The Catholic Olympics

Past cardinals in a reviewing stand and down Philadelphia's Independence Mall, strode a platoon of nuns to the tune of When the Saints Go Marching In. In the swelling parade came cheerleaders leading parochial-school bands, chanting Pueblo Indians in full feathered regalia and flag-waving marchers representing each of Pennsylvania's 1,486 Roman Catholic parishes. The 41st International Eucharistic Congress, one of the largest religious spectacles in U.S. history, was under way.

The calendar was so crowded that the eight-day faith festival was inevitably dubbed the "Catholic Olympics." There were Masses for children and the physically handicapped, blacks and Ruthenians, even a military Mass unwittingly scheduled on the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing--so many Masses that the congress's congregations used 1,700,000 Communion wafers. Dave Brubeck and Ella Fitzgerald offered religious jazz, the Dance Theater of Harlem turned to religious choreography, and Monaco's Prince Rainier and Princess Grace addressed a "family life" conference.

Burial Cloth. At the entrance to the Civic Center waved a giant banner: WELCOME TO THE EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS. COME AND SEE THE FACE OF JESUS ON HIS BURIAL CLOTH. Inside, pilgrims viewed photos of the Holy Shroud of Turin, the purported burial cloth on which Jesus' image appears. Near by there were booths offering clerical clothing and T shirts, booths advocating sainthood for Italian Missionary Samuel Mazzuchelli and publicizing struggling Catholic colleges.

For more than a year, Eucharistic Congress planners, whose publicity budget alone ran to $296,000, had spread expectations that Pope Paul VI would appear, only to announce as the event drew near that the pontiff, at age 78, was too infirm to hazard the trip. (He had attended previous congresses in India and Colombia but missed the most recent one, in Australia.) But, in fact, the Pope's decision was largely political. For one thing, the pontiff was wary of the partisan overtones of visiting the U.S. during an election year and being greeted by President Ford. Instead, the Pope planned to transmit to the congress a special message via satellite during the closing Mass on Aug. 8.

In spite of the scare caused by the mysterious disease that felled some legionnaires who had met in the city two weeks before (see MEDICINE), the congress expected to draw one million people, as many as did Philadelphia's July 4 festivities and the Chicago Eucharistic Congress of 1926. By contrast, the first congress of 1881 in Lille, France, was attended by only 800 people. That initial one was inspired by French Laywoman Marie Tamisier to foster devotion to the Eucharist and belief in Christ's "real presence" in the elements of bread and wine. Like the 40 subsequent congresses, it was an occasion for spiritual fervor, a kind of all purpose pep rally.

Recent congresses have invited some participation by non-Catholics. Programs have been broadened beyond Eucharistic devotion to include earnest discussions of problems facing the church and the world, though not enough to satisfy the liberal National Catholic Reporter. It found "the pilgrimage to Philadelphia a trek to the church predictable," little more than a "Fatima-on-the-Delaware for the ever faithful non-questioners." Amid the mass outpouring of devotion, however, many nuns and priests felt a new spirit of reconciliation among Catholics.

Blending spiritual and temporal concerns, the 1976 theme was "Hungers of the Human Family." Each day's meetings emphasized a different hunger --for God, Jesus, truth, understanding, freedom and justice, the spirit, peace.

But the most impassioned messages to those assembled dealt with the basic world hunger for bread. In the Civic Center auditorium, Jesuit Superior General Pedro Arrupe said that if each U.S. Catholic fasted for one meal a week, the money saved could buy $2.5 billion worth of food for the needy each year. (By such fasting over the past year, U.S. Catholics had already saved enough money to buy a shipload of rice, which they sent to Bangladesh during the congress.) Brazil's activist Archbishop Helder Camara called the world's unequal distribution of wealth "the greatest scandal of the century." Bishop James Rausch, general secretary of the U.S. Catholic Conference, called on the U.S. to send food abroad now, to be followed by technical aid. Each person's right to eat, he said, is a matter of elemental justice. "If we fail, the hungering Christ stands in judgment of us."

Breaking Bread. Clad in her spotless blue-bordered white sari, Mother Teresa, who ministers to the starving people of Calcutta (TIME, Dec. 29), was the cynosure of the congress. At the world-hunger symposium, the diminutive nun prayed over a table laden with bread, then broke a loaf of bread and invited those in attendance to do likewise to symbolize the sharing of food. To her, both the U.S. and India are in deep trouble. "There is spiritual poverty and there is material poverty," she told her audience of 6,000 faithful, "and I think each one of us is the poorest of the poor."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.