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It’s 2024, one might say the importance of girls receiving an education is clear enough in today's age, but that was not always the case. Women were not given the opportunity to pursue a proper education until the nineteenth century in America. This history of education for girls differs all over the world, yet this article will focus on American and European educational practices. The education of girls began in the early nineteenth century at dame schools, focusing on basic literacy. “The Common School Movement of the 1840s and 1850s proposed girls' education to be taken further, and they were then permitted to attend town schools, though usually at a time when boys were not in attendance.” Most women at this point could read, but could not write efficiently.

To begin, defining the essence of a true education is necessary. Yet even before that, what is our purpose in this life? Man is created to know, love, and serve God. That is our fundamental purpose, so everything around us should be aimed to this end; Union with God, by means of loving God and our neighbor so we may, in hope, be saints in Heaven.

This truth is clearly set forth by Pius X of saintly memory:

Whatever a Christian does even in the order of things of earth, he may not overlook the supernatural; indeed he must, according to the teaching of Christian wisdom, direct all things towards the supreme good as to his last end; all his actions, besides, in so far as good or evil in the order of morality, that is, in keeping or not with natural and divine law, fall under the judgment and jurisdiction of the Church.¹

If Union with God and Sanctity is what each individual is called to pursue and fulfill by God’s grace, the Catholic faith must be at the center of our lives and education, placing God first.

Pope Pius XI said in his famous encyclical on education (Divini Illius Magistri):

“It is necessary that all the teaching and the whole organization of the school, and its teachers, syllabus and text-books in every branch, be regulated by the Christian spirit, under the direction and maternal supervision of the Church; so that Religion may be in very truth the foundation and crown of the youth’s entire training; and this in every grade of school, not only the elementary, but the intermediate and the higher institutions of learning as well.”

Unfortunately, not everyone can afford Catholic education or be blessed with a Catholic upbringing, yet education primarily begins in the home, with the family. Pope Pius XI writes, “In the first place the Church's mission of education is in wonderful agreement with that of the family, for both proceed from God, and in a remarkably similar manner.[1]

If education ultimately begins in the home with parents fulfilling their duty to guide their children, it generally begins from the mother to the child, therefore mothers should be educated to keep good character and virtue. We see it does not rely solely on teachers in schools to provide education, it takes a community of good examples to bestow on children to learn how to live a life of virtue.

Character

In “The Education of Catholic Girls” by Sr. Janet Stuart (1857-1914), “a person’s character must be formed well in upbringing, as it becomes more difficult to break habits as one is older and vices are instilled…”

“If habits are not acquired by training, and instead of them temperament alone has been allowed to have its way in the years of growth, the seal bears no arms engraved on it, and the result is want of character, or a weak character, without distinctive mark, showing itself in the various situations of life inconsistent, variable, unequal to strain, acting on the impulse, good or bad, of the moment; its fitful strength in moods of obstinacy or self-will showing that it lacks the higher qualities of rational discernment and self-control” [2]

One major fault of most educational systems today is the “neglect of the training of the will and character.[3] Government funds and grants are given to schools to improve educational subjects taught in classrooms, but there is a lack of discipline in forming the human person; which is “education” in the true sense of the term.

Stuart provides several examples as a means to training character; training girls to become virtuous women:

One, “contact with those who have themselves attained to higher levels [of character], either parent, or teacher, or friend.”[4]  Being surrounded by a faithful family, mature friends, disciplined school and teachers in a well-rounded Catholic community is beneficial in learning after others. As “Iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend,” Proverbs 27:17.

Two, “vigilance which, open and confident itself, gives confidence, nurtures fearlessness, and brings a steady pressure to be at one's best.” By being watchful of our surroundings and acting with prudence, students learn to take strides to live a life according to Christ and His Church.

Three, Criticism and correction. “To be used with infinite care, but never to be neglected without grave injustice.” Learning how to take criticism is necessary in a world that is overly sensitive in almost all areas of life, and is largely associated with not instilling good habits early on. For example, in American culture, speaking about “hot topics” such as racism or transgenderism can cause people to get “canceled” in the liberal sphere. Even disagreeing upon smaller topics, while against a bigger party may cause isolation and exclusivity. Traits of being disagreeable and forming one’s own opinion and ideas can go a long way to shape one’s character and increase the chances of not being taken advantage of. It is a good habit to instill early on, as well as knowing when and how to graciously correct others under our care or friends-alike.

