Tra Le Sollecitudini – Motu Proprio of Pope Pius X – On Sacred Music – November 22, 1903
Pope St. Pius X
“Nothing should have place, therefore, in the temple calculated to disturb or even merely to diminish the piety and devotion of the faithful, nothing that may give reasonable cause for disgust or scandal, nothing, above all, which directly offends the decorum and sanctity of the sacred functions and is thus unworthy of the House of Prayer and of the Majesty of God.”
Musicae Sacrae – Encyclical of Pope Pius XII – On Sacred Music – December 25, 1955
Pope Pius XII
“41. First of all the chants and sacred music which are immediately joined with the Church’s liturgical worship should be conducive to the lofty end for which they are intended. This music – as our predecessor Pius X has already wisely warned us – “must possess proper liturgical qualities, primarily holiness and goodness of form; from which its other note, universality, is derived.”[18]
42. It must be holy. It must not allow within itself anything that savors of the profane nor allow any such thing to slip into the melodies in which it is expressed. The Gregorian chant which has been used in the Church over the course of so many centuries, and which may be called, as it were, its patrimony, is gloriously outstanding for this holiness.”
De musica sacra et sacra liturgia – Sacred Congregation for Rites – September 3, 1958
“As everyone realizes, sacred music and sacred liturgy are so naturally inter-woven that laws cannot be made for the one without affecting the other. Indeed in the papal documents, and the decrees of the Sacred Congregation of Rites we find materials common to both sacred music, and sacred liturgy.“
