Just by way of comment on Songbird’s answer: “Kyrie eleison” is not restricted to the Roman Catholic church - it’s also used in the Anglican liturgy.
**Footnote added by CKDextHavn, Board Moderator: the link to the original Mailbag item is http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mkyrie.html
[Note: This message has been edited by CKDextHavn]
Absolutely! But which came first,
the Catholics or the Anglicans? 
SDStaffSongbird
The Anglicans. Glastonbury was often adjudicated during the middle ages to be the oldest church in Christendom. After all, it was founded by Joseph of Arimathea.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
… and, of course, the only real difference between them from my perspective is that one says the Pope is head of the Church, and the other says the Queen is head of the Church. I forget which is which.
Well, the RC goes into a lot of hoo-hah about the BVM and the other saints that most Anglicans don’t much like and all Anglicans think really ought not to be de fide. (Which is Latin for “the stuff that, if you don’t believe it, you’re a heretic.”) Ditto for Purgatory.
But, apart from that, yes, most of the differences are political (or even just ethnic).
Of course, as an actor, I had to learn the Rosary this spring, anyway.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
I’ve been away from my computer for a while, so am just now replying to the comments.
I’m not sure what the RC theologians would say, but it’s my understanding that the Anglican view is that the Anglican church is part of the catholic (i.e. universal) church, an offshoot from the RC church, and therefore has the same claims to antiquity. For example, the Anglican communion uses the Nicene Creed, with its references to the catholic church and the apostolic succession.
As for the Queen, I believe she’s only the head of the C of E; Anglican churches in other nations have their own hierarchy. (For example, I’d be very surprised if the U.S. Episcopalian Church has Queen Elizabeth as its Supreme Head.)
jti is correct.
Notwithstanding legends of Joseph of Arimethea and the Holy Grail winding up in a place convenient for Arthur’s knights to find it; by the accounts of accepted history, both Christianity itself and the C of E decidedly came later than the founding of Christianity in Rome.
The split from Rome is a complicated tale of a king wanting a divorce. And so, independence from Rome was declared. Those who wanted to remain in union with Rome continued to be Roman Catholic and were generally persecuted. Those who wanted to remain Catholic in the way they were brought up, but wanted political freedom from Rome, became the ‘high church’ followers of the new C of E (they consider themselves to be ‘Catholic Reformers’ and not ‘Protestants’). Those who wanted to revamp the whole system, like the Protestants on the Continent, became the ‘low church’ of the C of E, and they most definitely viewed themselves as Protestants.
To this day, there are high church Anglicans who are more Roman than the Pope (high liturgy, sacraments, lots of incense, Marian devotions, deference to clergy and bishops, etc…). They call themselves ‘Catholic’ (and the RCCs ‘Romans’). And a significant number nostalgically long for reunion with the RCC.
The low church Anglicans, however, still consider themselves ‘Protestant.’ Their worship is virtually non-sacramental and their outlook is more akin to the Methodists or Calvinists. The can tend to be fundamentalist and only reluctantly consider RCCs to be actual Christians.
Keep in mind these are gross generalizations. People can vary greatly and be all in between on these issues.
The RCC’s view on Anglicanism is just as schizophrenic (to incorrectly use that psych term to mean ‘of two radically different views’). The RCC has made major overtures to Ecumenism (i.e., Christian unity), especially in not condemning non-Catholics to hell anymore. Theologically, and on the issues of Church governance (i.e., the authority of the Pope), the theologians of the two denominations are nearing complete agreement. Looks rosy, eh? Not so fast. Rome’s #2 man, Cardinal Ratzinger, just reiterated Rome’s opinion of Angligan orders (i.e., the status of their clergy) – not valid. That’s like the U.S. telling England, “We don’t recognize the authority of your Prime Minister or Queen to govern your people.” Ouch.
Of course, the whole relationship is much thornier than presented when you consider: Anglican clergy going to schismatic (yet valid, in the eyes of the RCC) bishops in order to get valid orders; lots of RCCs becoming Anglican and vice versa (including each other’s clergy); Anglican ordination of women (Rome hates that); and all those low church Anglican who hate Rome.
Peace.
Moriah,
I thought the issue of Anglican orders got settled by a bull of Leo XIII about 100 years ago. Has Cardinal Ratzinger found a way around it somehow?
