If Sydney’s bid for the 2028 International Eucharistic Congress is successful, it would “revitalise the church in Australia in the same way World Youth Day did in 2008,” according to Sydney Archdiocese’s Kathy Campbell. Source: The Catholic Weekly.
The director of chancery projects, together with Sydney Auxiliary Bishop Richard Umbers, flew out of Sydney on Saturday to attend this year’s Eucharistic congress in Quito, Ecuador, where 40 other pilgrims from Sydney will join them in the coming week.
A group of 30 led by Bishop Daniel Meagher will fly via Mexico and visit the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, before joining the rest of the delegation in Quito ahead of the congress on September 8.
Should Sydney win the bid, the congress would coincide with 20 years since World Youth Day and a century since the city last hosted an International Eucharistic Congress, in 1928.
“We want people to come back to practicing their faith, to develop a real belief in the real presence and to give people the experience of seeing Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament,” Ms Campbell said.
“Two decades on from World Youth Day, we need another revitalisation. My hope is that all the dioceses of Australia and New Zealand, the Asia Pacific, would reap the benefits of this – should we win the bid.”
Bishop Umbers, who is the congress delegate for both the Australian and New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conferences, called on the Church’s communications officers and media to get behind the IEC bid and promote a Eucharistic culture in their own dioceses.
In a keynote address last Wednesday at the Australian Catholic Communications Congress, he outlined the “snowball effect” of popular piety in Sydney in recent years, highlighting increased rates of Eucharistic adoration, the growing Corpus Christi and Fatima processions, and the men’s Camino of St Joseph.
“The idea then that we might have an IEC for Australia and the Asia-Pacific, held in Sydney, is an opportunity to really build on what has already taken place and give greater public witness,” Bishop Umbers said.
The winner of the 2028 IEC bid will be announced in Quito next week.
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Sydney hopeful for 2028 Eucharistic Congress (By George Al-Akiki, The Catholic Weekly)
