Many of the older Christian Churches in Europe are, by design, wonderful musical venues. They are built with high roofs, and arches, and complex surfaces designed not only for their visual beauty, but also to increase something called acoustic reverberation, which can basically be described as the length of time a sound hangs in the air before fading away into nothing. If built with thought and care, the largest basilicas and cathedrals – good examples are Ely Cathedral near Cambridge and the Basilica of St Andrew of the Valley in Rome – turn the human voice into something vaguely angelic and otherworldly.
Music and religion – along with art and religion – have always been deeply intertwined. Christianity in particular has always made a conscientious effort to link music and art with the existence of the Christian God, exploiting architecture and sound and painting to create a sense of awe and wonderment appropriate for a “house of God”. This is, after all, the whole point of a church: It is supposed to make you feel closer to the divine.
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For the 500 year or so history of the House of Hapsburg as Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, and later the Empire of Austria-Hungary, Imperial funerals had a salient and relevant tradition:
As the cortège approached the church, the master of ceremonies of the imperial court would approach the locked doors of the church, knock with his staff of office, and call out, ‘Open the doors to receive the body of his imperial and royal highness, Franz Josef von Habsburg,’ or whoever it was. And he would list the titles of the dead monarch, who, since he had been an emperor, had many: he was not only Emperor of Austria but also King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, Prince of This, and Archduke of That, Count of Somewhere Else and Knight Commander of many Orders. It made an impressive list of titles and honours. But a voice would answer from within the church, ‘We do not know him’. And the doors would remain shut.
The master of ceremonies would knock again, ‘Open the doors to receive the body of the late Franz Josef von Habsburg’. This time there was no list of titles. Once again the voice would answer, ‘We do not know him’. And the doors would remain shut.
A third time the master of ceremonies would knock on the door, this time gently with his knuckles, ‘Open the door to Franz Josef, a poor sinner who asks for Christian burial’. And a voice from within would answer, ‘We know him!’ and the doors would open and the body be received into the church as the Requiem Mass began.
The point, lest it need spelling out, is that in death – at least in the eyes of the church – all are equal. When the dead Emperor came to be buried, the focus was not on his achievements as a man of status and ability, but on his status as a humble sinner, no better in death than anybody else.
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That some Roman Catholics may have been offended by the funeral, on Friday, of Shane McGowan is a fact that seems to stir one of three reactions amongst a solid mass of Irish people. First, there are those who are genuinely bewildered: It was a lovely, heartwarming ceremony, they say. We had tears in our eyes. This is how funerals should make you feel.
Second, there is the cohort that is downright angry, who feel that any objection to the particular form of a funeral by people of religious faith is, de facto, an attack on the person whose funeral it was. How dare you tell other people how to grieve, they say, and how dare you tarnish such a lovely unifying occasion with your weird zealotry, or whatever it is.
Third, there is the cohort who know full well why some Catholics are offended, and delight in it. Generally, these people will publicly profess to be in categories one or two but take absolute joy in the sense of desecration they experience from hearing the words arse and faggot sung immediately after holy communion.
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One of the most common talking points offered in defence of the funeral concert (it cannot, really, be called a funeral “mass” in the traditional sense) for Shane McGowan is that the deceased, aside from being a wonderful and gifted musician, was also a practicing Catholic. He deserved, they say, a send-off in a church.
This rather misses the point: Practicing Catholics, surely, practice their faith because they believe in it. And what they deserve is not a send-off in a church, but an actual catholic funeral. To honour the practice of somebody’s faith in life, you honour the rituals of that faith in their death. Simply moving an irreligious and secular musical tribute session inside a church does not make that event a Catholic funeral.
In a Catholic funeral, the focus of proceedings is not, in fact, the deceased: It is on the solemn promise made to all Catholics of life beyond the mortal, and salvation in the next world. It is not to “celebrate the life” of the deceased, but to pray, communally, for their soul.
To those who are not Catholic – and even many who are – this might seem like a somewhat esoteric point: To them, it might seem as if the central point of a funeral is to comfort the mourners and fondly remember the life of the dead person. But in fact, the point of a Catholic funeral mass is to talk to God, not to entertain and enthrall the audience in the pews or watching from home.
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All of the tributes to the late Shane McGowan were, of course, well-earned by him in life. That he was an extraordinary human worthy of mourning and celebration is not disputed in this column.
For the Roman Catholic Church, however, to have permitted a funeral mass to be transformed into a secular music concert, however, strikes this writer as both a mistake by the Church and something about which many Catholics have genuine cause to be legitimately upset.
The point of a church is to make people feel closer to God, not closer to a deceased, and mortal, human being. That is why the music usually played in churches is religious in nature, and not something, in the advent season, that contains the lyrics “happy Christmas your arse”.
The point of a funeral is to pray for the repose of a soul, not to create or reinforce a sense of earthly immortality for the deceased.
Finally, the point of the Church as an institution is to defend and uphold the practice of the Roman Catholic religion. Setting a precedent like this, in such a high profile way, immediately undercuts and undermines every Priest in the country (and presumably many further afield) who wish to educate people about the true purpose of a funeral mass and keep funerals focused on what the Catholic faith teaches.
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This being Ireland, the murmurs of dissent about the funeral that took place on Friday are real, and quite widespread, but almost entirely silent. There’s a sense in some that to air their discomfort with the form of the funeral would be conflated – wrongly – as some kind of disrespect to the deceased or to his family. In addition, there’s that great Irish fear of being seen as being “no craic” or a killjoy for any objection to things like dancing and singing. But as my grandmother said, and yours probably said to you: Sometimes there’s a time, and a place. A lot of people still think that, and they’re not wrong to do so.
So this is a conversation, like so many others in Ireland, that takes place in quiet whispers away from the public view. It is healthier, I think, to have it in public.
The most serious question that arises is for the Irish Bishops: If you, as the leaders of the Irish Catholic Church, cannot defend or uphold the sanctity and dignity of your own religion and its practices, why should anybody else believe in them? And if a funeral mass is just a do-it-yourself liturgy that can be embellished with singing and dancing and celebrity spotting, then what significance does it have, by itself, at all?