INDIANAPOLIS (RNS) — Aside from the screeches and hushed giggles of small children, the crowd in the Indianapolis Colts’ football stadium was silent.
Catholics, some quietly weeping, knelt on the hard, cold stadium concrete as spotlights lit a gold monstrance, the ornate vessel for displaying the Eucharist, on an altar in the center of the stadium.
The faithful gathered in Indianapolis on Wednesday night (July 17) had traveled from all 50 U.S. states and 17 countries to join the 10th National Eucharistic Congress, the first since the ninth National Eucharistic Congress in 1941. This Congress, running July 17-21, also serves as the kickoff for the third year of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ evangelization campaign, which has been holding events all across the U.S.
“Lord, we’ve come here to Indianapolis because we want to be changed,” Crookston, Minnesota, Bishop Andrew Cozzens prayed, after a Latin hymn broke the silence.
“We ask that through us a spirit of unity and peace would reign in our country,” the bishop prayed. “Lord, we pray for our church. Please grant us the unity you prayed for the night before you died,” he continued.
In his keynote, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, Pope Francis’ apostolic nuncio, or diplomatic representative, to the U.S., echoed those concerns, saying, “Perhaps our main prayer for this Eucharistic Congress should be this, that we, as a church, may grow in our unity so that we become more fruitful in our mission.”
Before the Congress, as the National Eucharistic Revival ramped up, the ideological divisions in the church were especially evident, as some theology professors and a few bishops publicly criticized the financial cost of the Congress and its emphasis on personal devotion, rather than a more service oriented church.
Many critics suggested the Congress, which aside from Pierre features few cardinals created by Pope Francis, ran counter to the pope’s emphasis with the Synod on Synodality, a global Catholic listening project that at one point asked Catholics to “enlarge the space of your tent.”
But between versions of worship songs from evangelical groups such as Elevation Worship and Bethel Music, Cozzens and Pierre cited Francis multiple times.
Cozzens relayed what Francis had said when he blessed the monstrance for the Congress: ”We become credible witnesses to the joy and transforming beauty of the gospel only when we recognize the love that we celebrate in this sacrament cannot be kept to ourselves.”
John Gutzweiler, an attendee and secular Carmelite from Whitestown, Indiana, told Religion News Service he didn’t see any conflict between his Make America Great Again ball cap and Pierre’s call for unity.
“This is pro-Catholic,” Gutzweiler said about the hat bearing presidential nominee Donald Trump’s famous slogan, while on stage the emcees introduced Sister Bethany Madonna. The Sister of Life spoke about her struggles to maintain her vocation to anti-abortion ministry amd described serving in a pregnancy crisis center and working with women after abortion.
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