What is the role of Gregorian chant in the liturgy?

Gregorian chant is, in the words of Vatican II’s Sacrosanctum Concilium, “specially suited to the Roman liturgy” and ought to be given “pride of place in liturgical services” (§116). This was not a novel teaching; it was a confirmation of what every previous magisterial document on sacred music had said for fifteen centuries.

Chant is the proper music of the Roman Rite. Every part of the Traditional Mass that is sung — the Introit, Kyrie, Gloria, Gradual, Alleluia, Credo, Offertory, Sanctus, Pater Noster, Agnus Dei, and Communion — has a chant melody, written down in the Liber Usualis and the Graduale Romanum, that has been sung in those exact contours for over a thousand years. This is not background music. It is the prayer of the Church set to the prayer of the Church.

Chant is monophonic, modal, unmeasured, and Latin. It does not sound like popular music. That is a feature, not a defect. Popular music carries the associations of the world; chant carries no associations except prayer itself. The melodies arose specifically to bear the sacred text, and they bear it without distraction.

The collapse of chant since 1969 was not commanded by Vatican II — the Council asked for chant’s preservation. It was lost because parishes substituted what was easier and more familiar, and what they substituted formed Catholics into a different kind of worshipper. Where chant has returned, reverence has returned with it. The two are not coincidental. The Church chose chant for the Roman Rite because, over centuries, she discovered which sounds make the soul actually pray.

Go deeper → The Role of Sacred Music in the TLM