Priest Moonlights as Elvis Impersonator

This is kind of an amusing story...meet Antoniu Petrescu, a Romanian-born parish priest in Sorbo, Italy, who moonlights as an Elvis impersonator.  Fr. Antoniu's website has separate sections for himself as a priest and an artist.  You can view Fr. Antoniu performing and download his music if you wish.

Your thoughts?  Is this beneath the dignity of the priesthood, or a novel approach to making the best use of his talents?

Comments

Ultramontane,

My thoughts? Three days after Christmas, we are notified of Father Elvis. Please Ultramontane....."Don't Be Cruel"!

Father Petrescu....."You Ain't Nothing but a Houndog"! No servant can serve two masters. Pick one or the other!

[A. Nonymouse]

Sounds a little like the French experiment with worker-priests, and the priest in México who supports an orphanage as a professional "wrestler".

[Jeffrey]

No priest should listen to rock music, let alone perform it. Wrong in 1955 is still wrong now.

[joanne]

I don't see how these two "vocations" can co-exist.

Cardinal Arinze has no problem with rock music.

There's nothing inherently evil abour rock music... Jeeze, every time i read this blog I become more and more convinced its actually run by Southern Baptists who are just trying to make Catholics look as crazy as them.

[Jeffrey]

Any clergyman's opinion on rock music does not equal Church endorsement. The efforts of some priests to bring "upbeat" (rock) music into Holy Mass are abominable...we do not come to Calvary to jam while Christ is crucified no the cross.
What are the fruits of rock music? Woodstock, relaxing of morals, the spirit of rebellion. It may seem like splitting hairs but living a fully Catholic life and trying to dedicate oneself to the salvation of one's soul makes rock music unacceptable.
Can you imagine listening to Elvis with the Holy Family? "Shall I stay, would it be a sin?" Not something you can ever imagine being sung along to by Our Lord.

[David1]

"I don't see how these two "vocations" can co-exist."

I think one is a vocation and the other is a vacation.

In the end, it will be what he does with his Elvis impersonation that will make it suitable or not.

[Ruth Anne]

He dresses up like the King.

He serves the King of Kings.

What's the problem?

[joanne]

Well, he ADVERTISES it on his website, which is different from just dressing up to give his friends a laugh now and then. Besides, is it possible to imitate Elvis w/o all the hip action? That's a conflict. It just is.
LOL, Ruth Anne.

[Patrick]

Jeffrey, the term "rock music" is a rather nebulous term. It can include everything from a soft, folk-style song by Crosby, Stills & Nash or Simon & Garfunkel to very hard sounds like that of Led Zeppelin or Jimi Hendrix. It might help us if you were to be more specific about what, exactly, it is that you object to in the music. Is it the lyrics, Elvis swingin' his hips, the rhythms, flatted 5ths, or what?

[Patrick]

David 1,

This thread gives me the opportunity to follow up on something. A few months ago there was a discussion of Medieval Church modes, and I recommended the mountain or lap dulcimer for the purpose of familiarizing one's self with the modes. In case you are interested, I found a You Tube video of Joni Mitchell playing her custom made dulcimer (1970). I like to encourage the use of the instrument. Maybe that Elvis priest should use one to play Church music. I hope the link works:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=-q4foLKDlcE

[ASimpleSinner]

the priest in México who supports an orphanage as a professional "wrestler".

Padre Luchador gets a pass.

As long as Father Antoniu ends with This
Elvis song The Miracle of the Rosary, he gets a pass too.

Happy New Year.

[american aquarium drinker]

"Can you imagine listening to Elvis with the Holy Family?"

No, I can't imagine listening to Elvis with the Holy Family. I'm more a Beatles man, myself. C'mon -being Catholic doesn't require you to listen exclusively to Gregorian chant ( which I do love, btw). Rock music is great, provided it is not performed during mass.

[Jeffrey]

Patrick,
You're right, it is a little nebulous of a term.

