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Clip description
This clip is from a black-and-white live broadcast of a Catholic church service in the Mary Magdalene Roman Catholic Church in Rose Bay. The cantor begins a hymn and the congregation join in as the choirboys and the clergy arrive and take up their positions in the church.
Curator’s notes
This is real time television. The church is packed and everyone is proudly dressed in their Sunday best for the ABC, who have come to film the service from their lovely old church.
There are no short cuts or edited highlights. Everything happens live as though we’ve dropped in on the service as it is happening. This is in the relatively early days of television, which partly explains the occasional interference with the microphone that you can hear during the clip. When the congregation rises to take communion, the cameras capture every last one of them coming forward. It’s not riveting television but if you’d been unable to attend your local church, you could tune into this service and feel yourself a part of the congregation.
