Thousands gather for US Eucharistic Congress

An estimated 50,000 to 60,000 Catholics gathered in Indianapolis for the National Eucharistic Congress last week. The congress was the climax of a Eucharistic Revival sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops aimed at reinvigorating Catholics’ devotion to Christ in the Eucharist.

The four-day event featured speeches by various popular Catholic figures including Bishop Robert Barron, Cardinal Blase Cupich, podcast host Gloria Purvis and others, as well as Eucharistic adoration and various liturgies. Peace activist Martha Hennessy, who is the granddaughter of Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, spoke at the congress about the role the Eucharist played in her grandmother’s commitment to pacifism.

Bishop Andrew Cozzens of New Ulm, Minnesota, spearheaded the congress and said it aimed to be a source of unity within the Catholic faith. “Our society is wrought with division and especially American society with the individualism that breeds division,” Cozzens said. “Unity in the Church is really essential for us today because that attitude of division in our society affects our Church, and it affects it dramatically,”

Saturday, a mile long Eucharistic procession through the streets of Indianapolis drew thousands of spectators, many of whom broke into hymns and kneeled as the Blessed Sacrament passed by on a specially built trailer pulled by a pickup truck. Papal legate, Cardinal Luis Tagle, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, led the concluding Mass on Sunday inside Lucas Oil stadium.

Four nationwide pilgrimages routes carried the Eucharist in a series of processions in advance of the Congress. One started in San Francisco on the West Coast, another in New Haven, Connecticut at the Church of St. Mary where Blessed Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus, is buried. A third started at the headwaters of the Mississippi River in northern Minnesota near the Canadian border and the fourth began in Brownsville, Texas on the border with Mexico. The four pilgrimages converged on Indianapolis for the congress.

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