Four, Discipline and obedience. “If these are to be means of training they must be living and not dead powers, and they must lead up to gradual self-government, not to sudden emancipation.”[5] To see if an individual had a successful upbringing and education, we can look at their character to see if they strive to keep discipline after schooling; whether that means working, becoming a mother, or entering religious life, a habit of discipline is necessary to be instilled to fulfill duties in life. Some, if not most, luke-warm modern Catholics have a horrible idea about the sacrament of Confirmation. Whether it is conscious or not, it seems people think it is a type of “graduation” from Catechism classes, when in reality, the fight for keeping vigilance more deeply has just begun in the newly named soldier of Christ. The lack of discipline against vice and strife for virtue is missing, and therefore I’d argue was missing to establish a true faith in that individual.

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Part II - Conclusion

Note: Last article we covered Columbus' first two travels to the New World, noting that Columbus was "a character of nearly superhuman proportions, one blessed with extraordinary vision and talent and yet dogged like a similar grand Oedipus or Lear with a tragic flaw."

Part 1: Christopher Columbus, True Son of St. Christopher | Part 1 - Catholic Family News

Punishment and Suffering

To be sure, a Spain ruled by a Queen Isabella would not long allow Columbus to be shackled. As soon as she learned of Columbus's plight, the Queen "ordered Columbus's chains removed immediately."[1] However, neither the Queen nor King Ferdinand was prepared to maintain Columbus in his combined viceroy status and ten percent take on all precious object discoveries: the sovereigns were fully persuaded they would not send "back an administrative failure to misgovern Hispaniola". When they authorized his Fourth (and last) Voyage, the King and Queen restricted his prerogatives to exploring the waters west of Cuba to find a "western passage to India." Government on Spain's behalf was explicitly taken out of Columbus family hands on September 3, 1501, when governorship of the West Indies was explicitly granted to Don Nicolas de Ovando.

Columbus at the head of a four-ship fleet well­ equipped for direct exploration set sail from Cadiz on May 11, 1502. Fifty-one years of age and in greatly weakened health, Columbus entered a crucible of fear and suffering that readily shaded into the penitential. What lingering attachments he had to colonizing and gold acquisition were steadily ground down. Nor was his crew spared; of the 135 men who departed, a quarter did not return. Torrential rain sounded a first expiatory note. When Columbus raised the coast of present-day Honduras, he immediately met terrible weather. For twenty-eight consecutive days, Columbus and his men endured torrential downpours so bad that "all distinction between sea and sky seems lost." Everything got soaked; the cooking fire would not start so each sailor consumed "a wormy biscuit and a hunk of salt horse" and, when the rain moderated, each man had to fend off blood-engorged mosquitoes.

The weather nightmare abated on September 14, 1502. Conditions on neither the land (essentially, to­ day's Mosquito Coast off Nicaragua through Pan­ama) nor sea improved appreciably during the ensuing months. So much rain fell on the land itself "as to make agriculture on any large scale unprofitable." Boats could make little progress up the creeks and streams because the water usually occurred in freshets. Animal life was comparably daunting. Columbus's son Ferdinand, who accompanied the expedition and would later become an important biographer of his father, took note of "the vast great lizards or crocodiles" which "if they find a man asleep ashore they will drag him into the water to devour him". Nor did the weather offshore relent. In December, 1502, the thunder and lightning were so terrifying, Columbus recorded in his journal, that nearly all his men eventually "were so worn out that they longed for death to end their dreadful sufferings." Only Columbus's devout Faith, iron will and first-rate seamanship enabled his men to avoid utter disaster during those terrible days.

