Registration has officially opened for the 50th International Eucharistic Congress in 2012, and organizers hope the event will help reinvigorate the Irish church. Delegates from some 70 countries met June 1-3 to hear plans for the events that Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin described as a “vital element in the reform agenda of the Irish church.” Participants at the June 10-17, 2012, congress will hear reflections, catechesis and workshops from leading prelates and theologians. A day devoted to ecumenical communion through baptism will be led by Anglican Archbishop Michael Jackson of Dublin. Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, will preside at a day dedicated to reconciliation. That session will also be addressed by Richard Moore, who was blinded by a British army rubber bullet in Northern Ireland in 1972. Moore subsequently tracked down the soldier who fired the round and established a friendship with him. Other senior prelates who have so far been confirmed to lead events are Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga and the Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois of Paris. Father Kevin Doran, secretary-general of the 2012 congress, said he expects around 25,000 people to participate in the catechesis and workshops and 80,000 to participate in the concluding Mass.
DUBLIN (CNS)