Meanwhile, In The Land of OCP...

...a.k.a. Portlandia, comes this pleasantly surprising development:

Archbishop Sample’s pastoral letter encourages worship music that is truly sacred — and he gives objective criteria (Catholic Sentinel)

Archbishop Alexander Sample on Jan. 25 released a pastoral letter to the Archdiocese of Portland on sacred music for Mass, seeking to highlight “perennial truths”: sanctity, beauty and universality. 

“Only music which possesses all three of these qualities is worthy of Holy Mass,” Archbishop Sample writes, explaining that ancient or modern music can qualify but that Gregorian chant is the preferred music for Roman Catholic worship. [...]

“The beauty, dignity and prayerfulness of the Mass depend to a large extent on the music that accompanies the liturgical action,” the archbishop writes.  

And from the letter itself (HT: Corpus Christi Watershed):

Every parish is asked to learn English plainchant settings found in the Roman Missal and should establish a least a small repertoire of Latin Gregorian chants for Mass parts.

Wow. Just wow. It doesn't get more direct than that, and yet it appears His Exellency has done a fine job of not browbeating it into his flock. That Abp. Sample is doing this is not surprising, since he laid the groundwork for a similar occurrence in the Diocese of Marquette, MI when he was bishop there.

We're not supposed to applaud in Church, so let's give His Excellency applause here:

Exit question: Does this new emphasis on sacred music make Portland more weird or less weird?