A) Henry VIII didn’t want a divorce; he wanted an annulment on the grounds that the Pope had had no right, years before, to give him a special dispensation to marry his brother’s widow. The legal issues involved were 1) whether the law forbidding such a marriage came from God (in which case the Pope had no such right) or was merely a law of the Church (which the Pope could set aside) and 2) whether the Bishop of Rome, as such, legitimately exercised ultimate authority over the entire church. Apart from declaring himself the Head of the Church in England (for which there is a better argument in history than most people nowadays think), and shutting down the monastaries, Henry made no real changes, but in his son’s time, the Church of England made some moves toward Protestantism. Mary I tried to take things back, but then Elizabeth, even though showing considerable RC tendencies personally, restored the Protestant order, partly because the Pope insisted she was a bastard, and consequently not the legitimate Queen.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
By the way, the “Kyrie eleison” means “Lord, have mercy”, but it is traditionally interpreted “Lord have mercy upon us,” because Thomas Cranmer, although one of the two or three greatest and most influential prose stylists in the history of the English tongue, utterly sucked when it came to poetry, and thought, poor dear, that “Lord have mercy upon us” could be sung to the same tunes as “Kyrie eleison” because it had the same number of syllables. (I have yet to see a setting of both lyrics to the same music that does not distribute the syllables differently.)
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
(Caution: newbie post below)
Since this thread has returned to the inspiration for the original question, musical settings, I thought I’d mention the wide range of styles the Kyrie has been done in. I’ve heard at least two different medieval-church settings, and the strange (but catchy) marching-song version in the movie of Golding’s Lord of the Flies. I haven’t heard the song mentioned in the original post, but it sounds like rock, or even (Lord, have mercy!) rap. has anybody actually heard it?
I don’t know this rap version, but for many years at my church I was the soloist for Beaumont’s 1954 “20th-century Folk Mass”, in which the Kyrie and the Agnus Dei are beguines.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
I didn’t see the original question, but the 80s two-hit wonder Mr. Mister had a song called “Kyrie,” in which the chorus was:
Kyrie eleison down the road that I must travel,
Kyrie eleison through the highway in the night…
And so on. It was your typical mid-80s light-rock radio dreck.
Why does the corollary of ‘I like one kind of music’ always seem to be ‘all other music sucks’? The fact that a lot of music I like isn’t in the mainstream doesn’t make me feel like I have to look down my nose at mainstream pop; yeah, some of it’s formulaic dreck, but that’s also true of everything from rap to country to what’s played on alternative rock stations. But some of it’s genuinely good, and since mainstream pop doesn’t take itself too seriously, a lot of it is listenable and (dare I say it?) fun. Which, imo, includes Mr. Mister’s “Kyrie”, to get back on topic at last.
Sorry to branch off the thread, but I’ve got a compilation of rock hits (‘Precious Metal’), and I particularly like the track ‘Broken Wings’ by Mr. Mister.
PLDennison: Is this one of their two hits - and what was the other?
It was. And ‘Kyrie’ was the other. (I believe they had a third song that had airplay, but I can’t remember which.)
Sorry to get us back on track, but it’s always been the Catholic church’s view that they are the “One True Church” anyway, so to some the question os moot…
I attended a U.S. Catholic school & we were taught that papal infallibility basically meant even if the pope was wrong, he wasn’t. (Another of the R.C.'s contradictions that they like to call unfathomable mysteries.)
Therefor, any Pope before or after Leo XIII could declare the Anglicans NOT null & void. Each pope would be correct & would not be declaring the other wrong. The status of Anglicans would concur with whatever pronouncement was presently in effect. An example of this would be the subject of indulgences. While the Church now forbids their sale, this does not render those previously dispensed invalid, nor the
popes granting them to have been corrupt.
I believe the whole concept of infalability was adopted to excuse the Church of it’s many earlier transgressions (many popes commonly known to have kept “wives” * had children, The Crusades, The Inquisition, ,ect.)& also to allow it to change it’s stance on various issues. All to justify the claim of course, that the Church is the embodiment of unchanging truth.
M Anderson
Be sure and tune in next week when our panel of expert plumbers will answer the question, “What is a polarized outlet?” , comment on the answer by a licensed electrician, and discuss home wiring, and the principals of electricity.
“Pardon me while I have a strange interlude.”-Marx
m anderson,
I’m afraid that your education indicates another failure of Catholic Primary education. (If you heard what you posted while in high school, go back and sue them for giving you a bad education.)
The pope cannot simply declare something as infallibly true and have another pope declare the reverse as infallibly true. The RCC has only had the doctrine of infallibility for 130 years and infallibility has only been invoked twice.
Leo XIII’s pronouncements on the Anglican Communion were not put forth as infallible. As an inherently conservative institution, the RCC would publish lots of re-analysis of Leo’s position and would probably attempt to put it all “in context.” However, there would be no “infallible” pronouncement that overruled but did not do away with Leo’s pronouncement.
Two years ago, when JP II declared that the discussion regarding women as priests was “closed” some twits in the Curia tried to declare his statement as infallible. He refused to back them up on this.
Tom~