Voices, spirits raised with San Quentin choir

Pictured at San Quentin Prison Aug. 5 are, from left, three Benedict XVI Institute singers; Rebekah Wu, director of the institute schola and teaching choir; Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone; and Contemplative of St. Joseph Father Cassian, principal celebrant of Mass in the extraordinary form Aug. 25 at San Quentin. Also on the trip was Benedict XVI Institute executive director Maggie Gallagher. (Courtesy photo)

September 13, 2018
Tom Burke

Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone and the teaching choir of The Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship visited San Quentin Prison Aug. 5.

Maggie Gallagher, institute director, said the trip’s purpose was “to give men forgotten by many in society the uplift of pure sacred beauty and to teach these men they can chant too” and “to invite the men at San Quentin to form a schola that will help bring back the traditional Latin Mass on Aug. 25.” Gallagher said 25 men have applied to be part of the ensemble. “Prison is a kind of community and like any community there are those who actively work to make it better. We met a lot of men like that.”

Gallagher said prison chaplain, Jesuit Father George Williams, introduced the archbishop and the Benedict XVI Institute personnel:

“This is our brand-new teaching choir and you are our first gig,” the archbishop told the men. “I love telling people our first teaching gig is the San Quentin schola.” Gallagher said generous applause greeted the archbishop’s remarks.

The teaching choir sang first with a program director Rebekah Wu prepared that included the hymn “Hail Holy Queen” followed by the inmates chanting with the choir.

“Now it’s your turn to sing,” Wu said to the men.

Gallagher said: “Not only do we have 25 enthusiastic volunteers, as importantly, all the men I spoke with, whether they joined the schola or not, are anxious to come and attend the Latin Mass on Aug. 25. For some it will be a trip down memory lane to the music of their Catholic boyhoods. But for many of the young men present, it is a fresh chance to participate in the ancient rituals of the church, to share the noble sacred beauty that is their heritage too.”

Gallagher said Archbishop Cordileone told her after the visit: “I saw these men, who humanly speaking are in a dire situation that may seem hopeless, be lifted up to God by sacred beauty and given new hope. They love to sing and they worship well. So the response of the men to the invitation to form a schola and participate in bringing back the traditional Latin Mass to San Quentin was overwhelming but not surprising. The Benedict XVI Institute teaching choir is clearly fulfilling an important need in ordinary parishes but also for those at the margins of society.”

For information about the Benedict XVI Institute, email wongr@sfarch.org.