Dear Denys:
I am a choir director in a thriving suburban parish. Our choir is large and it always sounds great. You should hear our full-on, organ-plus-orchestra rendering of “Mass of Creation”–it sounds like Handel! But there’s one problem: the women outnumber the men in our choir three-to-one. There have to be more guys out there in our parish who can sing. How can we get them involved?
Befuddled
Dear Befuddled:
I have often noticed this problem in other parishes, and I feel your pain.
First of all, just about every American man born after 1960 can sing. But the problem is that most of them only sing AC/DC tunes, and they have to be either in a dorm room or driving a car to really want to do so.
They have also learned from experience that when they start singing, women roll their eyes and leave, so they tend only to sing around other men. As a result, most guys aren’t going to feel comfortable in a mixed parish choir, unless Back in Black is on the program for an entrance hymn.
Back in Black
My suggestion: start a new Gregorian chant schola in your parish music program. Men only. Gregorian chant has the power to appeal to lovers of both high art and hard rock, and the opportunity to do something both challenging and, well, cool in the company of other men will have ‘em lining up to get involved. It will be like the parish garage band. Give it a try.
DPJ
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This is a common phenomenon in the modern American Church. My own opinion is that for the pasty 45 years or so, feminine attributes have been extolled while masculine ones, or the perception of masculine ones, have been minimized if not maligned outright. Many men simply see no place for themselves in ministry and either sit in the pews like potted plants or don’t come at all. Everyone should mourn this. It is a tragedy and the loss of many souls.
However, I belong to a military parish where men exercise leadership in their daily vocation as soldiers and that tranlates to the parish. The choir has essentially equal numbers and is headed by a man who is a former 1st Sergeant. I head the RCIA (no NAB versions of the Bible in classes) and Lector Ministries. The parish is blessed to have an ardent and devout cadre of both men and women (military wives are anything but passive).
It has always made me somewhat sad that the modern American Church seems somewhat feminized and, for awhile, I too bought into that and would not participate until I underwent my own re-conversion. I didn’t care how it looked – I was going to give and serve because in doing so, I gained increasing liberty from the Kingdom of Self – a cruel taskmaster indeed. I always tell men that anyone who thinks Christianity is not a masculine Faith needs to read the Acts of the Apostles and anything by St. Paul who was anything but effeminate.
It is essential that both men and women, both created in the image of God, actively participate in worship and service. Women, of course, can let their lights shine before men, but it is vital for men to see other men do so as well. We live in a culture that glorifies many things. Heterosexual masculinity based on the Gospel is not one of them and the culture, unwittingly or not, has constructed itself a sepulchre of dead men’s bones because of it.
When I was a boy in parochial school our 3rd grade teacher, Sister Bernard, stood over my desk one day and said with a voice tinged with compassion-laden force that I was to become an “Altar Boy,” and to report to Father after school. In those days, Altar Boys (not “servers”) were boys, and boys showed up, learned the Latin reponses, and served mass for the parish priests under the watchful and expert eye of the Nuns. It was a “boy thing.” Men participated in the church activities (e.g., my Dad, a macho ex-infantry officer from WWII and senior agent in the FBI) was extremely involved in “church things” on Sundays.
Something happened while I was away at undergrad & grad school in the 60′s. After that and a number of vacation tours in combat in Vietnam I married and rejoined the church (as most Catholic men I knew then). It was at that time, in the early 80′s and on that I noticed fewer and fewer man involved in anything connected with church activities. They had been replaced by women – not a slam against women, but the more women who became involved the more reasons/excuses men developed to become absent.
Recently I’ve experienced Acolyte and Deacon training. During the concluding ceremonies for each my family attended and remarked that all of the men candidates sitting together and singing sounded remarkably professional (even my voice, which like my golf game causes people to ask me to hide myself in a safe location).
You want men to sing at Mass? Get a group of men to sit together at Mass and encourage them to sing. You will be amazed at the vocal quality of men who don’t “feel/think/whatever” they are being judged as a man for singing.
I sing in a Catholic church choir where that is not the problem the group I am in has the oposite problem more men then women. We have an awesome tenor and bass section but the soparno and alto
sections a a little weak. How I along with the music director change it.
Any suggestions would be helpful. Thank You