{"id":20,"date":"2009-09-28T23:24:49","date_gmt":"2009-09-28T23:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/the-unofficial-anthem-of-the-american-catholic-parish.html"},"modified":"2009-09-28T23:24:49","modified_gmt":"2009-09-28T23:24:49","slug":"the-unofficial-anthem-of-the-american-catholic-parish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/the-unofficial-anthem-of-the-american-catholic-parish.html","title":{"rendered":"The unofficial anthem of the American Catholic parish"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just got back from our parish’s annual fundraiser golf tournament and dinner dance.  And once again, it was confirmed for me that the great musical force that unifies the American Church isn’t Gregorian chant, or classic hymns like “Praise to the Lord” or “Hail Holy Queen” or even “Gather Us In.”  <\/p>\n

No. <\/p>\n

It’s “Electric Boogie.” <\/p>\n

I’ve lost count of the number of parish dances, fundraisers, wedding receptions and graduation parties in the Church hall that have included this song — along with the requisite step-by-step instruction in “The Electric Slide.” <\/p>\n

Yes.  “Electric Boogie” is the celebratory anthem of the American parish.  (“YMCA” is a close second.)<\/p>\n

So let’s get down.  It’s electric.<\/p>\n

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I just got back from our parish’s annual fundraiser golf tournament and dinner dance.  And once again, it was confirmed for me that the great musical force that unifies the American Church isn’t Gregorian chant, or classic hymns like “Praise to the Lord” or “Hail Holy Queen” or even “Gather Us In.”  No. It’s “Electric…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-people-in-the-pews"],"yoast_head":"\nThe unofficial anthem of the American Catholic parish - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/09\/the-unofficial-anthem-of-the-american-catholic-parish.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The unofficial anthem of the American Catholic parish - 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}