By Paschal Norbert
LUBUMBASHI, APRIL 14, 2023 (CISA)- After three years of postponement, the Third National Eucharistic Congress of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will be held in the country’s second-largest city, Lubumbashi, from June 4 to 11, 2023.
Originally scheduled for June 2020, the Eucharistic Congress had been postponed indefinitely due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The coronavirus pandemic which has affected our country, DR Congo, obliges us to postpone the celebration of this congress to a later date,” the National Episcopal Conference of Congo (CENCO) announced on April 24, 2020.
“We know that many of us have prepared with faith and joy to live this moment of grace,” the bishops stated and added, “This postponement must not break the momentum already gained in preparation. We must keep the spiritual dynamic in which we have already engaged until the next celebration of this congress.”
Subsequently, the Holy Father has appointed His Eminence Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, as his special envoy to the National Eucharistic Congress in an announcement made by the Holy See Press office on April 13, 2023.
The Eucharistic Congress, which comes after the papal visit in January 2023, will be DRC’s Third National Eucharistic Congress. The first was held in Kisantu in 1933 and the second congress, in 1980, was held in the country’s capital, Kinshasa.