Moral progress is usually by fits and starts. If Columbus started to understand that his talents resided primarily in sailing and exploration, he continued to hold on to unrealistic dreams of colonizing. His Fourth Voyage settlement attempt, started in January, 1503, at Belen (of today's Panama) makes the point quite well. Columbus rarely had full control of his (largely) Spanish crew; almost as soon as he had landed at Belen, "Spaniards in twos and threes had been stealing off to the bush, and by arms extorting gold from the natives." Nor had Columbus learned from earlier colonization disasters such as Navidad from the First Voyage earlier related. He began construction of a permanent fort for better exploration of gold just as he had before. Not surprisingly, the local natives began to arm for resistance to which Columbus responded by seizing a local chief, his family and several villagers. The natives retaliated. A Spanish party that had gone up a stream to cask fresh water was killed. Their bodies were discovered "floating downstream, covered with hideous wounds and at­ tended by carrion crows." At roughly the same time, wretched native hostages who had been confined in the dank interior of one of Columbus's ships, "had collected ropes in the hold and hanged themselves to the deck beams". Columbus knew he had to leave but, of his three remaining ships, none were truly seaworthy: while "the fleet had been lying idle ... the teredos or shipworms had been getting in their deadly work." While Columbus could have been fulfilling a primary responsibility of caulking his vessels, he was too busy with ultimately secondary activities.

By the time he was afloat, Columbus had lost the trust of his men, ironically in the area of navigation which he truly knew because of his colonizing which he did not. Columbus and his men paid for the erosion of morale he had himself triggered. Colum­ bus understood upon sailing from Belen that the best course to Hispaniola, the one location where Spanish towns and provisioning existed, was the one he plotted. His less knowledgeable pilots successfully insisted on a worse course. The expedition landed, as Columbus expected, in an isolated portion of Cuba. Worse, the worm-eaten vessels increasingly leaked; "pumping a hopelessly leaking vessel is the worst; the labor is back breaking ... and you know it can never improve." Just as bad, the prevailing winds and currents meant Columbus and his men could not go directly to Hispaniola; rather, they had to head for the much less Europeanized Jamaica.

Survival itself was in question at that juncture. Columbus did what he could to provide beach quarters at the Jamaica landing for his men. He used the rotting ships themselves for shelter and arranged his meager artillery and small arms so that his men "could beat off attack either from the shore or from a flotilla of canoes." Notwithstanding he had to keep to his bed with arthritis, Columbus had to secure food for his famished men. Knowing that too many of his men would seize food if left to their own devices, Columbus became even less popular by ordering everyone to keep within the camp. For a while the nearby Jamaican natives were willing to exchange food for trading truck but hawk's bells and glass beads, essentially all the Spanish could offer, would only go so far. In increasing desperation for himself and his men, Columbus was inspired to use his knowledge of astronomy. Using a copy of Regiomontanus's Ephemerides, which contained predictions of "eclipses for thirty years ahead", Columbus warned local chiefs that "God observed with deep disapproval how negligent they were in bringing provisions" and "would presently send them a clear token from Heaven of the punishment they were about to receive." When the eclipse occurred, "the Indians took heed, and were so frightened that with great howling and lamentation" they came from "every direction to the ships laden with provisions". The stratagem had worked to allay famine, if only temporarily.

Columbus ultimately had to get word to Hispaniola, which could only be done by volunteers manning canoes. The loyal Diego Mendez and those who accompanied him had to paddle 105 miles "against wind and current" just to arrive at Hispaniola, whereupon they had 350 additional miles of canoeing to reach the capital, Santo Domingo. Just the voyage to Hispaniola was so terrible that no one, other than the intrepid Bartolomeo Fieschi, was willing to return to Jamaica to let Columbus know Hispaniola had been reached. Mendez, the group leader, had his own difficulties with the new governor, Ovando, Ferdinand and Isabella's replacement for the Columbus brothers. Perhaps viewing the Columbus family as a political rival, Ovando took his time about granting Mendez' petition for help: Mendez reached Ovando deep within Hispaniola in August, 1503, but only got Ovando's permission to proceed to the port of Santo Domingo in March, 1504. At that, Mendez had to equip a rescue vessel at his own expense.

