CLIMAX REACHED

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 176, 27 June 1932, Page 8

CLIMAX REACHED

3 P.M. EDITION

EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS. MILLION PEOPLE PRESENT. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received June 27, 11.45 a.m. DUBLIN, June 26.

The Eucharistic Congress reached its climax to-day when an assembly estimated at a million heard Mass in Phoenix Park. Later the Blessed Sacrament was taken in a procession five miles to the altar at O’Connell Bridge, in the centre of the city, where the Papal Legate pronounced the Benediction upon a multitude stretching as far as the eye could see. Along the seven roads converging on the bridge four columns of men and women worshippers marched to the city along separate routes. As a single procession they would have taken eight hours—tramping columns, carrying banners, singing hymns—a tribute to the people's devotion. A record crowd began to assemble around the park altar in the early hours. Apart from the throng of visitors who spent the week in Dublin, representing every country in Christendom, scores of special trains brought thousands from every part of Ireland, including Ulster. When the worshippers had taken their places at noon the whole of the fifteen acre field was a mass of humanity, which hushed in silence as Mass opened in the circular space where there were hundreds of priests, members of orders and a choir of 500 men and boys. Then began the arrival of the Church dignitaries, a procession of Archbishops and Bishops who took their places at the colonnades. Finally came the Cardinals, headed by the Legate, who took his place on the throne as the celebrant of the Pontifical Mass. The Legate delivered a simple, devotional homily in English. Everything was heard by the huge congregation through tho loud speakers until the climax came at the end of the Mass when the Pope’s brief message was broadcast, but photographers and aeroplanes drowned the Pope’s words. These were a simple quotation in Latin from Saint Patrick’s “As you are Christians, be ye also Romans.”