The cited article from EWTN News reports on a copyright infringement lawsuit before a secular Oregon court between two composers of post-conciliar “hymns,” with the “Oregon Catholic Press”—a publishing arm of the modernist hierarchy—as a defendant. Jurors, many presumably products of the post-Vatican II “reform,” required elementary music theory instruction to adjudicate a dispute over the alleged “theft” of melodic fragments. This profane spectacle before a civil tribunal epitomizes the abyss into which the neo-church has plunged the sacred: the reduction of liturgical chant, which should be a prayerful participation in the Unbloody Sacrifice, to a commercial commodity governed by secular intellectual property law. The very existence of such a suit, involving works composed after 1958 and promoted by a “Catholic” press, demonstrates a complete rupture from the Catholic principle that sacred music belongs to the *whole Body of Christ* and is ordered to the glory of God, not the profit or proprietary rights of individual composers.
The Profanation of Sacred Music into Secular Property
The core error exposed is the modernistic conception of sacred art as a private, creatorial good subject to individual ownership and litigation. This directly contradicts the Catholic doctrine that Sacred Music, as an integral part of the Liturgy, is the property of the Church and exists for the edification and sanctification of the faithful. As Pope Pius XI declared in *Quas Primas*, the reign of Christ the King extends to all human societies and activities: “His reign encompasses all human nature… there is no power in us that is exempt from this reign.” To subject a liturgical composition to a secular copyright suit is to deny the kingship of Christ over the artistic expression of worship, placing it instead under the dominion of civil law and private greed. The pre-conciliar Church never conceived of hymns as copyrighted objects to be “stolen”; they were adaptations or original compositions for the common prayer of the faithful, freely used within the liturgical action. The very notion of suing over melodic similarity in a “hymn” used in the post-conciliar “Mass”—which is itself a validly illicit, invalidly constructed “assembly” (as defined by *Quo Primum* and the perpetual validity of the Roman Rite)—is a symptom of the entire system’s apostasy. The composers and the press operate within a framework that treats the sacred as a brand, a marketable product, and their dispute is a squabble over market share in the neo-church’s liturgical bazaar.
The “Crash Course” as Symptom of Cultural and Doctrinal Collapse
The article’s detail that jurors required a “crash course in music reading” is not a trivial aside; it is a profound indicator of the civilization’s decay and the neo-church’s failure. In the Catholic civilization, the faithful were steeped in the principles of Gregorian chant and polyphony from childhood. The need to explain “the difference between a quarter note and a half note” to a jury adjudicating a “Catholic” hymn dispute reveals a populace—including those within the structures claiming to be Catholic—bereft of the most basic Catholic cultural and liturgical literacy. This is the fruit of the “reform” that replaced the sung Mass with the “sungen” Mass, the *graduale* with ditties, and the *schola cantorum* with amplified bands. The “professor of music” from NYU testifying as an “expert” is the modern expert replacing the *magisterium* of the Church’s own musical tradition. The entire procedure is a naturalistic, academic dissection of what should be a prayer, reducing divine worship to a set of audible patterns subject to forensic analysis. This aligns perfectly with the errors condemned by St. Pius X in *Lamentabili sane exitu*: the application of purely “historical” and “scientific” methods (here, musicology) to judge sacred matters, treating the liturgy as a human document to be analyzed rather than a divine action to be participated in.
The Modernist Heresy of “Creativity” and “Development” in Sacred Art
The lawsuit’s premise—that a later “hymn” (1993) could illegally “copy” an earlier one (1980)—rests on the modernist principle of individual creative genius and proprietary rights, applied to the sacred sphere. This is antithetical to the Catholic principle of organic development and communal ownership. Authentic sacred music develops from and remains in communion with the Gregorian tradition, which is *sui generis* and belongs to no individual. The post-conciliar explosion of “new compositions” is a manifestation of the modernist error condemned by Pius X: the “pursuit of novelty” that “abandons all restraint” and leads to the “corruption” of dogma (here, the dogma of the Sacred Liturgy as handed down). Both “Emmanuel” and “Christ Be Our Light” are products of the same post-1958 liturgical revolution, which severed composition from the *lex orandi* of centuries. Their alleged similarity is irrelevant; their common error is their fundamental departure from the true Catholic musical tradition, which is not a matter of “copyright” but of *conformity to the sacred rites*. The lawsuit is two modernist factions fighting over the spoils of the liturgical revolution, with a secular court as the arbiter—a perfect image of the neo-church’s subservience to civil power and naturalistic principles, condemned in the *Syllabus of Errors* (e.g., Error #44: civil authority interfering in matters of religion and liturgy).
