Mumbai: Friday’s carnage in Paris cast a shadow over the ongoing Eucharistic Congress in Goregaon as well.
Archbishop Oswald Cardinal Gracias, of of Bombay led the 850 delegates in observing a few moments of silence to pray for the victims who perished in the serial attacks.
Later in the evening, a mass pilgrimage was undertaken to the shrine of Our Lady of Vailankanni in Uttan, and here too, the congregation mourned the innocent loss of lives.
Saturday marked the penultimate day of this national congress of Christian clergymen, The Times of India reported.
The relics of Pope Paul VI were presented for veneration. Fifty years before, His Holiness had arrived in Mumbai during the 38th International Eucharistic Congress in 1964.
“For this special event, he had gifted us a chalice which had been especially crafted as a gift for him. We have also received a piece of the vest he was wearing when he was stabbed, and this has been encased in a reliquary,” said the archdiocese spokesman Fr Nigel Barrett.