Church Music Association of America

The Church Music Association of America (CMAA) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) association of Catholic church musicians and others who have a special interest in music and liturgy, active in advancing Gregorian chant, Renaissance polyphony, and other forms of sacred music for liturgical use. Founded in 1964, it is affiliated with the Consociatio Internationalis Musicae Sacrae (Roma), an advisory organization on sacred music founded by Pope Paul VI.

The CMAA provides support for those interested in participating in a revival of Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony in Catholic liturgy. It sponsors scholarship and composition in the tradition of sacred music. It hosts the most-attended colloquium on sacred music in the English-speaking world, held annually since 1990.

The CMAA embraces the statement made by Pope Benedict XVI on June 25, 2006: "An authentic updating of sacred music can take place only in the lineage of the great tradition of the past, of Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony."

It publishes the quarterly journal Sacred Music and serves as a professional and social network for musicians, seminarians, and priests dedicated to the aesthetic and liturgical ideals of the Catholic Church.

The CMAA was formed as the American affiliate of the Consociatio Internationalis Musicae Sacrae (CIMS), established by Pope Paul VI on November 22, 1963, the Feast of Saint Cecilia, patroness of music. CIMS developed out of a series of conferences on sacred music held in Europe starting in the Holy Year 1950, sponsored by the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music. The chirograph, Nobile subsidium Liturgiae, established the Consociatio as an "international institute which would be able to make known [to the Holy See] the needs of sacred music, and which would be able to assist in putting the decisions of the supreme ecclesiastical authority relating to sacred music into practice." Pope Paul VI appointed officers for the CIMS on March 7, 1964.

As the Second Vatican Council drew to a close in 1964, a group of American church musicians met at Boys' Town, Nebraska, to form the CMAA as the American affiliate of the Consociatio. They were members of the Society of Saint Gregory of America (founded 1913) and the American Society of Saint Cecilia (founded 1874). A photo taken at the meeting shows 63 participants. Most prominent at the meeting were Monsignor Schmitt, Reverend Richard J. Schuler, Archabbot Rembert Weakland, Father John Selner, and Father Robert A. Skeris. A provisional constitution was drafted and officers were chosen: Weakland was named president, Father Cletus Madsen vice president, Father Schuler secretary, and Frank Szynskie treasurer. At this meeting a resolution put forward by Fr. Skeris was adopted in which the group pledged itself to maintain the highest artistic standards in church music and to preserve the treasury of sacred music, especially Gregorian chant.

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