During the time Mendez was away, Columbus and his brother Bartholomew had to deal with a rebellion led by the Porras brothers. Francisco and Diego de Porras, increasingly anxious about their marooned condition and fully rejecting Columbus's leadership, gathered a mutiny of roughly half the remaining men. Rather than resist, the bed-ridden Columbus, who "would probably have been murdered if three or four of his devoted servants" had not restrained him, counseled his brother Bartholomew to let the rebels go. The Porras brothers seized ten canoes and departed, "robbing the Indians wherever they could, and telling them to collect their pay from the Admiral". Because of their lack of navigating skills, the Porras brothers had to abort their voyage to Hispaniola. When they returned to Jamaica, the mutineers had the nerve to attack Columbus and the sickly minority who remained; for Columbus had stores of food which they lacked. When the bloody fight concluded, Columbus and his loyalists had won. With great magnanimity - doubtless related to the nobility of soul issuing from accepting the abundant suffering his own sins had at least partially generated - Columbus issued a full pardon to all save the  ringleader,  Francisco de Porras,  who was shackled. Not too long afterward, the rescue ship Diego Mendez had chartered arrived.

Columbus got little enough compensation for all his efforts and suffering at the end of his searing Fourth Voyage. At Hispaniola where he first stopped, Columbus suffered the hypocrisy of Governor Ovando "making great pretense of joy at seeing the Admiral" but subsequently "showed his real sentiments by setting the Porrases at liberty". Columbus's later treatment in Spain was only marginally better. His greatest supporter, Queen Isabella, had died in November, 1504. King Ferdinand dawdled before granting the ailing Columbus an audience in May, 1505. The royal audience ended with Columbus securing practically nothing of the compensation he believed he deserved. He had declined from being a celebrated explorer to yesterday's stale news.

Not many noticed in the spring of 1506 when the "Admiral's malady was increasing rapidly, and his attendants knew that the end was near". Columbus executed a last will and testament on May 19, 1506, naturally providing for his immediate family but also "leaving small legacies to pay debts of conscience at Genoa and Lisbon", as well as a sinking fund for "the long-hoped-for crusade to Jerusalem". The searing reparation of the Fourth Voyage had melted his remaining pride and greed. Only Columbus's two sons - Diego and Ferdinand - two closest friends, Diego Mendez and Bartolomeo Fieschi, "and a few faithful domestics" were at the bedside of the dying Columbus the next day, May 20, 1506, the Vigil of the Ascension. The Admiral received Last Rites, recited "in manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum" and died.

The Glory of Columbus

To all intents and purposes, Columbus died in obscurity: court "chroniclers" neglected "to record his death" and the bulk of "courtiers" did not bother "to attend his modest funeral at Valladolid." Cumulatively, however, the stupendous nature of his achievement gradually dawned on even the least observant. Nothing could be further from the truth than the idea, commonly found in the classroom, that Columbus simply sailed back and forth between Spain and the first island, San Salvador, he discovered. If he had done only that, his accomplishment would have been no more than the unknown explorer(s) who discovered the Canary Islands and the Azores. European explorers would hardly rush to capitalize on such a limited discovery. Columbus in contrast truly had genius-level aptitude for exploration and discovery that sparked the immediate interest of other European explorers. A list of what he himself discovered and mapped is cumulatively staggering. To summarize, during the First Voyage (1492-1493), he charted most of the Baham.as, Cuba and Hispaniola; during his Second Voyage (1493-1496), Columbus discovered both Puerto Rico and Jamaica, not to mention many of the Lesser Antilles;[2] during the Third Voyage (1498), Columbus confirmed the existence of a continent, if not his hoped for Asia; and, by the end of the Fourth Voyage (1502-1503), he accumulated plausible native testimony about a strait that would be the basis for Balboa's famous first European encounter with the vast Pacific Ocean.

Columbus not only added to Europe's - and thereby the world's - geographic knowledge, but also established the way to safely navigate many trans­ Atlantic and intra-Caribbean routes. Many a time, always with the rudest of navigation instruments, Columbus braved - and charted - waters no European had ever experienced before. In the process he demonstrated a genius for instinctive choice of routes and intuitive means to sail them. that Samuel Eliot Morison, a sailor himself, citing the French seam.an Jean Charcot called:

'1e sens marin, that intangible and unteachable God-given gift of knowing how to direct and plot 'the way of a ship in the midst of the sea'."

