About Priory Press

Priory Press is a publishing and training venture dedicated to the liturgical renewal in the United States with a special emphasis on Gregorian chant.  Our primary goal is to restore the sung Liturgy as the preeminent liturgical expression of the Church by making available resources and training to facilitate the singing of the Mass.

Our Story

In 1997, Saint Aloysius Parish, on the campus of Gonzaga University, invited the music department of Gonzaga to help Saint Aloysius bring a chanted (Gregorian) Liturgy to the parish.  The early days of the effort were filled with numerous challenges, but with both patience and perseverance the liturgy developed into a fairly unique mixture of old traditions and somewhat new innovations.

Today, as has been the case from the beginning, the Mass is fully sung, and all the music is either Gregorian chant or Gregorian formulas adapted to English texts, with the one exception of the polyphonic motets that are typically sung during the Offertory and/or Communion.  The parts of the Mass that are sung to formulas are sung in English.  The Proper of the Mass, as found in the Graduale Roman, is sung in Latin, and the Ordinary of the Mass, as found in the Kyriale, is also sung in Latin and in alternation between the schola and the congregation.  The readings are sung in English according to traditional Gregorian formulas.

The Mass is a humble effort to follow the directives of the Vatican Council II to maintain Gregorian chant as the music proper to the Roman rite and to preserve the Church's treasury of polyphonic music, both within the context of a conscious commitment to the Novus Ordo.

From the beginning, one of the more perplexing challenges was that there were no readily available and easily utilized materials for such a Mass.  The early liturgies will filled with materials that had been hand-copied and collected into loose-leaf binders.

This lacuna resulted in the birth of Priory Press.  Today Priory Press is a small publisher dedicated to the liturgical renewal in the United States with a particular emphasis of providing high quality materials for the chanted liturgy.  We are most grateful for your interest in our work and for your support of our cause.

 

Edward Schaefer
Publisher

The high altar in Saint Aloysius Church, Spokane, WA, the home of the Gonzaga University Gregorian Schola