Singer Was a Late Bloomer

The deacon, Paul Moss, is 28 and is studying at the Venerable English College, the seminary for priests of England and Wales, in Rome.

He will be ordained a priest in July, for the Archdiocese of Birmingham, according to a statement from Austen Ivereigh, press secretary to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the archbishop of Westminster.

Moss, who is from Bister, near Oxford, studied theology at the University of Birmingham, during which he heard his call to the priesthood. He has been studying in Rome since he was 22.

He was given singing lessons by Monsignor Philip Whitmore, a priest of Westminster who works in the Vatican Secretariat of State, according to Ivereigh.

Moss sung at the Chrism Mass last Holy Thursday. He was asked to sing the Gospel today by the Vatican's liturgical department, which is headed by Archbishop Piero Marini.