Here, too, samples of just a few of the seemingly insurmountable sailing obstacles Columbus m.et and conquered are in order. We have already seen how Columbus's sailing skills saved himself and his entire crew on their return from the famous First Voyage. During the Second Voyage, while sailing along the southern coast of Cuba, Columbus proved "his competence at coastal piloting, under the exceedingly difficult conditions of a labyrinth of uncharted cays and shoals" which fully complemented "his ability as a deep-water navigator." On that Voyage's return to Europe, Columbus's pilots guessed their projected landfall at locations that ranged "all the way from England to Galicia." Columbus, initially to their laughter, declared instead for one of the Azores Islands. He was correct, the "neatest bit of navigation that Columbus ever did." Moreover, without benefit of maps Columbus mastered the internal sailing of the Caribbean; most memorably during the Third Voyage, when he navigated roughly five-hundred miles of water between Margarita (off the coast of Venezuela) and Hispaniola.

Many a European explorer - the Verrazzanos, Cabots and Hudsons of the coming decades - followed confidently in Columbus's wake, including the captains and pilots Columbus himself had trained "who were to display the banners of Spain off every American cape and island between Fifty North and Fifty South." Additionally, Columbus's efforts sparked new patterns of living on purely the material level between Old World and New that has come to be called the "Columbian Exchange" in his honor. Columbus was one of the first Europeans to eat pineapple, sample tobacco and sleep in a hammock, the latter becoming standard sleeping quarters for U.S. sailors until about 1900. Columbus, a careful note-taker of everything he saw, taught his fellow Europeans about the flamingo and the manatee. Other material transformations came after his era: the pork-packing plants of Cincinnati and the Chicago stockyards could not have come about without Columbus's epochal discoveries, because the New World peoples had neither pigs nor cattle. In the opposite geographic direction, the tomato of Italian cuisine and potato of Irish diet only existed after 1492, because those foods were not known in the Old World.[3]

Even Columbus's great failings in government that we have abundantly rehearsed diminish when placed in a fuller context. The historian Jacques Barzun is very helpful in this regard: he notes that the ravages of greed and exploitation are worst "when the scene is vast and sparsely populated, when communication is slow and policing is haphazard."[4] Such aptly describes colonization during Columbus's era, that much worse when one adds that he and his brothers "belonged to an anti-Spanish faction in Genoa,"[5] hardly good preparation for controlling largely Spanish crews and colonizers. Besides, to control the likes of brutal Spaniards like Hojeda and Margarit, an administrator would have needed to be '"Angelic indeed and superhuman"': can we be too critical if Columbus did not reach that high level? He himself drew a contrast between his being "'a governor sent to Sicily or to a city or two under settled government'" and Hispaniola where he actually served as governor, among "a people, warlike and numerous, and with customs and beliefs very different from ours."[6] Professor Barzun, who acknowledges that the Spanish colonists "committed atrocities from. greed and racist contempt that nothing can palliate",[7] at the same time draws attention to a pattern throughout world history of the stronger conquering the weaker; of one tribe displacing another in ancient Greece, of the Anglos and Saxons overcoming the Romans in Britain, of the same sequence occurring in the Caribbean before Columbus arrived and elsewhere after he departed. The myth of native peoples living in harmony with each other and nature is just that - a myth.

Granted these palliations, Columbus held himself to considerably higher standards than the modern politician. He was a Catholic man-of-action, who personally wanted to acknowledge his sins, confess and atone for them. We have seen him do just that during his Third and Fourth Voyages: when adversity struck him, Columbus was no modern man wondering why "bad things happen to good people." Ultimately his Catholic religious motivation was primary in his makeup, deftly captured by Morison when he, conceding Columbus was "far from indifferent" about gold and glory, concludes that "spreading the Faith was far more potent than the desire to win glory, wealth and worldly honors". Columbus's very daily conduct was steeped in a Catholic sensibility.

