Saturday, September 8, 2012

Sung Mass with the Benedictines of St Louis in 1964

(From Chant Café)

Speaking of Dom Guéranger and the EBC, this is a video of Mass at St Louis Priory – now St Louis Abbey – in 1964.

American local TV stations still broadcast significant religious events. I once saw a recording of the installation of a Bishop of a diocese in the Western USA. This included an embarrassing incident where it turned out the Apostolic Mandate – absolutely necessary unless those involved wanted to get excommunicated – had been left in someone's car, parked in a distant location. Since the major parties all had radio mikes, if you turned up the volume of the TV you could hear the panicked discussions

From about 4:40 in the video below is an interview of the then Prior of St Louis Fr Columba Cary-Elwes. St Louis was founded from Ampleforth (hence the English accent) and my recollection is that Fr Columba came back to Ampleforth and was still alive when I was at the school. Ampleforth was founded (at several removes) from Westminster. I like the deadpan way Fr Columba handles the matter of the reformation at 9:00. "This is the famous Westminster Abbey? But that's not still a Benedictine Monastery is it?" "No, I'm afraid not. Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth the First have changed all that."