Challenging the Congress
Peter McVerry’s call in the September Furrow is so forward-looking and trenchant that it deserves wide coverage. “ The Eucharistic Congress in 2012 will be a meaningless charade unless it celebrates a community that is prepared to share everything it has, and is, for the sake of others in need. It must have a social dimension. This is where the preparations for the Congress should focus… If in 2012 there are still homeless people living on the streets of Ireland, if there are still children in adult psychiatric hospitals, if there are still Travellers living on the roadside, if there are still patients in out-dated and depressing psychiatric hospitals, then the Eucharistic Congress should be cancelled, because it will have lost its meaning. Any repetition of the 1932 Congress would be out of place.”