Hey, Joe:

Music in the Catholic church went through a radical (but gentile) change with Vatican Two, back in the 60's. The old stately hymns and anthems were placed with well-intentioned, musically innocuous nylon-string strummed, "nice" music that they called "folk" music. I quickly learned to avoid folk masses, because the music was so safe that it made "It's A Small World After All" sound like heavy metal. It was as if the church was trying to show that it could be up to date by taking the safest, most uncontroversial approach, singing songs that not even your 80 year old grandmother would have a problem with. "Oh, isn't that nice! Look at all those nice young people singing their nice songs!" Give me a Gregorian chant, any day. I was a Catholic at the time, and was quietly bucking the system. I talked two young priests into letting me do a night of music from Woodstock, shortly after going to the festival. I played recordings from artists who performed at Woodstock and other rock artists, showing the similarity of some of the lines in the songs to scriptural passages. We drew the biggest crowd they'd ever had at the church, the kids convinced the priests that we could get the message better if we moved all the pews to the side of the church, turned off the lights, kicked up the sound system, and everybody laid on the floor. I was never asked to do a program again, and after that, the attendance dropped back to five or six, instead of seventy or eighty.

And Rowan:

Thanks for sharing that experience. Along the same lines, my gospel quartet has sung in every kind of church imaginable, from Lutheran, Methodist, Unitarian, Pentecostal, non-denominational and Episcopal to Jewish homes, and a Jewish funeral service. The only faith where we've never been asked to sing is the Catholic church.

I have to believe that most people, given some encouragement, find it uplifting to loosen up and express some emotion when they are hearing, and singing gospel music. The two songs that you chose are both excellent choices, and ones I sing.

Jerry