of the struggle against allowing the celebration of Mass according to the 1962 Missal, after the liturgical reform, can be understood. The possibility of so celebrating constitutes the strongest, and thus (for them) the most intolerable contradiction of the opinion of those who believe that the faith in the Eucharist formulated by Trent has lost its value." 
-Pope Benedict XVI, a lecture given when still His Eminence Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, delivered during the Journees liturgiques de Fontgombault, 22-24 July 2001

"I am of the opinion, to be sure, that the old rite should be granted much more generously to all those who desire it. It's impossible to see what could be dangerous or unacceptable about that. A community is calling its very being into question when it suddenly declares that what until now was its holiest and highest possession is strictly forbidden and when it makes the longing for it seem downright indecent."
-Pope Benedict XVI, "Salt of the Earth", Ignatius Press, 1997, p. 176


“Respect must everywhere be shown for the feelings of all those who are attached to the Latin liturgical tradition, by a wide and generous application of the directives for the use of the Traditional Latin Mass.”
-Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia Dei, July 2nd, 1988

"There is a prejudice that imagines that everything Eastern must be old. This is a mistake, and there is no existing Eastern liturgy with a history of continual use stretching back as far as that of the Roman Mass."
-Adrian Fortescue (England's greatest liturgical historian, 1874-1923), The Mass: A Study of the Roman Liturgy (London, 1917), p. 213n

"The Roman Rite, in important parts, goes back at least to the fourth century, more exactly to the time of Pope Damasus (366-384). The Canon of the Mass had attained by the time of Gelasius I (492-496) the form it has kept until now, apart from some modifications made under Gregory I (590 -604). The only thing which the popes have unceasingly insisted upon since the fifth century is that the Roman Canon must be adopted; their argument being that it went back to the Apostle St. Peter."
-Monsignor Klaus Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy: Its Problems and Background (Una Voce Press, 1987/1993)

"We must discard from our Catholic prayers and from the Catholic liturgy everything that could constitute the slightest risk of obstacle or displeasure for our separated brethren, that is, for the Protestants."
-Fr. Annibale Bugnini, principal author of the Novus Ordo liturgical reforms, L'Osservatore Romano, March 19, 1965

"Let those who like myself have known and sung a Latin-Gregorian High Mass remember it if they can. Let them compare it with the Mass that we now have. Not only the words, the melodies, and some of the gestures are different. To tell the truth, it is a different liturgy of the Mass. This needs to be said without ambiguity: the Roman Rite as we knew it no longer exists [le rite romain tel que nous l'avons connu n'existe plus]. It has been destroyed [il est detruit]. Some walls of the former edifice have fallen while others have changed their appearance, to the extent that it appears today either as a ruin or the partial substructure of a different building. We must not weep over the ruins or dream of an historical reconstruction."
-Fr. Joseph Gelineau, one of the most influential members of Archbishop Annibale Bugnini's Consilium, which composed the New Mass, "Demain La Liturgie," Latin Mass, November-December 1992, p. 32

“Desacralizing omissions everywhere (in the novus ordo) debase the mystery of the Church. Above all She is not presented as a sacred hierarchy. Angels and saints are reduced to anonymity in the second part of the collective Confiteor.....The unity of the Church is greatly compromised by the wholly intolerable omission from the entire Ordo, including the three new prayers, of the names of the apostles Peter and Paul, founders of the Church of Rome....It is evident that the Novus ordo HAS NO INTENTION OF PRESENTING THE FAITH AS TAUGHT BY THE COUNCIL OF TRENT..... St Pius V had the Roman Missal drawn up so that it might be an instrument of unity among Catholics. In conformity with the injunction of the Council of Trent, it was to exclude all danger in liturgical worship of errors against the faith.....The gravity of the situation fully justified, and even rendered prophetic, the saintly Pontiff's solemn warning given at the end of the Bull promulgating his missal "should anyone presume to tamper with this, let him know that he shall incur the wrath of God Almighty and the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.”
-Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani (October 29, 1890—August 3, 1979) , attended the Second Vatican Council and was a strong opponent of the false "spirit of Vatican II" from its very beginning.

