A 100-Year Catholic Cinematic Mystery: The Groundbreaking Lost Film Chronicling Chicago’s Eucharistic Congress

Vice President Vance, President Biden, and the majority of sitting Supreme Court justices are just a few of the prominent Catholics who’ve strolled across the public stage in recent years.So it’s easy to forget that the Roman church was once relegated to the margins of American life. Exactly 100 years ago, American church leaders set out to change that, when the 28th International Eucharist Congress opened in Chicago on June 20, 1926.Though largely forgotten now, the four-day gathering drew World Cup-sized crowds of priests, nuns, cardinals, politicians, and lay worshippers to the cavernous Soldier Field stadium, just off the shores of Lake Michigan. It was the first such gathering ever held in America, and “symbolized a turning point for American Catholicism,” historian Adrienne Nock Ambrose has written.A Fox Film Corporation crew was also on hand to capture the crowds and pageantry for what would become a groundbreaking documentary film. “It was the first motion picture confirmation of the huge cultural influence of Catholics in America,” Brandeis University film historian Thomas Doherty, a longtime chronicler of 1920s and 1930s Hollywood, told the New York Sun.For all of its historical importance, however, the film — generally known by the generic title “International Eucharistic Congress” — has been designated as “lost,” by the National Film Preservation Board (NFPB).That generally means that while there may be copies available on DVD or VHS tape, the original film reels cannot be located or may have been damaged or destroyed. Mr. Doherty located a copy in the Chicago Archdiocese archives — and provided a copy to the Sun — while researching a book about the Eucharistic Congress’ main publicist, Joseph Breen, who became an important behind-the-scenes figure in Hollywood.A Chicago Archdiocese spokesperson confirmed to the Sun that they do not currently hold the original eight reels of “International Eucharistic Congress” footage, and were unsure where they might have ended up.The 1926 International Eucharistic Congress in Chicago. Chicago History Museum/Getty Images But ultimately, the film captures a pivotal moment in the nation’s religious and immigrant history. Overseen by a skilled Fox newsreel director named Ray L. Hall, Eucharistic Congress opens with a brief, solemn explanation of The Eucharist as a sacrament in the Catholic Church, and its connection to The Last Supper. Then, we are on location in Rome, where the Congress’ papal representative, Cardinal John Bonzano, boards a ship headed for America.The film is structured as a journey, from the Old World to the New, which in the 1920s would certainly have resonated with millions in America who belonged to what was widely viewed as an “immigrant church.” Fittingly, Cardinal Bonzano and his entourage dock first in downtown Manhattan, near Ellis Island, where they are greeted by massive crowds as well as police on horseback, before heading uptown to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Then it’s off to Chicago.“A special Pullman train painted a cardinal red [was] placed at the disposal of [Bonzano]” by Chicago Archbishop George Mundelein, a title card informs viewers, “for the journey from New York.” The film — though silent and, at times, stiff and stilted by modern standards — may well be the first “elaborate documentary to chronicle a single event,” Mr. Doherty said.“I can’t really think of any real predecessors,” he added, though Leni Riefenstahl’s infamous later Nazi propaganda film “Triumph of the Will,” made in 1935, can be seen as what Mr. Doherty calls a cinematic “evil twin.”Forty years later, rock-n-roll documentaries like “Monterey Pop” or “Woodstock” were essentially following a blueprint established by Eucharistic Congress. The enthusiastic crowds Ray L. Hall and his Fox crew captured, at times with dramatic angles and panning techniques, reflected profound changes in American culture.By the 1920s, urban Catholics were a powerful force in the national Democratic Party. Away from large cities, however, America remained almost uniformly Protestant, and anti-Catholicism remained common, even in the Democratic Party’s southern wing.Just two years before the Eucharistic Congress, the infamous 1924 Democratic National Convention in Manhattan lasted nearly three weeks because of endless fights over religion, immigration, the influence of the Ku Klux Klan, and the failed nomination of New York State’s Catholic governor Al Smith for president.Suspicions about American Catholics came from many ideological directions. A decade earlier, terrorists bombed St. Patrick’s Cathedral, as part of a broader anarchist campaign against perceived capitalist or religious authorities. Hollywood, meanwhile, often condescended to Catholic immigrants. The dignified pageantry of the Eucharistic Congress film can almost be taken as a pre-emptive strike against a notorious movie released a year later. Entitled “The Callahans and the Murphys,” and produced by legendary Hollywood fixer Eddie Mannix, this slapstick comedy was criticized and boycotted for its stereotypical depictions of two tenement Irish Catholic families.‘The Callahans and the Murphys,’ 1927. Wikimedia CommonsThe Eucharistic Congress film subtly rebukes such sentiments with its massive, orderly crowds of worshippers, including the many ethnic groups who flocked to Chicago — Italians, Germans, Poles, Bohemians, Slovenians, and even “South Dakota Sioux” are all featured.Cameras panning the Soldier Field crowds also fall upon a large contingent of African-Americans. Even the church leader at the time, Pope Pius XI, acknowledged that Chicago was “conspicuous … for the number and zeal of its Catholics.”The tableaux of this gathering is consistently enhanced by powerful winds blowing off of Lake Michigan, billowing the robes of priests and cardinals, who are seen celebrating mass in the shadows of Soldier Field’s massive Romanesque Doric columns. “Soldier Field today was the scene of the greatest religious pageant America has ever witnessed,” a Los Angeles Herald-Examiner newspaper report gushed. “With the flags of all nations flying from the colonnades, the papal colors of gold and white flowing in the wind, [and] the golden altar silhouetted against the gray skies and gray walls” of Soldier Field.Once it was completed, the Fox film was a hit in theaters in big cities, though not so much when shown in small towns. Still, it was popular enough for another Eucharistic Congress movie, cobbled together from footage shot by a different crew, and released under the title Faith of Millions, to also hit theaters in 1927.All of this suggested that the devout sons and daughters of Ireland, Italy, Poland, and elsewhere were on the verge of obtaining real cultural clout in America. Governor Al Smith — seen amongst the dignitaries in the Eucharistic Congress film — was officially nominated to run for president in 1928. Though he lost, many historians say the Smith run foreshadowed Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition of the 1930s and World War II years. Eucharistic Congress publicist Joseph Breen, meanwhile, became one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, working with the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America to monitor salacious film content. The so-called “production code” has become synonymous with prudish censorship, though the code also targeted ethnically or religiously offensive material. It was in effect when some of America’s greatest films were made.The Eucharistic Congress film is, at times, guilty of hyperbole, with one title card calling the event “the greatest religious gathering in the history of the world.”Still, with America about to celebrate its 250th anniversary, and Catholics now regarded as a pivotal swing vote in most national elections, this groundbreaking 1926 gathering — and the film it inspired — deserve a more prominent place in the nation’s cultural history.

A 100-Year Catholic Cinematic Mystery: The Groundbreaking Lost Film Chronicling Chicago’s Eucharistic Congress

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