Behind the imposing rood screen, about forty Benedictine nuns take their places in the choir stalls as their superior intones, Deus in adjutórium meum inténde ("God, come to my assistance").

Seven times a day, the sisters of the Abbey of Notre-Dame-de-Fidélité in Jouques, a small Provencal village in southern France, gather to pray the Divine Office in Gregorian chant.

For the past five years, all their liturgies have been recorded, and the audio recordings have been transmitted to the international team behind Neumz. This mobile application provides access to 7,500 hours of the Gregorian chant repertoire.

"At first, I couldn't help but think about the recording: every time a sister coughed, I jumped," smiles Sister Marie-Dorothée, who is overseeing the recordings at the abbey.

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However, this time it's not because of a political decision of the enemies of the Church but as a precaution against wildfires in the area.

At least eight buildings have been destroyed by the flames that are devastating the land surrounding the village of Santo Domingo de Silos, and more than 500 people have been evacuated from the area.

In a statement to ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language sister news agency, the monks said that the nuns at the Benedictine monastery of Santa María in the nearby town of Aranda de Duero are lodging them at their guest house.

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Since 2019, they have been recording every plainchant of the liturgical calendar and making them accessible on a brand new app, Neumz. More than just a music streaming service, Neumz offers invaluable educational elements to learn the holy chants and gain a deeper understanding of the Mass.

It's no small order to record every chant in the Catholic songbook, as the liturgical calendar rotates on a three-year cycle. This means that the Neumz project, started in 2019, will not be complete until 2022.

When finished, they expect to have over 7,000 hours of Gregorian chant, which would make theirs the largest collection of sacred chant.

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The Fraternity is dedicated to celebrating the traditional Latin Mass.

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Bishop Mark O'Toole of Plymouth told Mass of Ages magazine he would like to "establish a regularity of provision and systematised provision" of the Mass.

"I don't like the idea of someone just going round and saying Mass here, there and everywhere," Bishop O'Toole said.

"It's much better to have some consistent provision," he said, according to a report in the Catholic Herald.

That includes not just "making provision for the celebration of Mass".

"There is also the question of how you pastorally accompany the people who come to it - the priestly support in terms of catechesis and support and advice."

He added that he wants to create a centre for traditional liturgy.

This already exists at Lanherne, in the west of his sprawling diocese, but he wants more to be done.

"If we had something around Exeter, the east Devon part of the diocese, that would help," he said.

And if people go to there instead of their own parish church, he does not see this as a problem.

"If there is regular provision, then that will become their parish," he said.

"People travel anyway."

Bishop O'Toole has been meeting with the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter about the provision of the extraordinary form.

The bishop said he is "open" to the FSSP "manning a parish in the diocese".

Bishop O'Toole described tensions between groups of laity over the form of the liturgy as "unfortunate".

He said openness needs to run both ways.

"As long as people recognise that it is a way to holiness, not the only way . . . you can't be exclusive. That's the attitude that people object to."

Sources

• Catholic Herald
• Latin Mass Society
• Image: Plymouth Herald

The office will provide advice, encouragement and guidance, but it will not attempt to impose specific styles, according to Marist Father Anthony Ward, undersecretary of the congregation.

"The Church has always adopted local artistic, architectural and music styles," Father Ward told Catholic News Service. At the same time, as the Second Vatican Council taught, "it always has emphasised Gregorian chant as the homegrown music of the Latin rite."

The Second Vatican Council's document on the liturgy said, "The Church has not adopted any particular style of art as her very own; she has admitted styles from every period according to the natural talents and circumstances of peoples, and the needs of the various rites."

The council called for the preservation of the great liturgical art of the past and the encouragement of modern artists to create pieces appropriate for Catholic worship, "provided that it adorns the sacred buildings and holy rites with due reverence and honour".

The changes in the congregation were introduced just one year after Pope Benedict XVI issued his motu proprio Quaerit Semper on September 27, 2011.

This took away two of the matters for which the congregation had previously been responsible — to do with the invalidity of priestly ordination and the dispensation for contracted but unconsummated marriages — and put the Roman Rota in charge of these.

In the motu proprio, the Pope explained: "In present circumstances it has seemed appropriate for the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments to focus mainly on giving a fresh impetus to promoting the Sacred Liturgy in the Church, in accordance with the renewal that the Second Vatican Council desired, on the basis of the constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium."

The new office for liturgical art, architecture and music will become operational in the new year.

Sources:

Vatican Insider

Catholic News Service

Image: Corpus