The National Eucharistic Congress in Liverpool left Catholics feeling renewed
“I hope it won’t be another 110 years before the next one.” So says a friend just back from Adoremus, the National Eucharistic Congress which brought thousands of Catholics to Liverpool last weekend. Not since 1908 has there been a national event devoted to the Blessed Sacrament. And the event was plainly overdue: everyone I spoke to came back from Liverpool buzzing. “I was in two minds about whether to go,” one said. “But I’m so glad I did.”
Gerry Kehoe, the bishops’ conference’s events organiser, says that if you include those who came to parallel events and Masses, the total attendance was in the region of 20,000 to 30,000.
The event started on Friday with a symposium on the Eucharist. Saturday began and ended with prayer events. In between were two keynote talks from Bishop Robert Barron, whose YouTube videos have been viewed more than 30 million times. (Bishop Barron won a new fan in LBC presenter Shelagh Fogarty, who MC’d the event: “If someone told me I’d be gripped by a talk on the Mass that’s longer than most Masses I’d have been sceptical,” she tweeted.) On Sunday Cardinal Vincent Nichols celebrated Mass, before a Eucharistic procession in which ane timates 10,000 took part.
The contrast with 1908, when the International Eucharistic Congress took place in London, is instructive and a little chastening. According to a study by the historian Thomas Horwood, the 1908 congress received more press coverage than the Pan-Anglican Congress or the Trades Union Congress of the same year.
“Many column inches were devoted to the preparations and proceedings; photographs were printed; and hundreds of readers’ letters were published afterwards,” Horwood found. This year, apart from a report on the BBC website, there has been little attention.
That is partly because the Church is less feared. The Spectator told readers in 1908 that, while “bigotry” was to be avoided, the Catholics were still making a statement. The Congress had “the appearance of a demonstration, and almost of a challenge, which excites apprehension in respectable quarters, and has given rise to regrettable effusions of bigotry in others”.
This year, Cardinal Nichols disclaimed “triumphalism” and reminded the Congress that, given the scandals of recent years, this could be seen as a “penitential procession”. Appropriately, the heavens opened just as the procession began.
In 1908, a Eucharistic procession in London could excite serious political conflict: activists claimed that the event was unconstitutional, and the government managed to force Cardinal Bourne to hold the final procession minus the Blessed Sacrament. Today, the event attracts less anger, partly because religious apathy has replaced religious controversy.
But some things are more important than politics. Those returning from the event report a sense of joy and peace which can only be rooted in the supernatural. Writing on the Catholic Herald’s website, Joanna Bogle said the event “had a glory about it. Vast crowds, an atmosphere of goodwill. Even the queues for food at lunchtime were chatty and friendly.”
My colleague Paul, who went for the weekend, sums it up in one word: community. Catholics are often isolated, but “in Liverpool you didn’t feel like an oddity,” he says. “Walking up to the arena on Saturday was electrifying. People coming from all over the country … You can’t explain it. It’s ineffable.”
Another participant, Josephine (not her real name), puts it like this: “If you go to a football match you get the atmosphere. If you watch it at home on the TV it’s just not the same.” Catholics can find themselves isolated – “I’m the only Catholic on my road” – so events like these are immensely comforting. “There’s strength in numbers.”
The Eucharist was able to unite thousands of Catholics, whatever their liturgical and political views. “You would think everyone there was singing from the same hymn sheet, speaking metaphorically,” Josephine says. “How unusual is that?”
Bishop Barron was a popular speaker, as was Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, the founder of Mary’s Meals. He spoke about how his charity’s work in feeding schoolchildren around the world was rooted in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, and about our debt to priests for bringing us the Eucharist. Josephine remarks that, at a difficult moment in the Church, MacFarlane-Barrow had “caught where ordinary Catholics are. We do love our priests.”
The only complaint I heard was that the event could have been better publicised: several attendees were the only ones from their parishes. Adoremus has confirmed what Eucharistic devotion can do. Will dioceses and parishes now make sure the Blessed Sacrament is at the centre of Catholic life every day?
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