Eucharistic Congress - Members face up to challenges

The eight days of the 50th Eucharistic Congress opened in Dublin yesterday.

Our economic troubles and the deep divisions in politics and society in general are inevitably being compared with the last Eucharistic Congress held in Dublin 80 years ago.

People talked about that gathering for decades. In one sense it is a very different Ireland today, and the gathering yesterday was vastly smaller than the 20,000 expected, but Diarmuid Martin, the Archbishop of Dublin, noted there were also many similarities.