200 Catholic and Hindu youth sing together at sacred music festival in India

(Dec. 14, 2011) In India, some 200 Catholic and Hindu youth sang together in a sacred music festival as St Peter’s Church, in Bandra, Mumbai, hosted the eighth annual Festival of Sacred Music over the weekend. The 200 singers hailed from several youth choirs from eight different parishes in Mumbai. The groups included the “Gleehive” and “Cadenza Kantori”, as well as a 71-member choir from St Helena Parish in Pune, half of whom are Hindus. The goal of the festival was to promote interest in sacred music.
The 200 singers opened the musical festival with the Advent Antiphon ‘O come, O come, Emmanuel’ followed by JS Bach’s ‘Jesus, Joy of Man’s Desiring’.
Mons. Robert Tyrala, president of the International Federation Pueri Cantores, was a special guest at the event. He praised the young singers for their high level of performance. “Music transcends culture and religion and raises the mind and heart to the divine,” he said. Pueri Cantores is an organisation that seeks to educate young people through Christian values and sacred music. In Asia, it is present in Japan, Sri Lanka and South Korea. Mons. Tyrala said “In India, sacred music can be a means of evangelisation for the Catholic Church. I look at these boys and girls and I see the future of the Church. Sacred music can reach man and play a special role in the evangelical mission,” he added. The bishop is in Asia to attend a meeting on “The Church in Asia, the role of religious movements”.