THE Catholic Church last week formally launched the International
Eucharistic Congress, which will take place here next year during the
week of June 10-17.
It will inevitably invite unfavourable
comparisons with the Eucharistic Congress of 1932, which was a massive
event, drawing hundreds of thousands of people in scenes that were only
repeated when Pope John Paul II came here in 1979.
The Congress of
1932 took place when Ireland was newly independent and still bursting
with pride.
The event combined religious fervour with nationalist
fervour.
People were proud to be Irish and proud to be Catholic and they
wore both on their sleeves -- to an extent that sometimes makes us
uncomfortable now when we look back upon it.
Of course, people
never know these things at the time.
Irish people in the 1930s got
caught up in Catholic nationalism, just as our generation got caught up
in the property boom -- and just as we are now getting caught up in an
increasingly aggressive secularism that is often mindlessly
anti-Catholic and anti-religion.
The aggressive secularist is the modern counterpoint to the aggressive Catholic nationalist of yore.
A
brief aside regarding the new Government is in order here. Enda Kenny
is patently a good man with obvious common sense.
But some of his
Cabinet are a worry, as are elements of the Programme for Government.
Will
Enda allow his Government to further inflate an expanding secular
bubble to match the property one that exploded in 2008 or, as usual,
will we be wise only after the event?
Why will numbers next year
be hugely down compared with 1932?
First of all, we are much less
Catholic.
Second, we are much less nationalist.
Third, nationalism and
Catholicism have become disconnected, for the most part.
But
fourth, we simply don't turn out in huge numbers for anything the way we
used to.
And when I say huge numbers, I don't mean 80,000 for a
football match, I mean the million that turned out for John Paul II in
1979.
When John F Kennedy came here in 1963, enormous crowds
turned out for him. No politician since then has received anything like
the same greeting.
If Barack Obama gives an open-air public address when
he comes here, he'll attract a big crowd, but it won't be anything like
the crowds that Kennedy or John Paul managed to draw.
Next year's
Eucharistic Congress will actually be more important than the 1932
version.
The latter took place in an Ireland that was very comfortable
with it.
By contrast, next year's Congress will be held in a much
more secular Ireland that will be acutely uncomfortable with it.
Dublin, which is the most secular part of the country, and where the
event will be centred, will be least comfortable with it and some people
will undoubtedly be openly hostile towards it.
But this is
precisely why it will be more important.
A large-scale sacred event
taking place in a very religious country is unremarkable.
But a big
sacred event (and it will still be big) taking place in a largely
secular city is much more remarkable.
A secular city needs
reminding that the sacred still exists and that there are many people
who believe in the sacred and that the here and now isn't all there is
-- even if they have learned to keep their heads down.
A Eucharistic Congress is centred on Jesus Christ.
The theme of the event will be 'Communion with Christ and with one another'.
I
would have thought that theme was especially relevant in a recession
when a sense of solidarity is in short supply and many of us are doing
our best to blame someone else for the mess we're in and to make someone
else bear the brunt of it.
MANY of the leaders of the Irish
church probably wish deep down that the event wasn't taking place at
all.
The church is still badly damaged by the scandals.
It will cost a
lot of money when money is scarce (though not as scarce as in 1932).
They probably also worry that the whole thing will be a huge damp squib
and the media will be hostile.
But these were also the concerns of
the British hierarchies before the Pope visited the UK last year.
The
lead-up to the visit was so hostile that people were predicting
disaster.
Of course, we know what happened in the end.
Big and
enthusiastic crowds turned out to greet him.
By the time the Pope
returned to Rome, an estimated 750,000 people had lined the streets or
attended one of the events.
If Pope Benedict decides to come over
for part of the Congress next year, it will be nothing like the 1979
papal visit, but it will be big nonetheless.
It will also be a
shot in the arm for the church and for the hundreds of thousands of
ordinary Catholics who have kept the show on the road despite
everything.