Peter Scholtes
They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love (FEL S-252) 1968

The years after Vatican II were ones of upheval and ferment in the Roman Catholic Church. Some of that centred around the changes both in the Mass (the Novus Ordo Missae was promulgated in 1970) and the music used. Controversies about both continue to the present day.

One of the pioneering works in the latter is this album, put together (it has a decidedly homemade sound to it) by Peter Scholtes, a priest on the South Side of Chicago. The South Side is now much better known for the likes of UCC Pastor Jeremiah Wright and Roman Catholic priest Michael Phleger, who figured so prominently in Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

This works title track became an anthem for 1960's and 1970's Jesus Music, and perhaps was the inspiration for the Baptismal Covenant, the infamous "Contract on the Episcopalians." But the rest of the album is great too. The Missa Bossa Nova was very popular for years and the whole production, primitive though it was, sounds like Scholtes and his parishioners had a lot of fun making it.

The songs (for individual download):

1. They'll Know We Are Christians
2. Take My Hand
3. Choose Life
4. There Once Was A Man
5. Lord Have Mercy - Missa Bossa Nova
6. Glory To God - Missa Bossa Nova
7. Holy, Holy - Missa Bossa Nova
8. Our Father - Missa Bossa Nova
9. Lamb Of God - Missa Bossa Nova
10. Open Up The Boxes
11. The Lord Bless You
12. Glory Be To Israel
13. Shout And Clap Your Hands
14. We Gather Together
15. Lord Have Mercy - Mass of 67th Street
16. Holy, Holy - Mass of 67th Street
17. Lamb Of God - Mass Of 67th Street

Or you can download the entire album.