GOOD NEWS CONGRESS
Allen, Rodger Van
FROM PHILADELPHIA GOOD NEWS CONGRESS The first Eucharistic Congress was held in Lille, France, in 1881. It was conceived by Marie Tamisier, a French laywoinan. Seeing how leading people gathered...
...It opened with a Parade of Nations, and a dramatic candlelight Eucharistic procession of 300,000 persons...
...There was the diversity of 27 national, racial and ethnic groups...
...Prayer and action, love and justice must go together...
...It was expected that the Congress would operate at a deficit of about one million dollars, but John Connelly, a wealthy Philadelphia Catholic, made a contribution during the Congress which will offset that...
...One can understand why the Brazilian government regards Camara as such a threat that it has barred his voice and message from newspapers, television and radio...
...Would it result in an unnecessary exercise in triumphalism, with a big price tag, and little meaning...
...Dom Helder Camara ended his address by stating that like Martin Luther King, Jr., he too had a dream about power of love and concern for justice...
...It had been hoped Pope Paul would attend the 41st International Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia...
...In all, it was an incredible collection of groups, a few purely commercial, but not many...
...They included the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima, Bread for the World, the Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation, the Catholic Peace Fellowship, Catholics United for the Faith, the Cause for Padre Pio, Czech Catholics of Texas, etc...
...It did not...
...It may be that this Congress has been the most important event for American Catholics since Vatican II...
...He praised the Appalachian Bishops' pastoral letter, and praised the Eucharistic Congress itself for its timely theme...
...The Eucharistic emphasis formed a strong basis for unity, and the social justice thrust provided a territory where post-Conciliar Catholicism has been most progressive in its teaching, and where authentic needs could be approached...
...But when we dream together it is the beginning of reality...
...Pockets of poverty in the U. S. can reveal the Third World situation...
...They gave no evidence of a direct concern with structural change in society...
...Within its focus, it was quite successful, and worthwhile...
...He then shared a Brazilian proverb: "When we dream alone it is only a dream...
...The Congress has been an inspirational and instructional assembly just as Marie Tamisier had hoped such events would be...
...It closed with a rainswept final Mass and procession of 100,000 persons, which was addressed by Pope Paul via satellite and President Ford who attended...
...Dom Helder, the Archbishop of Olinda-Recife, Brazil, and Mother Teresa spoke in succession in the conference on justice and freedom and together they created the most electric moments of the Congress...
...Philadelphia has long been regarded as a citadel of conservative Catholicism...
...This dual emphasis on the personaland the structural was one that ran throughout the Congress sessions and challenged the established orientations of those attending...
...Forty such Congresses have followed that first meeting in Lille...
...The joining together of Dom Helder's incisive analysis of social structures with the radical personal witness of Mother Teresa was the message of this gathering...
...The Congress has at last shown American Catholics that the same kind of creative energies that were present at the Second Vatican Council, and the same experience of growth in community under the Spirit, are still here...
...The theme for the Congress was well-chosen: the Eucharist and the Hungers of the Human Family...
...More than 700 national and international press and media persons covered the event...
...Though not completely at ease in English, he was still the most powerful speaker at the Congress...
...A diverse Catholic community interacted in a way which may have brought the beginnings of a fresh decision about its identity and vocation...
...Liturgical art and music by hundreds of artists were a part of the Congress which also included 27 performing arts programs...
...But the whole affair proceeded with a remarkable informality and was executed almost exclusively by volunteer labor...
...He praised the regional hearings on Liberty and Justice for All sponsored by the U. S. Bishops' Conference and expressed the hope they might lead to a Congress for the Americas...
...Some gravitated toward a social action orientation...
...The official Congress literature attributed the theme to the suggestion of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, but other sources indicated that an editorial by Philip Scharper in Maryknoll was also quite influential...
...their goal was to share an experience...
...Others gravitated toward a more personal orientation...
...A 1200-member choir and 200-piece orchestra were especially assembled for the Congress...
...This gesture beautifully summed up the Congress...
...All this proceeded with strong formal participation by women, charismatics and couples associated with Marriage Encounter, all of whom abounded at the Congress...
...Then, he added, "At this point let me pause to kiss the two hands of Mother Teresa...
...There were two main poles of orientation among the participating groups and indeed among the individual participants themselves...
