Vatican: Pope Francis names Cardinal Farrell his envoy Eucharistic Congress of Quito 2024

The Vatican reported this Monday that Pope Francis has appointed Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Life and Family, as his special envoy for the 53rd International Eucharistic Congress Quito 2024 (IEC), which will be held from September 8 to 15 and which was presented today to the press in Rome.

Who is Cardinal Kevin Farrell?

Cardinal Farrell was born on September 2, 1947. He is 76 years old.

He was ordained a priest of the Legionaries of Christ on December 24, 1978. Six years later, in 1984, he was incardinated as a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington (United States), where he was named auxiliary bishop in December 2001.

He received episcopal consecration on February 11, 2002. On March 6, 2007, he was named Bishop of Dallas, where he served until 2016 when he was named prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Life and Family.

Pope Francis created him cardinal in the consistory of November 19, 2016.

Since 2019 he is the “camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church”, that is, he is the cardinal who presides over the Apostolic Chamber and carries out the task of caring for and administering the temporal goods and rights of the Holy See during the Vacant See after death or resignation of the Pope.

The presentation in Rome of the 53rd International Eucharistic Congress Quito 2024

This Monday the event was presented at the Pressroom of the Vatican, whose motto Fraternity to heal the world.

In his intervention, the Archbishop of Quito, Bishop Alfredo Espinoza, recalled that this Eucharistic congress is held to commemorate the 150 years of the consecration of Ecuador to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which made the South American country the first nation consecrated to this devotion.

After recalling that in 2021 they received the news that Quito would be the venue for the ecclesial event, Bishop Espinoza highlighted that “the Eucharistic Congress to be held in Quito must be that voice with a Latin American accent for the Church of the entire world.”

“It will be a voice of hope that is announced from this continent of hope. It will seek to be that prophetic voice that will proclaim to everyone that brotherhood is the only possible way to make and build a new world,” he highlighted.

For his part, Father Juan Carlos Garzón, general secretary of the IEC, explained that the base document for the Eucharistic congress has three parts, with an introduction and conclusions.

“The introduction of the document reminds us: a dream of fraternity, today we live the urgency of a fraternity that springs from the Eucharistic experience and tends towards it as if to its end. The themes of each of the parts of this base document speak to us on their own about this desired fraternity,” explained the Ecuadorian priest.

In turn, Father Corrado Maggioni, president of the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses, reviewed these events in the history of the Church and explained how they are understood now.

“The reunderstanding of the Eucharistic mystery that began with the liturgical movement and matured with the Second Vatican Council, has also reoriented Eucharistic congresses to promote the inseparable link between the Mass and Eucharistic worship outside of it, paying attention to the lived experience,” the Italian priest highlighted.

In this way, “the Eucharistic Congress has then become an opportunity to express the Church of the Eucharist in the light of Vatican II and the liturgical reform that followed.”