Specifically my problems with Elvis include his hips, the lyrics of some songs (which isn't to say that the lyrics of all songs are bad), and the beat. We forget in our age of desensitization that something as "mild" as those things can cause an occasion of sin for a reasonable person, and therefore should be avoided.
More broadly, my complaints about rock music are the beat and the subject matter. Dancing is not wrong (we see positive examples of it in Holy Scripture) but dancing to rock music is generally immodest and can be an occasion of sin for a reasonable person. The standard subject of rock music is disobedience towards authority, which is an unCatholic idea.
I don't pretend to have the definitive answer about which bands are bad vs good, but more folksy music can be acceptable if the subject matter is decent (I think of what I know of Nickle Creek, for instance, as a good folk band). I don't think that Simon and Garfunkle have the best message in their lyrics, but I don't have any examples offhand.

To be fair, I don't believe Rome has spoken on the subject too much. I think one can be a good Catholic and listen to rock music provided it is not obviously satanic or perverse in nature. However, it has no place in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (which it seems all agree about here) and a priest should not be impersonating a person like Elvis.
A.A.D.-I agree that we don't need to be austere and only listen to Chant. I do think we need to be careful though.

[Patrick]

Jeffrey,

You are making some good points. There are legitimate questions to be raised about the effects of the music to which we listen. Most people, these days, do not take music seriously enough. It is regarded, simply, as entertainment or background noise. Little attention is paid to the powerful effects it can have on our bodies and minds.

Most Western European music is rooted in Gregorian Chant. Classical Music and European Folk Music grew from Chant. If you listen to some of the oldest, extant examples of English folk music you will hear melodic phrases that sound as though they were lifted directly from Chant.

Chant has irregular rhythms (it just follows the natural flow of breath). It is no coincidence that Western Classical Music and Western Folk Music are rhythmically simple and do not emphasize percussion instruments. The Church has always understood the sensual effect of the drum beat.

In West Africa, music was based on complex syncopated rhythms and percussion. It was a highly developed art. Shamans were able to incite people to frenzied orgies or prepare warriors for battle through the medium of drumming. Even in the West, the drum was used for military purposes. On our own streets, we can see and hear gangsters riding in cars pulsating loudly to the beat of rap music.

Beginning in the early 20th century, these African rhythmic elements found their way into American popular music by way of Gospel, Blues, and especially New Orleans Jazz (which drew on Afro-Caribbean rhythms). Popular music became increasingly "sensual" as the century progressed due to "the beat." In the 1920s, there was a great deal of concern over the dances which accompanied the new Jazz Music. In our own time, these rhythms are commonplace in Church music.

The reason that "the beat" is at all an issue is due to a phenomenon called "entrainment." The sensual effects occur when an organism's internal biological processes become synchronized to an external rhythm. Have you ever found yourself to be tapping your foot to a steady beat? A fast beat can even speed your heart rate. Certain types of rhythms can cause people to become agitated or make them want to get up and move.

Hindu scriptures take it all very seriously. The vibrations produced by certain types of music (with certain rhythmic schemes) are considered desirable and that of others are undesirable. In most aboriginal cultures, the desired beat is similar to that of the normal human heart rate (healthy). Lately, there has been quite a bit of attention focused on the anapestic beat (a type of backbeat) found in much rock music (two short beats followed by a long beat and a rest). Some researchers claim to have documented that the muscles go weak on the long beat (the stop beat). If this is true, the body is trying to synchronize to a beat resembling a heart arrhythmia. The Beatles did not use the so-called "anapestic beat," but Led Zeppelin did use it quite a bit.

Music may also effect the brain. Some researchers claim that certain types of music, such as Western Classical Music, can enhance brain function and performance. It is also claimed that certain, other, types of music can have negative effects on brain function.

Then, there are all those experiments on plants. Plants are said to thrive on Greg Chant, Classical, and Indian Classical Music--but they wilt to the sounds of much of our popular music. The early experiments were suspect, but such experiments have been done ad infinitum. So, I think there may be something to it.

The Ancients took music very seriously. They respected the power of music. I remember reading, in The Attic Nights of Gellius, that certain Romans believed gouty pains could be cured by flute music of the right pitch. Pythagoras had theories about vibrations similar to that of the Hindus. Maybe we should adopt some of their respectful attitude towards music.

