I have just returned from a week singing under the California sun. Not favourite lyrics from the Beach Boys though, but Gregorian chant and Renaissance motets. Along with 74 other choristers, choir directors and organists who attended a Sacred Music Symposium hosted by St. John the Baptist Parish in Orange County, I return to my home parish eager to put into practice what I have learned.

By the time the Catholic Book of Worship III hits its 30th birthday in 2024, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops hopes to have its replacement sitting in the pews.

VANCOUVER -- Peter Luongo, a parish music director in Surrey, B.C., is in a quandary.

WASHINGTON -- When Catholics return to their churches as coronavirus-induced lockdowns ease up, they're not likely to be confronted with a bunch of unfamiliar words in Latin printed in some medieval-era typeface with notes in the shape of squares rather than ovals.

FRIBOURG, Switzerland -- Dominican Brothers Stefan Ansinger and Alexandre Frezzato are teaching people to sing 800-year-old Gregorian chant through free weekly lessons on their YouTube channel called OPChant.

The Church in Toronto has a Lenten treasure that ends not with a whimper but a bang.

EDMONTON -- As the sound of drums, tambourines and Swahili hymns reverberated through St. Andrew’s Church, Elizabeth Muturi and fellow parishioners swayed their arms and hips, dancing down the aisle with the Book of Gospels raised behind them.

I often sit in on St. Michael’s Choir School Concerts and Music Ministries listening to the Baroque, Gregorian and Renaissance pieces accompanied by a loud organ, thinking about what kind of people enjoy this type of music.

WASHINGTON -- Catholics hear hymns in church, but hardly ever on the radio. Now they can augment their weekly diet of hymnody through a new audio web streaming service called Great Catholic Music.

Proof that the Church has no shyness about irony is affirmed by news that Canada’s new Catholic hymnal will be unleashed during Lent two years hence.

TORONTO - Very soon church choirs around the world will have 900 manuscripts of music, most of it lost, forgotten and long out of print, available for free download from the St. Michael’s Choir School web site. The music, almost all of it liturgical and most of it set to Latin texts, was written by Msgr. John Edward Ronan, founder of Toronto’s St. Michael’s Choir School.