"The people never on any account asked for the liturgy to be changed, or mutilated so as to understand it better. They asked for a better understanding of the changeless liturgy, and one which they would never have wanted changed."
-Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani (October 29, 1890—August 3, 1979)

“Liturgical Reform, having as one of its basic principles the abolition of all mystical acts and formulations, insists upon the usage of modern languages for the divine service.... Hatred for the Latin language is inborn in the heart of all enemies of Rome. They recognize it as the bond that unites Catholics throughout the world, as the arsenal of orthodoxy against all the subtleties of the sectarian spirit. They consider it the most powerful arm of the Papacy. We must admit that it is a master blow of Protestantism to have declared war on the sacred language. If it should ever succeed in ever destroying it, it would be well on the way to victory. Exposed to a profane gaze, like a virgin who has been violated, from that moment on the liturgy has lost much of its sacred character, and very soon people find that it is not worthwhile putting aside one's work or pleasure in order to go and listen to what is being said in the way one speaks in the marketplace. How long do you think the faithful will go to hear these self-styled liturgists cry "The Lord be with you" and how long will they continue to respond "and with your spirit"?”
-Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., Liturgical Institutions, vol. 1, chapter IV "The Antiliturgical Heresy," (1840)

"Assuredly it is a wise and most laudable thing to return in spirit and affection to the sources of the sacred liturgy. For research in this field of study, by tracing it back to its origins, contributes valuable assistance towards a more thorough and careful investigation of the significance of feast-days, and of the meaning of the texts and sacred ceremonies employed on their occasion. But it is neither wise nor laudable to reduce everything to antiquity by every possible device. Thus, to cite some instances, one would be straying from the straight path were he to wish the altar restored to its primitive tableform; were he to want black excluded as a color for the liturgical vestments; were he to forbid the use of sacred images and statues in Churches; were he to order the crucifix so designed that the divine Redeemer's body shows no trace of His cruel sufferings; and lastly were he to disdain and reject polyphonic music or singing in parts, even where it conforms to regulations issued by the Holy See."
-Venerable Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947

"Nothing could better obstruct the confrontation of man with God than the notion that we "go unto the altar of God" as we would go to a pleasant, relaxing social gathering. This is why the Latin mass with Gregorian chant, which raises us up to a sacred atmosphere, is vastly superior to a vernacular mass with popular songs, which leaves us in a profane, merely natural atmosphere."
-Dietrich von Hildebrand (October 12, 1889 - January 26, 1977), German Catholic philosopher and theologian who was called (informally) by Venerable Pope Pius XII "the 20th Century Doctor of the Church."

"What happened at the Council was something else entirely: in the place of the liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living, process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it - as in a manufacturing process - with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product."
-Pope Benedict XVI, From the preface to the French edition of "Reforms of the Roman Liturgy Its Problems and Background" 1993

"The second great event at the beginning of my years in Regensburg was the publication of the Missal of Paul VI, which was accompanied by the almost total prohibition, after a transitional phase of only half a year, of using the missal we had had until then. (...) The prohibition of the missal that was now decreed, a missal that had known continuous growth over the centuries, starting with the sacramentaries of the ancient Church, introduced a breach of the liturgy whose consequences could only be tragic."
-Pope Benedict XVI, "Milestones – Memoirs 1927 – 1977", Joseph Ratzinger, Ignatius, San Francisco, 1998, p. 146

"It is prohibited for the faithful to even touch the sacred vessels, or receive in the hand."
-Pope Saint Sixtus I (115-125 AD)

"Pope (Saint) Gelasius in his ninth letter (chap. 26) to the Bishops of Lucania condemned the evil practice which had been introduced of women serving the priest at the celebration of Mass. Since this abuse had spread to the Greeks, Innocent IV strictly forbade it in his letter to the Bishop of Tusculum: 'Women should not dare to serve at the altar; they should be altogether refused this ministry.' We too have forbidden this practice in the same words ...." (n. 29).
-Benedict XIV, Allatae sunt, July 26, 1755

“The proposition of the synod by which it shows itself eager to remove the cause through which, in part, there has been induced a forgetfulness of the principles relating to the order of the liturgy, "by recalling it (the liturgy) to a greater simplicity of rites, by expressing it in the vernacular language, by uttering it in a loud voice"; as if the present order of the liturgy, received and approved by the Church, had emanated in some part from the forgetfulness of the principles by which it should be regulated,—rash, offensive to pious ears, insulting to the Church, favorable to the charges of heretics against it.”
-Pope Pius VI, Auctorem Fide (28 August 1794), Condemning the Synod of Pistoia and its errors of trying to change the Liturgy