5,000 SINGING BOYS
FLYING to Rome on Christmas Day to represent Great Britain at the Eighth International Congress of Little Singers
Pueri Cantores — is a choir of 20 boys from the White Fathers' Junior Seminary of St. Columba's, at Newtown St. Boswells, Roxburghshire, and the Motherwell Cathedral choir.
Accompanying them will be Fr. Wilfrid Putney, national president of the federation of boys' choirs in Great Britain.
Boys' Choirs from 13 other countries will be going to Rome for the congress. Altogether, there will be over 5,000 boys singing there.
A general Communion Mass celebrated by Cardinal Lercaro in the basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls on December 29 will open the Congress.
Various functions have been planned, but the climax will be the Mass in St. Peter's on New Year's Day which will be celebrated by the Holy Father with the massed choirs of boys rendering the sacred music.
A feature of the Congress will
be the International Concert in the Palazzo Pio on December 30. One choir from each of the countries represented at the Congress will present musical items representative of their country. The choir from St. Columba's in Roxburghshire, led by Fr. John D. Conway. W.F. will sing at this.
More choirs from Great. Britain were to have attended the Congress, but commitments " at home" prevented this. There are 30 choirs in Great Britain affiliated to Pueri Cantores.