Well, I grew up in a Catholic church that only confirms what folks asserted earlier in this thread. It was so dismal; there were lots of different choirs, you know the children's choir (I was in that) and the so-called "folk group" for "Folk Mass" (my sister was in that) and the adult choir (my Dad was in that), and as dreadfully mediocre as all the choirs were, we were at least apparently among the living. The congregation (and it was a very large one, in a very large church) just seemed too mortified or too bored to open their mouths. As was described by Joe Offer, whenever my father would sing in the congregation people would stare. He thought it was critical to make a joyful noise, to use the gifts given to you, but I suspect many people thought he was showing off, and so I wonder if the not-singing thing is related to some Catholic notion of humility. Anyway I got my first serious opportunity for comparison when I was about 13 and started going to friends' barmitzvahs. I couldn't get over how incredibly comfortable and at ease and happy to sing and participate everybody was. Could the Catholic problem have something to do with the incredibly heirarchical nature of the church? Or that I was growing up at a time when people were still adjusting to Vatican II and couldn't quite convince themselves it was okay to participate with conviction and not somehow be questioning the authority of the priest? I sure don't know. Probably for every story of an unsinging Catholic church there is a story of a heartily singing one, so perhaps it's silly to try to make meaning of this. . . As for Sopholcleese's description of the Lord's Prayer, though, it's a dead-on depiction of my old church. Depending on how much of a cynic one is about religion, one might suggest two explanations. First, that the Church isn't particularly interested in having its members think independently about the meaning of the words, and thus encourages the mindless droning. . . second, that there is spiritual power in incantation, and the droning quality found in the way Catholics recite the prayer is in fact meditative and inducive to a mystical state of mind. Margaret