The B.C. Catholic portal (November 16, 2025) reports neuroscientist Kathlyn Gan’s claims that sacred music “enriches and strengthens the brain,” mitigates Alzheimer’s risk, and fosters social connections. While acknowledging music’s role in spiritual growth, the article prioritizes therapeutic utility over supernatural purpose, exemplifying the conciliar sect’s naturalization of sacred realities.
Scientism Usurps the Supernatural Finality of Sacred Music
The article proclaims music “can help counter the mental decline that accompanies aging” and is “part of a healthy lifestyle,” reducing the Opus Dei (Work of God) to a neurological stimulus. This aligns with Pius IX’s condemnation in the Syllabus of Errors (1864) that “the Church is an enemy of the progress of natural and theological sciences” (Error 57). Gan’s assertion that sacred music’s “special benefits” are “challenging for scientists to prove” exposes the modernist inversion: divinely revealed truths subjected to empirical verification, precisely condemned in St. Pius X’s Lamentabili Sane (1907): “Truth changes with man, because it develops with him, in him, and through him” (Error 58).
“Music activates different parts of the brain, strengthening pathways for memory, movement, emotion, and empathy.”
This materialist framework obliterates the raison d’être of sacred music defined by Pius X in Tra le Sollecitudini (1903): “Its principal office [is] to clothe with suitable melody the liturgical text.” The article’s silence on the Mass’s propitiatory sacrifice—for which Gregorian chant was crafted—constitutes apostasy by omission.
Profanation of Liturgical Music as Medical Utility
By celebrating Montreal doctors prescribing symphony tickets as “medicine,” the article validates the conciliar sect’s desacralization of worship. Contrast this with Pius XI’s Quas Primas (1925): “When… states renounce and do not wish to recognize the reign of our Savior… the entire human society had to be shaken.” The reduction of sacred music to a therapeutic tool parallels the Syllabus‘ condemnation of those who “equate the Christian religion with false religions” (Error 18).
“[Sacred music] contributes to the solemnity and beauty of the Mass… and glorifies God.”
This vague definition—embracing “jazz and gospel”—contradicts Pius X’s uncompromising standard: “The more closely a composition for church approaches in its movement, inspiration, and savor the Gregorian form, the more sacred and liturgical it becomes.” The article’s promotion of subjective “spiritual formation” over objective rubrics exemplifies the modernist heresy condemned in Lamentabili: “Dogmas… are merely modes of explanation and stages in the evolution of Christian consciousness” (Error 54).
The Silent Apostasy: Denying Music’s Role in the Opus Dei
Nowhere does the article mention that sacred music’s primary purpose is to glorify God through the unbloody renewal of Calvary’s sacrifice. This omission constitutes implicit denial of the Mass’s dogmatic reality. As the Syllabus declares, silence on truth enables error: “The Church not only ought never to pass judgment on philosophy, but ought to tolerate the errors of philosophy” (Error 11).
The invocation of St. Augustine’s “he who sings, prays twice” is weaponized against itself. Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos clarifies that song elevates prayer because “singing is for one who loves,” not because it stimulates neural pathways. The article’s neurological reductionism embodies the conciliar revolution’s essence: replacing cultus Dei with cultus hominis.
Conclusion: Naturalism as Anti-Liturgy
Gan’s description of her ministry as sharing “lived experience” through music epitomizes the anthropocentric rot. Pius X’s Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907) diagnosed this: “The Religious sense is contained in the sentiment… by means of which man… acquires a certain sense of the invisible.” When “Archdiocese of Toronto” musicians prioritize neural health over the lex orandi, they confirm Benedict XV’s warning in Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum (1914): “There is no difference between truth and falsehood, justice and injustice… all must be considered as equally valid.”
Source:
Sacred music is good for the brain as well as the soul, neuroscientist says (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 16.11.2025