Columbus would not curse, substituting "By San Fernando!" instead. Whenever possible, he observed the canonical hours of terce, vespers and compline. Between his famous voyages, Columbus "stopped at monasteries rather than the homes of caballeros or grandees."[8] These daily personal practices colored his larger religious vision. To open a second front against the Ottoman Turks, Columbus hoped that his voyages to Asia would establish contact "with the mysterious Christian prince Prester John, which might open a second front against Ottoman Islam."[9] Columbus's Faith even displayed both a mystical and apocalyptic side. When he confirmed the existence of a continent in his Third Voyage, Columbus, continuing his mistaken belief he had located the Asian mainland, thought he had reached the Garden of Eden, for was he not at the "the Terrestial Paradise at the first point of the Far East, where the sun rose on the day of creation"? Columbus was also persuaded he lived in the end times, perhaps extending to the conviction "that in 1492 there were just 155 days left to mankind before the Apocalypse.”[10]

Obviously Columbus was mistaken in that belief, but what good he accomplished on behalf of an ultimately transcendent vision! Las Casas, the contemporary of Columbus who penned so many of the criticisms of the Admiral that are routinely employed by liberal scoffers to this day, offered perhaps the most just overall estimate of the great explorer, simultaneously a sinner and great Catholic. Notwithstanding his own strictures against Colum­ bus's considerable wrongs of gold exaction and slavery, Las Casas wished he "had the eloquence of Cicero to extol the indescribable service to God and to the world which Christopher Columbus rendered", pre-eminently to "all the sons of Adam they are now prepared to be brought to the knowledge of their Creator.”[11]

Patrick J. Brill, Ph.D

Part Ill -    Conclusion

In the previous installment, we examined the history of Catholic sacred music from the beginning of the Church to the end of the 13th Century in search of a tradition giving Gregorian chant priority to the virtual exclusion of polyphonic sacred music. No evidence was found in papal legislative documents (or for that matter, in ANY form of legislative ecclesiastical communication), that supported any legal Church-wide suppression of sacred polyphony, either as a directive, or as a precept. In the early 14th Century, we also saw that John XXII's bull Docta Sanctorum Patrum was NOT a suppression of polyphonic sacred music but instead, a set of precepts designed to purify sacred polyphony of abuses that appeared in the second half of the 13th Century. Pope John makes it very clear that polyphonic sacred music is to be retained in the liturgy of the Church, particularly in the Mass and the Divine Offices. The precepts of John XXII's legislation would remain in effect until the Council of Trent. In this installment, we will continue with this historical examination, beginning with the Council of Trent, and continuing to the eve of the Second Vatican Council.

II. Chant vs. Sacred Polyphony: A Brief History of Catholic Sacred

Polyphony (continued)

d)  The Council of Trent

The onset of the Protestant Reformation begins in 1517, when Martin Luther nails his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the collegiate church in Wittenburg, Germany. Along with Calvin, Zwingli, Knox, and later, Henry VIII of England, Luther and his revolutionaries form the forefront of a great revolt against the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, in the wake of this revolt, large parts of certain European countries, especially northern parts of Germany, fall to the reformers.

In direct response to this attack on the Church, the Popes and upper hierarchy of the time respond by convoking the Council of Trent. This Council becomes the chief force in the new Counter­ Reformation. Begun in 1545, the Council will meet on and off, for eighteen years between 1545 and 1563. The Council will address three primary topics: first, it will be occupied with a doctrinal defense of Catholic teaching against the heresies of the Reformation; second, it will be concerned with the eradication of internal abuses and problems; and third, it will deal with the liturgy, particularly the reform of sacred music. We, of course, will be concerned with this last aspect - the reform of sacred music.

The Council of Trent, in its treatment of sacred music, is primarily concerned with five principal abuses: first, the problem of many singers who are untrained (and unskilled) in the art of music and voice, and who teach through substitute assistants to cover their own lack of competence; second, the use of poorly edited music books by these same untrained and incompetent singers; third, poor execution and interpretation of sacred music, along with deliberately omitting important liturgical texts and songs from the prescribed music books; fourth, a lack of reverence and proper interpretation of the chant at the Divine Offices; and fifth, the use in the liturgy of songs and organ music that lack piety and the sense of the sacred, as well as the use of vernacular texts not taken from Sacred Scripture, and even the use of texts that are opposed to Scripture.[1]

As the Council attempts to find solutions to these problems, during the September 1563 meetings Pope Pius IV sends two cardinals, Giovanni Marone and Bernardo Navagero,[2] to preside at the Council.[3] Among the many issues discussed at the twenty­ fourth session (November 11, 1663), Cardinals Marone and Navagero reviewed the question of the use of sacred music at Mass. Both Cardinals suggested that only Gregorian chant should be used at Mass, and much stronger prohibitions be made for sacred polyphonic music in liturgies other than the Mass. This "suggestion" was, of course, unprecedented in the entire history of the Church. Fortunately for sacred polyphony, saner heads would prevail. When the King of Spain, Ferdinand I, heard news of this, he wrote to the Council Fathers defending the retention of sacred polyphony:

