Amazing Grace - Should A Catholic Sing the Hymn?

Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound 

That Saved A Wretch Like Me. 

I Once Was Lost, But Now am Found 

Was Blind But Now I See

This hymn, written by a Protestant, reformed slave trader, is a staple of Christian music that is sung in just about every Christian denomination and is also quite a popular hymn in the Catholic Church.  The question of the day is simple.  Is it appropriate for a Roman Catholic to sing this song as it is written?  Some critics of this song say that it teaches patently Protestant teachings.  In the very first line of this song we call ourselves "wretches."  The classical definition of a wretch is a person who is both unfortunate, unhappy, and base, mean and/or despicable. This, some say, is a very Martin Luther-ish and John Calvin-ish view of the human condition whereas we Catholics believe that humans are not totally depraved as the "reformers" taught, but rather, as taught in Genesis when God created man, He saw us humans not only as good as he had seen all of His other works of creation, he pronounced us "very good."   I think, and I may be wrong about this, that when we Catholics sing and call ourselves wretches we are calling ourselves poor sinners, going outside of the classical definition of what a wretch actually is.  Of course in some hymnals the words are changed to a more Catholic "that saved and set me free."  In either case I think that if we exclude the classical meaning of wretch and go with the thought of poor sinner, we are okay.  Quite honestly probably most of the people in the pews are not thinking so deeply about the meaning here anyway. 

What about the concept that the song teaches about when grace is received?  It says that it is received "the hour I first believed,"  If we did not have God's grace before we believed, we never would have come to believe!  Jesus Himself told Simon Peter that it was God that made it possible form Peter to know Jesus as the Messiah.  The same principle is evident at the Annunciation - The Angel Gabriel says, "Hail Mary, Full of Grace."  The fact that she was kept free from the taint of original sin through the grace of God made it possible for her to be completely open to God's will for her life.  The grace came before she accepted God's proposal.   Again here, the average Catholic is not going to be thinking like a Calvinist or Lutheran here. I believe that the pew dweller knows that God's grace has been with him/her self since Baptism and when singing this hymn that is what comes to mind. 

To my way of thinking the rest of the song is innocuous from the point of view of Catholic doctrine, although I would imagine that is only because I am educated less robustly than the experts. 

My favorite verse is the fifth verse, "When we've been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing His praise, then when we first begun."   This verse says a lot.  It speaks of the eternal love of God and how we as Christians will be transformed into what God has always wanted us to be and we will praise Him forever. 

So what is my final verdict on this hymn?  It is not a Catholic hymn. The author's intention was to make a song exhorting the principle of saved only by grace. However, the song as sung by Roman Catholics is understood by them in the light of their Catholic upbringing.  The song does have a place in Catholic liturgy as far as I am concerned because of the way Catholics have been trained to think about how salvation is gifted to us.  The Catholic hymnal would be complete without this song but its inclusion does not harm and many of the concepts are universal and those that are not are filtered by Catholic singers to fit Catholic thought properly.