The music I hear in most Catholic Churches, these days, drives me up a wall. Maybe I am sensitive to it, but I find it agitating in that setting. I listen to all sorts of music at home. I play a number of musical instruments. At home, I can play and enjoy a folk tune, but at Mass a similar tune will make me want to strangle the "cantor."

The Medieval folks were actually more sophisticated about Church music than we are today. Gregorian Chant employs the old system of church modes which have the power to subtly convey a variety of moods. And, it is free of the tyranny of meter.

Most of the happy-clappy stuff you hear at Mass can be thought of as being based on one mode (Ionian). If there is something in a minor key then you can add the Aeolian mode. The music always has the same steady rhythm in 4/4 time with an accent on the first and third downbeat. A steady rhythm can be constraining. It is all so monotonous and child-like.

[David1]

Hi Patrick,
Thanks for the you tube. It looks and sounds like a beautiful instrument.

However, with the swinging hips of Mr. Elvis, I think the dulcimer would shatter apart before half way through the song.

[Andrew]

Jeffrey,

Saying that "the fruits of rock music" are "Woodstock, relaxing of morals, [and] the spirit of rebellion" makes about as much sense as saying that the fruit of the Church is religious war, the Inquisition, and mad witch-hunts.

There's nothing wrong with listening to Rock music. Sure its innaproriate for mass, but so are t-shirts and blue-jeans. Do you have a problem with those, too?

[american aquarium drinker]

Nice post Patrick.

"The music I hear in most Catholic Churches, these days, drives me up a wall. "

Completely agree! My parish does the happy clap along, baptist flavored "gloria" every week. It makes my blood boil. If there is a song in a language other than English we don't get Latin, but Spanish (this is an almost exclusively white, non-Spanish speaking parish, mind you). We also get the "treat" of liturgical dance - young women in flowing robes dancing barefoot on the altar -every Christmas/Advent/Lent/Easter. Every mass ends with a round of applause for the musicians, like we just attended a Christian music pageant. Most of the time it feels like I'm attending a Protestant service instead of a Catholic mass.

As much as that drives me nuts it is better than my last parish. They had an electric guitar rock band for mass once a month ( don't worry - they toned it down for Lent and went electric-acoustic). Once they played an instrumental version of "Stairway to Heaven" during the collection. They loved to play "Get Together" ("C'mon people now, smile on yr brother....") for the Communion hymn. They usually liked to close the mass with a rocking rendition of "And they will know we are Christians" where the lead guitarist would live out his rock star fantasy, ripping off some guitar solos that were more at home in a smoky dive bar on a Saturday night than a Catholic mass on Sunday morning. I swear they were hoping some record exec. would happen to be @ mass that morning, like what he heard and sign them to a record deal on the spot. I just don't get why pastors allow the music directors to get away with this stuff. Why do they think that mass has to be entertainment? It's a disgrace.

[Jeffrey]

Andrew,
My comment on the fruits of rock music makes plenty of sense. Your comment on the "fruits" of the Church is uninformed and misleading. While you point out what you assume are bad fruits in the Church's past, two of the three (holy wars, Inquisition) were necessary for the defense of Christendom and the Church, and the third (mad witch hunts) can be generally attributed to Protestants, not Catholics.

Patrick,
Great post, good points all. I'd love some references so I can do some follow up reading on those thoughts of the ancients. I'm sorry to hear that you and AAD have to deal with such drivel at Mass; I've just decided to avoid it completely and attend the Traditional Latin Mass (for far more reasons than just music, but music is a big factor).

Probably the worst thing about rock and most modern popular (hip hop, r&b, techno, etc) music is how it is everywhere. You can't go shopping for groceries without hearing it. It gets under your skin and in your head and after some time you become used to it. What a shame.

[Patrick]

Jeffrey,

I don't want to create the impression that I am attacking any particular genre. I was born in the 50s and I grew up listening to Rock music. I still listen to it, and it is interesting to find songs that still hold my interest over time.