"We will not approve removing ornate chants (polyphony) completely from our services, be­ cause we believe that so divine a gift as music can frequently stir to devotion the souls of men who are especially sensitive to music. This music must never be banned from our churches."[4][My emphasis]

Notice that unlike Cardinals Morone and Navagero, Ferdinand I is in complete conformity to the over fifteen-hundred years of Catholic sacred music tradition by stressing, first, the divine gift that "can frequently stir to devotion the souls of men ...," as well as the admonition that this genre of music must never be banned from Catholic churches.

In the discussions of music at Trent, there appeared to be two main opinions: one, those who called for the near total suppression of polyphonic

music from the liturgy; second, those who called for a reform of music and who desired to preserve both chant and sacred polyphony in the liturgy of the Church. Finally, according to Hayburn, the Council Fathers decided that both chant and polyphony were to be RETAINED in the liturgy of the Church:

"On December 3, 1563, it was made known to those present at the council that music would be accepted by the Church. At the same time all profane and worldly forms of music must be excluded permanently from the house of God."[5]

As further proof of the Church's desire to preserve not only Gregorian chant, but also sacred polyphony, Pope Paul IV, in his Motu Proprio: Alias Nullas Constitutiones, which was promulgated on August 2, 1564, forms a congregation of eight Cardinals to oversee the implementation of the decrees of the Council of Trent. This Motu Proprio is divided into several jurisdictional sections. The one dealing with music falls under the jurisdiction of the Camera Apostolica. One of the earliest issues that the congregation takes up is the promotion of the Papal Choir as a model of the principles of the new reform, in order to give an excellent example to the entire Catholic world of what sacred music should be.[6]

The two leading Cardinals of the commission most involved with musical matters were Cardinal Carolus Borromeus (today known as St. Charles Borromeo), and Cardinal V. Vitellozi. In addition to the disciplinary aspects of the Papal Choir, these Cardinals were concerned with establishing a style of polyphonic music that would reflect the teachings of the Council of Trent on sacred music. One plan of these Cardinals was to commission certain sacred music compositions to be performed in the presence of an assembly of Cardinals in order to receive their comments as to how the music followed the principles of clear textual enunciation, and profane­-free Latin texts. Cardinals Borromeo and Vitellozi invited the Papal Choir to sing at the home of Cardinal Vitellozi on April 28, 1563, in order to sing some Masses, and to determine if the words could be clearly understood.[7] It is not known with certitude what Masses were performed that day, but there is some documentary evidence to show that three Masses by Palestrina were perhaps performed.[8] Furthermore, according to Hayburn, Cardinal Borro­meo invited the well-known composer Vincenzo Ruffo to compose a Mass that would demonstrate the clarity of the text, as desired by the Council. This fact, along with Cardinal Borromeo's deep involvement in the fight against banning sacred polyphony from the Church, certainly shows a Church Father who had a clear understanding of the sacred music traditions of the Catholic Church, and who was willing to contend with persons ignorant of these musical traditions. Finally, according to Hayburn:

"On June 19, 1563, Palestrina was requested to perform a Mass in the Sistine Chapel, where a number of Cardinals had gathered with the Pope [i.e., Pope Pius IV - P.B.]. When the group admired the work, the Pope declared that such music be kept in the services of the Church on the condition that its use be disciplined."[9] [My emphasis]

Although this "battle" may seem to have been hard fought, the truth is that the anti-polyphony curmudgeons were never much of a threat to the sacred polyphony of the Church. In fact, according to Lewis Lockwood, there is no substantial evidence that during the Council of Trent the idea of banning polyphony altogether ever went beyond that of a preliminary proposal.[10] In other words, the anti-polyphony cranks were no match for the solid musical traditions of the Church, defended consistently by Popes, as well as such illustrious Churchmen as St. Charles Borromeo, and the vast majority of the Fathers of the Council of Trent.