Culture

Though international, the congress was a source of pride for American Catholics.

On June 20, 1926, Chicago hosted the 28th International Eucharistic Congress. The first International Eucharistic Congress was held in Lille, France, on June 21, 1881, by Msgr. Louis Gaston de Segur at the suggestion of a woman named Marie Tamissier. Subsequent congresses were held nearly every year, mostly in Europe, and are now held every four years in different cities across the globe.
The 1926 congress in Chicago was the first International Eucharistic Congress held in the United States, and the second held in North America, after Montreal in 1910. The event had grown in attendance every year, and Chicago's congress was expected to be the largest yet. The congress began with a midnight Mass in the early morning of June 20 at all the Chicago churches, in an effort to offer the Holy Father a "spiritual bouquet" of one million Catholics receiving Holy Communion.

The staggering amount of communicants were supported by 1,000 priests available to hear confession in Chicago in the week leading up to the congress. Religious women in Chicago helped to supply altars with more than 4 million Communion wafers to accommodate daily Masses. In addition to the million lay visitors, 500 bishops, 5,000 priests, and 12,000 sisters attended the congress, including 40 priests from Boston. Throughout the congress, Masses were celebrated at the Cathedral of the Holy Name, the Coliseum, and Soldier's Field in Chicago, and at the Seminary of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Illinois.
On a specially chartered trip, Cardinal William O'Connell and 500 Boston pilgrims left from South Station on June 17 and, that evening, boarded the S.S. South American in Buffalo. The steamship flew the papal flag on its journey across the Great Lakes, which included a stop in Detroit, sightseeing at the Ford Factory and Belle Isle. While in Chicago, the cardinal and the Boston pilgrims dined and slept on the steamship, a luxurious accommodation as Chicago was packed with pilgrims staying in private homes, schools, and public halls.
Being the first American International Eucharistic Congress, Archbishop Mundelein of Chicago specially invited the archbishops of Boston, Philadelphia, and New York to celebrate Mass and speak on the theme of the congress, "The Eucharist and Christian Life." Cardinal O'Connell presided over the Mass of the Mystical Rose at Soldier's Field on the "Woman's Day" of the congress. Sources put the attendance of this Mass between 250,000 and 400,000 women. The cardinal praised the women throughout the history of the Church and in the present day who, supported by the Blessed Sacrament, which "transforms the soul with the beauty and the power of God," have dedicated themselves to care for the sick, to travel on missions, to educate the youth, to raise Christian families, and to lead professional lives. "Today as always, true Catholic womanhood is a tower of strength and beauty. The presence here of this vast multitude of Catholic women to do honor to their Lord in the Eucharist is inspiring evidence of virtue and devotion," the cardinal said, according to The Pilot.
Earlier this year, the Archives received a scrapbook made by Helen Sullivan, one of the 500 Boston pilgrims who traveled to Chicago with Cardinal O'Connell to attend the International Eucharistic Congress. Of the Woman's Day Mass, she said in her journal entries that "the service at the Stadium was like a big pageant. The Cardinals, Bishops, Monsignors, etc. all in their lovely robes made a very picturesque sight. The crowd of course was enormous."
She also travelled to Mundelein to watch a procession at the Seminary of St. Mary of the Lake, saying she "could hear the choir singing very clearly as they had loud speakers throughout the woods. It certainly was a very impressing sight. After Mass the procession started ... we saw all the floats, foreign missionaries, etc." The microphone was a novel invention at the time, and the coordinators and attendees of the congress all remarked on its usefulness for reaching stadium crowds in the hundreds of thousands.
Special telephone and telegraph wires were installed for the press to report on the ceremonies. Later in the year, a film by the Motion Picture Department of the Eucharistic Congress was shown at the Boston Opera House over the course of two weeks for all those who could not attend. The reach of this Eucharistic Congress was truly international.
The congress ended on June 24, and on the return voyage, the S.S. South American stopped at Mackinac Island, Midland, Detroit, and Niagara Falls for sightseeing before the pilgrims returned to Boston by rail. At Midland, Cardinal O'Connell was invited by Father John Milway Filion to attend the blessing of the new National Shrine of Jesuit Martyrs at the site of Old Fort Ste. Marie and celebrate Mass at the Shrine.
Though international, the congress was a source of pride for American Catholics. In a column preceding the congress, The Pilot predicted that "such scenes and events will forever remain to stir enthusiasm for the advancement of the cause of religion in this country, to make potent in the lives of the nation's citizens every spiritual force, and to ennoble the nation itself, dedicated as it is to freedom and consecrated to the cause of righteousness."
The next time the International Eucharistic Congress would be held in the U.S. was 50 years later in Philadelphia in 1976, the year of the nation's bicentennial. To celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the National Eucharistic Congress is hosting a National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, stopping this weekend in Boston on their St. Francis Xavier Cabrini Route across the East Coast of the United States. Almost exactly a century later, exciting travel and impressive crowds are again expected for Americans -- though maybe not by steamship -- as we are invited by the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage to "realign our lives, communities, and country under the sovereignty of Christ," present in the Eucharist.

SAVANNAH MILLER IS AN ARCHIVIST OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF BOSTON.

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