The New Chamber Singers is a non-sectarian choir. It is true that it has many practicing Anglicans and Catholics amongst its members, including some who have taken holy orders. It is also true that it holds its rehearsals and most of its concerts in the Anglican All Saints Church in Rome, and several members of the choir are also members of the choirs of their local churches. However, the choir sings both sacred and non-sacred music and is in no way a church choir, for All Saints, or any other church.

However, it was with great pleasure that all members of the choir agreed to augment the church choir of All Saints Church on the occasion of the visit of Pope Francis to the church.

The papal visit came about as part of the celebrations of 200 years of Anglican worship in Rome. For this occasion an icon had been commissioned and the Pope had agreed to visit the church, bless the icon and talk to the multi-faith congregation about the ecumenical movement which is bringing these two churches ever closer together.

The occasion was truly historic, as no Pope had ever before set foot in an Anglican parish church – papal visits made in the last few years to Anglican places of worship have always been to major churches, like St. Paul’s in London.

The choir sang music which would typically be heard in an Anglican vespers (see the Events page for details).

Then members of the choir were privileged to listen to His Holiness discourse on ways in which the churches could “walk together” towards ever-closer unity.

The choir was also privy to a private joke with the Pope. At a certain point in this discussion the microphones suddenly stopped working. The pope tapped the mike a couple of times and said, in a voice which only those around him could hear, “Maybe the devil doesn’t want unity between these churches.” Fortunately, a photographer was on hand and the resulting image of the Pope “Francesco and the Anglican sisters” as one well-known Italian weekly magazine had it, went viral. In the picture below, “Sister” Maria-Vittoria and other members of the choir are sharing the joke.

The images on this page are courtesy of and copyight Getty Images.