Sir, - I am delighted for the sake of Dr Fullam and the lucky people of Portarlington that they enjoy such a wealth of varied church music. However, I fear it is Dr Fullam, and not previous commentators, who has not been in many churches over the last 20 years.
In the vast majority of the churches I frequent (and I do still attend, which says much for my dogged devotion to duty), the music is generally sentimental drivel with no theological or musical content whatever, with the occasional lapse into bad gospel singing and, in one celebrated example, a barroom singer crooning solo from the pulpit. This is not even to consider the dreaded folk group which one can usually, with a little forethought, avoid.
Before we all begin to flee the sheer vulgarity of it all, could the Catholic Church not recover its nerve sufficiently to lay down some stringent rules governing the whole business? Otherwise, inevitably, the lowest common demonstrator will prevail.
In a nutshell, I would prefer to go to my grave to the strains of In Pamdisum rather than Going Home. - yours, etc.,
Dromahair,
Co. Leitrim.