[Bishop Shawn McKnight] of the Jefferson City Diocese has published a list of forbidden hymns. Bishop McKnight earned a doctorate in Sacred Theology. Included on the prohibited list are songs by Marty Haugen, Bernadette Farrell, Rory Cooney, Bob Hurd, Ricky Manalo, David Haas, and Dan Schutte.
The document on the diocesan website notes a dozen hymns deemed “doctrinally problematic” by the USCCB.
UPDATE: Several people have written and wondered what makes hymns “problematic.” I found this document by the USCCB which explains. For example:
“All Are Welcome.”6—“Let us build a house where love is found in water, wine and wheat; A banquet hall on holy ground where peace and justice meet …” The image of the Eucharist is of an ordinary banquet where one drinks water and wine and eats wheat bread. Further, water is not on the same level as bread and wine as matter for the Eucharist, and to list them in sequence therefore only increases the implication that we are at a banquet eating ordinary food together. There is nothing else in the hymn to mitigate this impression. Someone who sings this song frequently would have a hard time imagining that the Eucharist can be and is worshipped or is in any sense a “sacrifice.” The hymn is also objectionable throughout on ecclesiological grounds as well, since it repeats the phrase “Let us build a house …” as though our actions make the Church. This hymn shows the relationship between faulty Eucharistic theology and faulty ecclesiology. As the Catechism says (see above), “The Eucharist makes the Church,” and this idea is intimately connected with the Eucharist as re-presenting the sacrifice of the Cross which makes the Church.
Back to Jefferson City. This is the list of prohibited hymns and composers from the diocesan website:
