| Description | Eucharistic Congresses are gatherings of clergy, religious and the laity to celebrate and glorify the Holy Eucharist, and to seek the best means to spread its message throughout the world.
The first formal Eucharistic Congress, held in Lille in 1881, was initiated by Bishop Louis Gaston Adrien de Ségurin (1820-1881) and Marie-Marthe-Baptistine Tamisier (1834 -1910), the lay organiser of a number of International Eucharistic Congresses in the last quarter of the 19th century. The Second Congress was held at Avignon, in 1882, and the Third at Liège, in the following year. The Fourth Congress met at Fribourg, Switzerland in 1885, followed by the Fifth in Toulouse in 1S86, and the Sixth Congress in Paris, in 1888, centring on the Sacre Couer, Monmartre. The Seventh Congress was held in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1890.
Special importance was attached to the Eighth Congress, which which was held in Jerusalem in May, 1893. Here the reunion of the Orient was advocated, and an adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was preached on the traditional site where the Agony in the Garden took place. Next year the Congress was held at Reims, at which the different churches of the East were largely represented. A place was given in the deliberations for the first time to the study of social questions affecting the working classes. The Tenth Congress was held in Paray-le-Monial, in 1897, and the Eleventh, the best organized and most well attended of the series, met at Brussels, in 1898. The Twelfth Congress was held at Lourdes, in 1889, and was notable for the large number of priests who took part in the procession. When the Thirteenth Congress met at Angers in 1901, a special section was formed for young men to discuss what they should be doing to promote devotion to the Holy Eucharist and the solution of social questions. The Fourteenth Congress was held in Namur, Belgium, and the Fifteenth was held in Angoulême in 1904, where the usual procession of the Blessed Sacrament could not take place as it contravened French law.
Pope Pius X having expressed a wish that the Eucharistic Congress should be held in Rome, the delegates met there in 1905. The Pope celebrated Mass at the opening of the sessions, gave a special audience to the delegates, and was present at the procession that closed the proceedings. It was the dawn of the movement that led to his decree, "Tridentina Synodus", 20 December 1905, advising daily communions.
The Seventeenth Congress was held at Tournai, Belgium, in 1906, and the following one at Metz, in Lorraine, in 1907. Cardinal Vincenzo Vannutelli was the Pope's Legate, and the German Government gave a special dispensation to allow the procession of the Blessed Sacrament to take place through the streets, which would otherwise have breached a law enacted in 1870.
Each year the Congress had become increasingly international, and at the invitation of Archbishop Bourne of Westminster it was decided to hold the Nineteenth Congress in London, the first under the auspices of, and among, English-speaking members of the Church.
Alongside the general Congresses, local gatherings of Eucharistic leagues also played a significant role in France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, England, Canada, Australia, and the United States. The first of these in the United States was at St. Louis, in September, 1901, the second at New York, in 1905, and the third at Pittsburg, in 1907.
The presidents of the Permanent Committee of the International Eucharistic Congresses were Bishop Gaston de Ségur, of Lille; Archbishop de La Bouillerie, Titular Bishop of Perga and Coadjutor of Bordeaux; Archbishop Duquesnay of Cambrai; Cardinal Mermillod, Bishop of Lausanne and Geneva; Bishop Doutreloux of Liège, and Bishop Thomas Heylen of Namur, Belgium. After each congress this committee prepared and published a volume giving a report of all the papers read and the discussions on them in the various sections of the meeting, the sermons preached, the addresses made at the public meetings, and the details of all that transpired. The 'Report of the Nineteenth Eucharistic Congress, held at Westminster from 9th to 13th September 1908' was published by Sands and Co in 1909, copies of which are held in Westminster Diocesan Archives. |