Pope Benedict won’t visit Ireland for Eucharistic Congress

Won't attend the Congress despite its 50th anniversary

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Pope Benedict XVI

Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP / Getty Images

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Martin added, “But he said -- and this I agree with -- that his coming would have to fit in with the overall program and timetable of the renewal of the church in Ireland. Short-circuiting that program wouldn’t bring the benefits that a papal visit would bring, and I am not sure that we are at that stage yet.”

Tens of thousands of Catholics from home and abroad will attend the Congress. There will be 25,000 people in the RDS in Dublin daily from June 10, rising to 80,000 for the closing ceremony in Croke Park on June 17.

Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny has said he told Martin and All-Ireland Primate Cardinal Sean Brady that the government was willing to invite Pope Benedict to Ireland, but there would not be a review of the decision to close Ireland’s embassy to the Vatican.

Kenny also said people had assumed the closure of the embassy was related to his speech on the Cloyne Report last year, in which he strongly criticized the Vatican for failing to co-operate with State investigations into clerical sexual abuse.

Kenny said, “Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Kenny added that if Pope Benedict accepted an invitation to the Congress, the government would “treat his holiness with the respect that his status and his office require.”

The Eucharistic Congress was last held in Ireland in 1932, when papal count John McCormack, world-famous Athlone-born tenor, sang “Panis Angelicus” to thousands who thronged Dublin’s Phoenix Park.

As well as the prayers and talks at this year’s Congress, there will be a range of activities, including movies, choirs, cultural exhibitions, plays, gospel music, traditional Irish music, liturgical dance, Christian rock bands, orchestras, workshops on song and other artistic expressions.

Pilgrims from more than 95 countries have already registered to attend.

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