The Word From Rome April 9, 2004

Yet even if widespread use of Gregorian chant were somehow possible today, Liberto said, it wouldn’t be enough.

By now the liturgy is in Italian, in French, in German, in all the languages ,” he said. “Certainly a minimum of Gregorian should be conserved, especially for international Masses. But in most other contexts, it won’t work. Music is a language, and we just can’t speak today in the language of the fourth century, or the 14th. Today, the musical language is truly heterogeneous. We have to find a language for celebration that is comprehensible, and practical.

This is total bunk. Chant works just fine in English. Furthermore, Latin works fine in the liturgy and Gregorian Chant works fine in Latin.