Praise for To Sing With The Angels
“This wonderful book is a fitting tribute to the man who kept the music alive during the darkest times of musical confusion in the Catholic Church following the Second Vatican Council. Monsignor Schuler saw the future and he knew the great music would live again, but that he had to do his part to make this happen. It’s hard fully to appreciate the courage and conviction it took to do what he did. He must be remembered. This book makes that so.”
—Jeffrey Tucker, Director of Publications, Church Music Association of America and Editor of the New Liturgical Movement
“To Sing with the Angels is an account of the unique Twin Cities Catholic Chorale and the splendid Latin liturgy for which it sings at the Church of Saint Agnes in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Behind it all is Monsignor Richard J. Schuler, who had a consistent vision of the mandates of the Second Vatican Council maintaining the Church’s magnificent treasure of sacred music; this was an unfailing guide to the liturgy, fulfilling the hermeneutic of continuity articulated by Pope Benedict XVI.”
—William P. Mahrt, President of the Church Music Association of America and Editor of Sacred Music
“It is not only octogenarians who are aware that the concluding decades of the XXth century were an era of rapid world-wide changes affecting every area of human life. The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council was one of the chief agents of profound changes, and that not only in the area of religious belief. The Sacred Synod neither proclaimed any new dogma nor abrogated any defined Truth of the Faith. Yet it had an enormous impact upon the prayer and worship life of Roman rite Catholics. For instance, countless buildings, from simple chapels to parish churches and even cathedrals, suffered great damage to their interior arrangements and appointments. In too many instances, this resulted in significant cultural losses. Though the artistic heritage of Catholic sacred music was acknowledged and encouraged – also on solid theological grounds! – as a treasure of inestimable worth, thesaurum pretii inaestimabilis, indeed an integral part of solemn worship, five decades after the last Council the musical tradition of the universal Church has in fact been eliminated from Catholic sanctuaries and choir lofts in the course of the paradigm shift which followed the Council ….except at the Church of Saint Agnes in Saint Paul, Minnesota. This books explains how and why that happened. Vade, et tu fac similiter! (Lk 10/37).
—Reverend Robert Skeris
“Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it” is an aphorism known by all. However, many historical things are very worthy of replication. Dr. Schubert’s remarkable history of the Twin Cities Catholic Chorale is a beautiful witness to the preservation of sacred music in the liturgy, a truly great endeavor that can and should be repeated in many parishes and diocese throughout the world.
—Reverend Mark Moriarty, Pastor, Church of Saint Agnes