My my. / The threadstarter serious-question was "Is there a musical tradition?" That's what this thread is doing on Mudcat. (Not that we don't have plenty of "pure" BS threads. Who keeps starting those frivolous things, anyway? :) / Now, Joe Offer's good research indicates No, there isn't. To wax Hypothetical (and then Hypothetical can wax me, if she wants to): IF there WERE such a tradition, our negative consensus re Opus Dei as an organization ought not necessarily to color our judgement of the music. *Much* religious music serves ends, or derives from sources, that we may not like; but nevertheless includes some of the finest music ever made. (Including lots of Bluegrass, by the way.) Recently there was a thread about a song praising kindly Uncle Joe Stalin. Joe Stalin was a very bad man and Stalinism was a very bad system; but it was a pretty good song. Leni Riefstenstahl (spelling? sorry) and D.W. Griffith made excellent films honoring, respectively, Adolf Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan. Their films were high art. And so forth. / Now granted, it's kind-of moot in this case if Opus Dei ain't musical anyway. But still--well, you see the point. / OK, now it's *everybody's* turn to Wax the Poox. / Ohyeah -- I attended Georgetown University (Jesuit) in Washington D.C. waaaay back in the '60's. *Those* U.S. Jesuits (Jevvies, we called 'em) were not particularly right-wing, even back then. Indeed, some were left activists and advisors to leftist student groups.