Silence on the Supernatural: The Missing Context
The article’s most damning omission is any reference to the supernatural purpose of Catholic music. There is no mention of the *sacrificium*, the propitiation for sin, the unbloody re-presentation of Calvary for which music exists to adorn and elevate. The discussion is purely secular: “similarity,” “notes,” “key,” “time signature,” “infringement.” This silence is the hallmark of the conciliar and post-conciliar mentality, which reduces religion to ethics, community, and aesthetics, stripping it of its sacrificial, sin-atoning, God-honoring core. The pre-1958 Magisterium taught that the chant of the Church is a “treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art” (*Tra le sollecitudini*, Pius X) because it is “united to the liturgical text” to promote “the dignity and beauty of the Sacrifice of the Mass.” In the neo-church, this is replaced by the “beauty” of copyright litigation and the “dignity” of academic testimony. The article’s tone is that of a trade journal, not a Catholic news service reporting on a matter touching the very worship of God. This itself is a damning indictment of the “EWTN News” outlet, which operates within the conciliar structures and thus shares in the same naturalistic worldview.
The True Catholic Perspective: Sacred Music as Ecclesial Possession
From the unchanging perspective of integral Catholic faith, the entire dispute is null and void. The authentic Catholic hymn, as part of the liturgical action, belongs to the Church and cannot be the subject of private copyright in the manner claimed. Its use is governed by liturgical law and the authority of the bishop, not civil statutes. The composers in question, having written for the post-conciliar “liturgy,” which is a human invention and not the Roman Rite, have no legitimate claim to ownership within the Catholic tradition. Their works are, at best, pious compositions of dubious orthodoxy and musical merit, used in an invalid or at least illicit worship service. The secular court has no jurisdiction over such matters, which pertain to the internal governance of the true Church—a Church that endures in those who uphold the pre-1958 faith and rites. The true Catholic response to such a dispute is not to litigate but to reject the entire post-conciliar musical “repertoire” as a corruption of the sacred and return to the *Graduale Romanum* and the authentic patrimony of chant and polyphony, which are the common and unowned heritage of the faithful. The “striking similarity” that should concern Catholics is the profound similarity between the post-conciliar “hymn” and any profane, sentimental, or anthropocentric composition—a similarity born of the same modernist spirit that seeks to please man, not God.
Conclusion: The Liturgy as Battlefield of the Apostasy
This copyright suit is a microcosm of the Great Apostasy. It reveals a “Church” that has:
1. **Reduced the sacred to the secular:** Translating liturgical prayer into copyrightable “content.”
2. **Abandoned supernatural purpose:** Discussing “music” without a single reference to the Sacrifice, grace, or the glory of God.
3. **Submitted to civil tribunals:** Allowing the world’s courts to adjudicate internal “worship” matters.
4. **Fostered a proprietary, individualistic ethos:** In direct opposition to the communal, hierarchical, and tradition-bound nature of true Catholicism.
5. **Produced a clergy and faithful musically illiterate:** Needing “crash courses” to understand the basics of what was once second nature to every altar server.
The only “striking similarity” of note is between this entire affair and the warnings of St. Pius X against the “enemies within” who corrupt everything sacred. The fight is not over “copyright” but over the very nature of worship: is it the sacrifice of the Mass offered to God, or a human assembly governed by the laws of the marketplace? The neo-church has chosen the latter, and this lawsuit is its logical, profane conclusion. The faithful are called not to pick sides in such disputes, but to flee the abomination and cleave to the immutable Tradition, where sacred music is a prayer, not a property.
Source:
Jurors given piano performance, crash course in music as part of copyright suit over Catholic hymns (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 18.03.2026