Bishop of Cork seeks to rejuvenate city's historic Eucharistic Procession
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The Catholic Bishop of Cork and Ross has encouraged Cork’s ‘new communities’ to join in the rejuvenation the city’s historic Eucharistic Procession next month.
Bishop Fintan Gavin will announce details of plans to breathe new life and energy into the near century-old public religious ceremony, which is set to take place through the streets of Cork on the afternoon of Sunday, June 11, for the first time since the pandemic.
He has also defended a decision to proceed with the procession at the same time as the Munster hurling final.
Bishop Gavin said: “The feast of Corpus Christi falls on the day itself so we couldn’t move the day, and we thought about bringing the time of the procession back to 1.30pm, but we could have all sorts of groups saying you’re cow-towing to the GAA, so we are staying with the plan.”
“Fundamentally, what we are trying to do is to find a way of representing ourselves in a culture that at times would prefer to put faith as a very private thing.
“The procession is really a way of reminding us that to be authentically Christian involves giving witness in the ‘public square’.
The success or otherwise of the procession will not be based on attendance numbers alone, he said, with the focus instead on renewing it ahead of the centenary procession in 2026.
Bishop Gavin has now issued a special invite to parishioners, various faith groups, and schools to get involved, but he has also, through a special planning and coordination committee, reached out to Catholic members of the city’s Ukrainian, Indian, Brazilian, African, Polish, and Croatian communities to encourage them to take part in the public celebration of their faith.
“We have had a team of people phoning the representatives of the various communities explaining what the procession is, and why it’s important that they are here — telling them that they have a voice, that they are represented, and that they are part of our faith community,” he said.
“It used to be an event that involved almost every person in Cork. This procession will have participants from every continent.”
The Eucharistic procession, to mark the feast of Corpus Christi, has been a significant part of the city’s religious heritage for almost a century.
The first event was held in 1926 when a group of city businessmen approached the then Bishop, Daniel Cohalan, with the idea of a staging a Eucharistic procession through the city to celebrate the Catholic faith. It was viewed at the time as among the wider efforts to heal post-civil war divisions which had split the city and region.
It grew to become the largest Eucharistic procession in the country, with tens of thousands of people walking annually from their parish churches to the city centre for Benediction on Daunt Square.
Against the backdrop of a fall-off in church attendance and a near collapse in vocations, attendance at the procession has dwindled in recent years to just a few hundred faithful.
Bishop Gavin said as is the case with the structure of the local Church, something had to change.
He established a committee about four months ago to plan the rejuvenation of the procession in the run-up to its centenary in three years, and it has devised a new format.
Participants will be invited to gather at the Cathedral of St Mary and St Anne at 2.30pm on June 11 for payers, before processing at 3pm down Upper Saint John St, Mulgrave Road, over Christy Ring Bridge, right along Lavitt’s Quay, left onto Half Moon St and Academy St, and then right again on St Patrick’s St to Saints Peter and Paul’s Church for Benediction at around 3.30pm, where the bishop will deliver the homily at what will be his first Eucharistic procession since his profession as bishop in 2019.
The procession will be live-streamed onto big screens inside and outside the church.
Bishop Gavin has also encouraged children who have received the sacraments of First Holy Communion and Confirmation, and those sitting the Leaving Cert, to take part too.
The relaunch of the Eucharistic procession is a very visible example of the required renewal and rejuvenation which is underway across the dioceses to rebuild the church post covid, and to encourage closer cooperation between priests and parishioners, the bishop said.
Last August, he set out his vision for the local Church in a pastoral letter that acknowledged the request for more lay involvement and the development of strong teamwork with the clergy.
That new vision included the ‘family of parishes’ model which has seen groups of parishes sharing resources, including priests, leading to a reduction in the number of and frequency of masses.
This weekend of Pentecost Sunday — the birthday of the Church — representatives from each parish will attend workshops, led by Irish-born US-based author and retreat leader, Julianne Stanz, the director of evangelisation and discipleship for the diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin, to explore how to run and organise parish faith communities with more involvement from the lay community.
“It will begin the discussion to change the culture and narrative around how we run our parishes,” the bishop said.