The Politicized Concert Mass (1967-2007): From Secularism to Pluralism

Despite utilizing a format with its roots in the Roman Catholic liturgy, many of these politicized concert masses also reflect the increasing religious diversification of Western societies.
By introducing non-Catholic and often non-Christian beliefs into masses that also remain respectful of Christian tradition, composers in the later twentieth- century have employed the genre to promote a conciliatory way of being that promotes the value of heterogeneity and reinforces the need to protect the diversity of musics, species and spiritualities that enrich life.
In combining the political with the religious, the case studies presented pose challenges for both supporters and detractors of the secularization paradigm.
Overarchingly, they demonstrate that any binary division that separates life into either the religious or the secular and promotes one over the other denies the complexity of lived experience and constitutes a diminution of what it is to be human.