Though this may seem an odd query, my searches of the forum to date have not revealed previous discussion of it (if it has indeed been discussed, then I stand corrected); and I should like, if possible, an expert opinion on the topic. The topic in question is clandestine sound recording during a Missa Cantata.

Epiphany Monday 2014 was my final session as an organist at a diocesan EF Mass in (I obviously have to hedge identification here) a large Australian city. I had in fact resigned from this job already, after eight years; but because no other organist was available amid a southern hemisphere summer, I stepped in belatedly as a supply organist just this once. In previous posts I have mentioned the resident choirmaster, while carefully censoring his more repellent characteristics:

http://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/comment/109211#Comment_109211

On this occasion, however, the problem was created not by the choirmaster - who, typically, waited until two minutes before the Mass before clarifying whether he would even turn up - but by a chorister (with quite a nice voice) whom I had only very occasionally seen over the years. Before Mass began, this chorister showed me a dictaphone about the size of a brick, presumably with a built-in mike, and said to me "I'm going to be recording this Mass."

At this point I shall pause to let you think about that. He did not say "I've asked Father X if I may record this Mass, and Father gave the all-clear." He did not say "Would you mind if your organ-playing was recorded this evening?". He simply presented me with a fait accompli.

Let me stress that he was physically, if not perhaps mentally, an adult. I was strongly tempted to kick him down the spiral staircase that connects the choir loft with the main church. But doing this would have caused problems with diocesan public-liability insurance, so I muttered to him something politely non-committal instead.

As mentioned a few paragraphs ago, I'm not going to be playing the organ again there anyway. So strictly speaking it isn't my problem. But does anyone know whether the 1983 canon law code has anything concrete on forbidding sound recordings without explicit sacerdotal permission? It would be useful for my successor as organist to know.

Perhaps to Americans this whole thing will seem incomprehensible. Chesterton rightly called America "a nation with the soul of a church"; Australia, in ecclesial terms, is more like a nation with the soul of a southeastern Queensland beach party which has been commandeered by the inhabitants of public housing projects. For example, in no land except Australia - indeed, at this particular Australian EF parish - have I heard cellphones ringing during the Elevation of the Host. But I would appreciate any advice.