The heart of Denver’s Catholic community was packed to the brim Sunday in an event to revive belief in one of the church’s core teachings.
The pews of the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in downtown Denver were full and pilgrims took up standing room on the peripheries of the church and spilled out into the grass courtyard outside.
The Mass itself commemorated what every other Sunday service has during the church’s season of Ordinary Time.
But this was no ordinary Mass.
A Mass attendee watches Denver’s Archbishop Samuel Aquila begin the liturgy to consecrate Holy Communion at the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in downtown Denver on Sunday, June 9, 2024. Bernadette Berdychowski / Denver Gazette▲
More than 4,000 believers came for the procession of the Eucharist — bread that Catholics believe is the body of Christ — which has been traveling across the country as it passed through downtown Denver.
Denver’s Archbishop Samuel Aquila began the procession down East Colfax Avenue, circled the State Capitol building before traversing down Lincoln Street toward Holy Ghost Church.
It’s part of four routes that the Catholic Church planned to treck across the nation as one of the main parts of its National Eucharistic Revival, the three-year campaign launched by the leaders of the U.S. Catholic Church to address the concerning number of believers who don’t understand the theology on Holy Communion.
The Western route is the longest and most difficult of the routes — starting in San Francisco and spanning 2,200 miles through Nevada’s deserts, Colorado’s Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains.
Nearly 70% of self-described Catholics believe the bread and wine used for Communion are merely symbols – and not the actual body and blood of Jesus as the Catholic Church has taught for nearly 2,000 years, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2019.
Denver’s Archbishop Samuel Aquila raises a host of bread — which Catholics believe is the body of Christ — at the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in downtown Denver on Sunday, June 9, 2024. The Mass was part of a national pilgrimage meant to help revive belief of the church’s theology on Holy Communion. Bernadette Berdychowski / Denver Gazette▲
“Sweet sacrament, we thee adore,” pilgrims sang walking past downtown’s struggling office buildings. “Oh, make us love thee more and more.”
Catholic leaders have found the trend amidst its faithful concerning as religious participation in the country is declining, and the number of people who don’t affiliate with a religion has quickly risen.
The “nones,” which researchers call the growing group of atheists, agnostics and nonreligious, make up nearly a third of the American population, according to another Pew Research Center survey released this year, up from 16% in 2007.
Most of the decline in Christianity is concentrated within Protestantism, falling from 52% to 40% in the same time period. Catholicism has stayed fairly steady at about 20% of the population since 2014, according to the survey.
Mass attendees worship at the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception on Sunday, June 9, 2024 before a procession of the Eucharist around downtown Denver. Bernadette Berdychowski / Denver Gazette▲
How do Catholics view the “bread of life”?
The Eucharist is a complex theology dividing Christians as many Protestant denominations do believe it is just a symbol.
But for Catholics, Holy Communion is the “sum and summary” of their faith, church doctrine says.
The ritual is a reminder of the most important events of the Bible story when Jesus ate with his disciples before being arrested, was put to death and then rose from the grave within three days. Catholics take Jesus’ recorded words “This is my body” literally — while its material composition remains bread, its essence is believed to be transformed at Mass — and participate at least weekly to unite themselves with the Bible’s central messages of love, hope and sacrifice.
Aquila called consuming the bread an act of receiving and accepting God’s gift and promises of eternal life.
A Eucharistic procession, part of a national pilgrimage journeying from San Francisco to Indianapolis, passes by Colorado’s Capitol building on Sunday, June 9, 2024. Denver Archbishop Samuel Aquila said believers shouldn’t identify with politics but rather with God ahead of the ceremony. Bernadette Berdychowski / Denver Gazette▲
If even practicing Catholics struggle to grasp this concept, church leaders worry what that could mean for the faith.
“If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand,” Aquila cited from the Gospel reading of the day.
He urged churchgoers to meditate on what they truly align with: God or politics?
“What is the lens that you look through? Is it the lens of secularism or some ideology or some political party,” Aquila asked attendees. “Or is it in the eyes of God?”
Pilgrims, nuns and monks were among the more than 4,000 attendees of a Eucharistic procession around downtown Denver on Sunday, June 9, 2024. Bernadette Berdychowski / Denver Gazette▲
Where the procession is going
The revival campaign began by encouraging local churches to better educate those sitting in their pews about Communion.
In July, it will culminate in a national congress in Indianapolis at Lucas Oil Stadium meant to establish missionaries who will continue the revival’s mission long after the campaign.
The revival is being led by a Denver Catholic leader, CEO Tim Glowkowski, the former director of strategy for the region’s archdiocese, home to more than 500,000 Catholics.
The West route of the National Eucharist Revival’s pilgrimage as it passes through downtown Denver on Sunday, June 9, 2024. Bernadette Berdychowski / Denver Gazette▲
The July conference is expected to be one of the nation’s largest Catholic events since St. Pope John Paul II visited Denver in 1993.
The pilgrimage has been touring the diocese since June 5 stopping at churches in Steamboat Springs, Boulder, Arvada and Littleton before it departs Colorado out of Sterling on Wednesday as it heads toward Indianapolis.
The three other routes were passing through Wisconsin, Baltimore and New Orleans Sunday.
Patrick Fayad, a 23-year-old pilgrim traveling the full 2,200 miles, told the Denver Gazette that the pilgrimage aims to bless communities and heal a divided nation and church.
“This pilgrimage is taking place to really reinvigorate the faith of our nation and help bring the presence of the Lord to a really divided place,” Fayad said.
Fayad said they’ve celebrated dozens of Masses in various liturgical traditions and languages throughout their journey — and the event has brought together Catholics who typically worship separately because of language or cultural barriers.
Worshipers kneeled outside Holy Ghost Church at the end of the Eucharistic procession around downtown Denver on Sunday, June 9, 2024. Bernadette Berdychowski / Denver Gazette▲
Fayad is a sort of “chauffeur” tasked with logistics such as taking care of liturgical equipment and medical needs along the long journey. Recently, the pilgrims trekked through rural Utah and Idaho – but Denver has been one of the busiest legs of the route yet.
“Being in the diocese of Denver,” Fayad said, “it’s been awesome to see tons of people.”