I was raised Catholic, and was there during the "folk mass"
era. No matter how bad it was, it had to be an improvement
on "Immaculate Mary" and "Holy God We Praise Thy Name!
They were soooo draggy and sing-song-y!

Remember, before Vatican II and the folk masses, the
congregations in Catholic churches did not sing, nor pray
or respond out loud at all! The prayers and readings were
all done by the priest, the altar boys gave the responses,
and everything except the gospel and the sermon were in
Latin!

The only singing was done by the choir, and the adult choir
was very competent and well rehearsed. At a high mass they
would sing the same words the priest would say, like the
Agnus Dei and the Sanctus. At some low masses they might
have a children's choir sing some hymns in English, perhaps unrelated to what the priest was saying at the time.

People could either follow a translation of what the priest
was saying in their missals, pray their rosary, or just sit,
stand, and kneel their way through it until it was over!
There was no Sunday School for children to go to instead of
mass, either. The main difference with a "children's mass"
was that the nuns would be their to make sure you behaved!

Good Catholice HAD to go to mass every Sunday morning, under
pain of mortal sin, and they did--their might be 5 masses on
a Sunday, and probably 3 or 4 had a LOT of people in
attendance, and those churches were big!

We did begin to sing some more soulful stuff in the folk
mass era--I remember something called "Father River's Mass",
that had a song called "God is Love". There was also an
African mass--"Missa Luba", if I'm not mistaken, though I
think we just listened to a recording of that in school--it
was so different, and so spirited, nobody tried teaching
that to us to actually sing at mass!

There were not many African-American catholics in evidence
in those days. Parish schools were filled with Catholic
baby boomers--sometimes 50 children in a classroom, with one
nun teaching. There were no African-Americans in the parish
schools I attended, though there were black children in the
nearby public schools by 1960. When I started at the new
diocesan high school, there were two black students out of
maybe 400 students. A few more were admitted in following
years. One priest paid for a substitute teacher to replace
him while he went to the Selma march. However, there was no assembly or other forum to hear about it.

Nowadays, catholic schools accept children of other faiths,
and many parents send their children to them because they
are more disciplined, and therefore safer, than many public
schools.

Although I'm now an agnostic, I LOVE spirituals, black and
white gospel music, and Sacred Harp singing. It's not the
doctrine behind the songs, it's the spirit with which
they're sung!

Marymac