Rooms triomfalisme in de Amsterdamse straten

Abstract

This article analyses the preparations and the implementation of the 27th International Eucharistic Congress, held at Amsterdam in 1924. After an introduction on the (negative) image of this congress in Dutch historiography, on the person of de papal legate (the Dutch cardinal Willem van Rossum CSSR), and on the phenomenon of the ‘Eucharistic Congresses’ and its organizing committee, the author analyses the forces pro and contra the organization of such a Congress in Amsterdam. The initiative was taken by some ultramontane clergy and laypeople, gathered around the revival of the devotion of the Amsterdam Eucharistic Miracle (1345). The bishop involved, mgr. A. Callier of Harlem, felt little of inviting the organizing committee to choose for Amsterdam, and also the (Roman Catholic) Prime Minister Ruijs de Beerenbrouck kept aloof, fearing a revival of protestant antipapism. So in advance it was already clear that the government and queen Wilhelmina would avoid every diplomatic presence ‐ quit different as was the case at similar congresses in other countries. Besides, a grand procession through the Amsterdam streets was impossible because of the then still prevailing prohibition of public religious processions. The most important ceremonies thus were held in the Amsterdam soccer stadium. The Congress strengthened the feeling of unity of the ‘common’ Catholics with the Dutch cardinal as their shared national icon, but on the other hand it worsened the relations between the Dutch episcopate and the Prime Minister, and their ‘man in Rome’. In the end the Eucharistic Congress had no antipapistic consequences, and only limited political consequences, thanks to quite a lot of informal negotiations before and during the Congress. It nevertheless played a role on the background, when the government decided in 1925 to close the Dutch embassy at the Vatican.