These days, I listen to all sorts of music. My place is full of vinyl LPs and CDs. Here, you will find quite an assortment. For instance, a random glance reveals: Balinese Monkey Chant; Tibetan Buddhist Chant; 1950s Exotica; Uncle Dave Macon; Country Joe and the Fish; John Coltrane; Medieval songs; and RCA "shaded dog" recordings of classical performances. These days, I tend to listen to a lot of Classical. Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn is playing at the moment.

My point, in the previous comment, was that music is powerful stuff. And, we should be careful about choosing music for the liturgy. First of all, we should show some deference to our long standing tradition of Gregorian Chant. Also, if you are trying to get your blood pressure down, it probably isn't a good idea to listen to Heavy Metal or Hip-Hop all day.

I will go through my books and see if there are some titles I can recommend. Sometimes, I draw thoughts together from many sources.

Regarding the omnipresence of annoying music, we have Corporate America to thank for that. Just as they build fast food joints on every corner and a Mal-Wart every two miles, the corporations control the music industry. They create and promote foul #@%&, then it is played on most of the radio stations and piped in to all the "big" stores from some computerized central location in another part of the country. It is another reason to spend your money at a small, family-owned restaurant or store.

Corporate America has your life all planned-out. You are to eat E. coli burgers (that taste like cardboard) and drink 44 ounce buckets of high fructose corn syrup water until you weigh three-hundred pounds and have diabetes and heart disease. Then, you can buy the expensive pharmaceuticals and drive one of those electric carts around Mal-Wart while you listen to bad pop music from a computer in Chicago.

[Jeffrey]

Patrick,
Thanks again for the clarification.
Regarding corporate America, I quote my wife who mentioned to me once (while I was complaining about our bishops) "we get the bishops we deserve".
In the same sense, I think, we get the corporate junk we deserve. If a restaurant or store played pornographic movies we'd completely avoid the place and it would stop doing that or go out of business. But we tolerate the garbage because to us the sales are worth it. Our grocery stores have magazines for women with covers that nobody should look at (most of all children) and yet we don't boycott them. And suddenly, we don't mind it. It's a slippery slope.
I'm likely preaching to the choir. Positively, though, why not open up a store that is known to not play pop/rock music and doesn't sell Cosmo? I'd shop there.

[David1]

The culture is indeed becoming messy and starting a slide into hedonism. We are, perhaps, the wealthiest nation in the history of the planet. With all our money and technology, we have little to restrain us from indulging our senses for the gratification of pleasure. Our youth, in particular, have wealth that few other than the sons and daughters of the kings ever had before. We are the “rich young fool” to whom Jesus said to sell all that we have and follow Him.

More than ever, we need to move into the culture and show them a better way. Jesus himself dined with “sinners” as a way to bring them to the kingdom. We can’t just stand on the sidelines wringing our hands in judgment while (and no offense intended here) we sit in our pews listening to Gregorian chant and ranting about rock music. We need to hit the streets, the Internet, the airways, the prisons, the hospitals and everywhere else with the message of the Gospel. We need to be right there with the people demonstrating the love of Christ. It’s not enough to rant – we need action.

Every single one of us can do something out there in the world to make a difference for the kingdom. It doesn’t have to be the big things, it can be the most simple acts. The main thing is to act.

[Jeffrey]

David1,
Great points. Eradicating sins of commission often happens before we eradicate sins of omission-not acting when we must. I've been very guilty of this lately. Some ways to "act":
*Pray the Rosary

*Eucharistic Adoration (they do this back home on New Year's Eve when everybody else is getting drunk)

*Daily Mass

[Patrick]

Jeffrey,

There is a contemplative element in the Church and an active element. Some people are gravitate more toward the contemplative and some toward the active as typified by the story of Martha and Mary. Both are important.

Some will be concerned about prayer, the liturgy, etc. And, some will busy themselves with evangelism and charity. There is a place for both. For instance, if the subject of this thread had something to do with apologetics work, am sure neither one of us would have discussed music.

[Jeffrey]

Agreed Patrick,
But I do believe that the three things I listed would be daily bread for anyone regardless of if they are a contemplative or more active.
I prefer the active but I know that the more I pray and focus on God the better I'll be at witnessing to others.