...Pedro Arrupe, Superior General of the Jesuits, Tanzanian Bishop James Sangu, American Bishop James Rausch and others delivered thoughtful and blunt papers, which stressed the need for personal and structural change, a stepping back from consumerism as a lifestyle and a stepping forward into concerned political action...
...When Edward Guinan of the Community for Creative Non-Violence seized the microphone on the opening day to ask for support for a protest of the military mass being celebrated inadvertently on the anniversary of Hiroshima, no one muscled him, lots of people applauded, and a fraternal spirit continued...
...What character, then, would the Philidelphia gathering assume...
...Further, there was the diversity in the affiliated events by such groups as Charismatic Renewal, the National Association of Women Religious, Pax Christi, Marriage Encounter, etc...
...The United States had hosted one previous Congress in Chicago in 1926...
...Of all the topics presented and all the speakers at the Congress, I believe that the focus on hunger, justice and freedom, and women, and the contributions of Dom Helder Camara, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and Dorothy Day were pivotal...
...To the Congress and its theme came the remarkably diverse elements in the Church...
...Dom Helder, the 67-year-old, five-foot three-inch, 118-pound spokesman for the Third World, had warmed up at an hour-long press conference which preceded his address...
...Successive days treated the hunger for God, bread, freedom and justice, the Spirit, truth, understanding, peace, and Jesus the bread of life...
...their discourse was in terms of feelings that they had...
...These recent Congresses have been concerned with understanding the essential link between the Eucharist and life...
...The Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist was related to the real presence of Christ in the world...
...If the applause which followed Camara's conclusion meant something, perhaps this Congress really was the gathering of an "alien " cult, a meeting where persons become newly sensitized to their need to be part of a counter-culture, with a commitment to values and realities which "the world" can't afford to take seriously...
...We have many good statements," he said, "now we must . . ." and he gestured by rolling up his sleeves to the audience...
...Discarding his prepared text, which called for the "retaking" of Medellin and Vatican II, he held the audience as did no other speaker but Mother Teresa...
...Maryknoll gave 20,000 copies of that 1974 issue to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia without charge...
...Dorothy stressed penance, and was one of the few speakers to do this...
...At the end of the question and answer session, Sargent Shriver, who had listened attentively with the press, remarked to me that he'd like to see Dom Helder meet with Frank Church and his Senate committee on multinational corporations...
...Liturgies were conducted in nearly two dozen languages during the Congress, and in five different rites...
...Dorothy Day teamed with Mother Teresa toward the close of the Congress at the session on women, where they served as respondents to a capable paper by Sister Angelita Myerscough...
...rodger van allen (Rodger Van Allen is Professor of Religious Studies, Villanova University, author of The Commonweal and American Catholicism, and Co-Editor of Horizons: the Journal of the College Theology Society...
...It was the largest religious assembly ever held in the U. S. and symbolized the strong presence of Catholics in this country at a time when one journal could record the event under the title "Alien Piety in Chicago...
...Pope Paul himself attended in Bombay and Bogota...
...The idea of an International Eucharistic Congress there did not sound hopeful or exciting to a number of observers...
...The Congress had its pageantry...
...It was decisively settled several weeks ago, however, that he would not...
...Structures of injustices must be confronted...
...their discourse was more analytical...
...Placing the topic of literal hunger on the first working day of the Congress was appropriate and sobering to those who may have viewed the Congress as simply a tourist gathering...
...Great applause followed...
...The most recent have been in Bombay in 1964, Bogota in 1968 and Melbourne in 1973...
...their goals rather clear and specific, typically incorporating structural change in society...
...Such an atmosphere was gone in 1976, however, and with it the need for a muscular Catholic rally...
...The Chicago Eucharistic Congress fifty years ago was accused of being the gathering of an "alien cult...
...The most obvious example of this diversity was in the array of more than 700 exhibitors represented...
...Ethnics were in great numbers too, but their participation seemed mainly focused around their own particular liturgical celebrations...
...Seeing how leading people gathered for legal, political, medical and scientific congresses, she concluded that an instructional and inspirational assembly in honor of the Eucharist would be important in itself and a worthwhile symbol to the world...
...Personal conversion must open one's eyes to social injustice...
...It has rather effectviely linked the Eucharist and life as has been the aim of recent Congresses...
...It was one of the most notable achievements of the Congress...
...Penance was needed for our proliferating of nuclear armaments, and penance was needed that the poor might truly be remembered...
Vol. 103 • August 1976 • No. 18
