At the Eucharistic Congress
Walsh, James J.
AT THE EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS By JAMES J. WALSH CARTHAGE, Sunday, May n, 6 p.m.: The Thirtieth Eucharistic Congress has just been brought to a supremely successful conclusion by the procession of...
...The weather proved almost perfect for the occasion...
...As the vessels came into La Goulette, the harbor of old Carthage, their passengers saw upon the hill'a great tent colony consisting of many hundreds of tents...
...More than 10,000 people gathered on the Byrsa to hear him...
...They did so with ease by an arrangement of loud speakers and, as he reads as well as he writes, his address was punctuated by frequent applause...
...Six vessels were in the harbor with their passengers all aboard for breakfast, dinner and lodging and making their daily pilgrimages to the special shrines of each day's program...
...The first day, by an exception so rare as to be almost unheard of at this time of the year, there was a slight shower which laid the dust and only raised slight solicitude without any damage even to delicate fabrics...
...The outstanding address of the congress was that of M. Louis Bertrand of the French Academy on Saturday afternoon, May 10...
...On Friday the pontificial Mass was celebrated in the basilica major erected in honor of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas, the two young matrons—mistress and slave—who, not yet twenty years of age but mothers, willingly laid down their lives for Christianity which meant more to them than their earthly lives...
...The scene of the congress proved most inspiring...
...Only the last day, Sunday, was the heat severe enough to afford the congressionalists some idea of how torrid might have been the days that proved so pleasant...
...AT THE EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS By JAMES J. WALSH CARTHAGE, Sunday, May n, 6 p.m.: The Thirtieth Eucharistic Congress has just been brought to a supremely successful conclusion by the procession of the Blessed Sacrament from the primatial basilica to the amphitheatre and return, witnessed by some 50,000 people gathered along the way of the procession and on all the surrounding hills...
...For some 3,000 years in spite of all the viscissitudes of the varied history of the place, it has always retained the name...
...Most of them had gone through war experience that made this quiet living in tents a pleasant vacation reminiscent of the days of the great war...
...Another of the basilicas of old Carthage—that of Damons El Karita—had no less than nine naves, fifty-six metres long by forty-five metres wide...
...Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Tunis and Carthage had been mainly given over to the congress and its functions...
...Most of those who came from a distance anticipated a rather difficult time from the heat in a locality so close to the desert...
...On Saturday the solemn Mass was chanted, the congregation joining in many parts of the Mass in most impressive fashion in the excavated amphitheatre wherein more than 1,700 years ago, in the persecution of Septimius Severus, Perpetua and Felicitas were martyred...
...This ancient structure had no less than seven naves, seventy-one metres long by thirty-five metres wide, and was capable of accommodating an immense crowd which overflowed, however, on to all the surrounding hillsides for a very long distance...
...Later they were to learn that these were the lodging places of some thousands of priests from France and Italy and from Algiers and Tunis...
...The supreme note of the congress was the number of men of widely different nationalities encountered among the crowd, many of them in the picturesque garbs of their peoples...
...One of the features of the congress was the procession of the children—the crusaders of the Blessed Sacrament—dressed in white with a red cross on their breasts...
...They made a very picturesque scene at the Benediction when during the blessing they stood and waved the palms which they carried and which seemed so appropriate in this place of martyrdom...
...Eight cardinals and their prelatial escorts preceded by 100 bishops and archbishops closed the procession of some 3,000 priests and monsignori, but the admiration and reverence for them was now absorbed into the deeper feeling that the Lord of Hosts was blessing His people...
...They were agreeably surprised to have, as it were by special dispensation, pleasant days on which overcoats were comfortably worn nights and mornings and even the heat of the middle of the day was tempered by a delightful breeze from the nearby Mediterranean...
...Only the voice of Christ can still the tempest that is raised and only the sacrament of Christ's Body can feed the charity that will make men love each other for the love of God...
...This seems superabundant accommodation for churchgoers and would appeal to visitors as, like the English cathedrals, surely too large for the towns in which they were situated...
...The procession commenced its course at the great cathedral, erected by Cardinal Lavigerie some fifty years ago, which crowns so majestically the outstanding Byrsa or Hill of Carthage that has in all the successive cities of Carthage been the centre of the town...
...never has the assembled multitude within the city's boundaries been more of one heart and soul than when they bowed their heads in reverent devotion as the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament was given from the porch above the main door of the primatial basilica...
...The scene was thus set for a great religious event...
...Chesterton in the first sentence of his introduction to the life of the Cure d'Ars said: "The Catholic Church is much too universal to be called international for she is older than the nations...
...It is a thing of the past but it will be remembered forever by those who had part in it...
...At least Carthage under the Romans was a large and intensely Christian city...
...No less than three of the outstanding events, the pontifical Masses celebrated by the attending cardinals, were held in the ruins of structures that had witnessed the supreme confession of faith of martyrs for Christianity or were intimately connected with them...
...Indeed the African church, as emphasized by M. Louis Bertrand, was almost the rival of Rome in all Christian privileges...
...Perhaps never was that expression better exemplified than in this Thirtieth International Eucharistic Congress at Carthage...
...The wisdom of Pope Pius XI in selecting the African city for this congress was eminently justified by the event...
...There were then no less than 700 dioceses along the northern shore of Africa, where but a few years ago there were scarcely that many parishes...
...For it has been brought home to all the foreign visitors, in a way they never appreciated properly before, that Carthage enjoyed the privilege in the persecutions of having almost as many martyrs as Rome...
...It is a testimony to the enduring character of the Church that this basilica some 1,500 years ago was the scene of no less than five panegyrics of the saints from the lips of the great Saint Augustine...
...Carthage means in old Phoenician the "new city...
...On Sunday the last solemn Mass of cloture was sung in the Basilica of Saint Cyprian by the cardinal legate in the presence of six visiting cardinals...
...Some 20,000 visitors are said to have come...
...There were those present who had taken part in preceding events of the same kind who estimated the crowd at nearly double that figure...
...He has written some halfdozen of books with regard to the African Church, including a life of Saint Augustine and the story of the Cities of Gold (Les Villes d'Or) of North Africa...
...The dungeon in which the saints were imprisoned has been restored to its original appearance and converted into a chapel which was a favorite place of visitation by the attendants on the congress...
...The hotels could not have accommodated them so arrangements were made to take care of them elsewhere...
...He has made Africa known and loved by his countrymen...
...but when a population is largely of but one religion such huge churches are actually needed for the festival days...
...These days in early May had been selected as the latest possible dates for the congress if the heat of northern Africa was not to make the occasion too great a trial for visitors from temperate climes...
...He warned of the barbarism of our day when "the world is traversed by a wave of hate, from the insensate and criminals, who preach a fratricidal war and erect as a dogma the odious and absurd idea of the struggle between the classes of humanity...
...Saint Cyprian's is not far from Santa Monica's, the memorial of Saint Augustine's mother...
...Surely never has the ancient "new town" witnessed a more impressive scene than this of the magnificent conclusion of the latest Eucharistic congress...
Vol. 12 • July 1930 • No. 10
