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<center>
<img height='275' src='http://vaticanstamps.org/VPS/images/296/461.jpg'>
<img height='275' src='http://vaticanstamps.org/VPS/images/296/462.jpg'>
<img height='275' src='http://vaticanstamps.org/VPS/images/296/463.jpg'> 
39th Eucharistic Congress, Bogota, Columbia Scott 461-463 (1968)</center>
 
On August 22, 1968, Vatican City issued the three stamps illustrated above to commemorate the 39th International Eucharistic Congress being held in Bogota, Columbia. The stamps were released on the day Pope Paul VI departed for the Congress, which was convened from August 18 through 25, 1968. Pope Paul attended for three days (August 22 to 24). He had also attended the previous Eucharistic Congress, held in Bombay, India, in 1964.
 
The first Eucharistic Congress was held in 1881 in Lille, France. The idea for the event came from French Bishop Gaston de Ségur, although the initial inspiration came from a French laywoman, Marie-Marthe-Baptistine Tamisier, who had spent a decade lobbying for the event. Each Congress is intended to provide clergy, religious, and the laity an opportunity to bear witness to the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. 
 
Subsequent Congresses have been convened over the next 140+ years. Initially held on an almost-annual basis (the first 25 Congresses spanned a total of 33 years), the time between Congresses is now about four years, although that has changed for a variety of reasons over the years, including delays due to the two World Wars and the recent COVID pandemic.
 
Father Herbert Phinney provided a detailed review of the itinerary followed by Pope Paul for the Bogota Congress in an article that appeared in Vatican Notes in 1968. This was the second Congress attended by Pope Paul (the first being in Bombay, India, in 1964). His visit to Bogota marked the first visit by a pope to the continent of South America. As an interesting side note, the Pope's plane landed in Bermuda on the return flight to Rome for refueling. This is believed to have been the first time a pope had set foot on British soil (Bermuda being a Crown Colony of Great Britain)--another first for the Pilgrim Pope.
 
<center>VATICAN CITY STAMPS FOR INTERNATIONAL EUCHARISTIC CONGRESSES</center>
 
This stamp set from 1968 was the second issued by Vatican City to publicize a Eucharistic Congress. The first was issued for the 38th Eucharistic Congress in Bombay (Scott 400-403, 1964). Vatican City has issued stamps for all subsequent Eucharistic Congresses. In 2012, James Hamilton presented an article in Vatican Notes providing a philatelic history of Eucharistic Congresses commemorated on Vatican City stamps up to that point. Here is a display of one stamp from each of the Eucharistic Congress sets issued by Vatican City:
 
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<img height='275' src='http://vaticanstamps.org/VPS/images/296/403.jpg'>
<img height='275' src='http://vaticanstamps.org/VPS/images/296/463.jpg'>
<img height='275' src='http://vaticanstamps.org/VPS/images/296/533.jpg'>
<img height='275' src='http://vaticanstamps.org/VPS/images/296/592.jpg'> 
<img height='275' src='http://vaticanstamps.org/VPS/images/296/688.jpg'>
<img height='275' src='http://vaticanstamps.org/VPS/images/296/761.jpg'>
<img height='275' src='http://vaticanstamps.org/VPS/images/296/839.jpg'>
<img height='275' src='http://vaticanstamps.org/VPS/images/296/927.jpg'> 
<img height='275' src='http://vaticanstamps.org/VPS/images/296/1046.jpg'>
<img height='275' src='http://vaticanstamps.org/VPS/images/296/1165.jpg'>
<img height='275' src='http://vaticanstamps.org/VPS/images/296/1284.jpg'>
<img height='275' src='http://vaticanstamps.org/VPS/images/296/1386.jpg'> 
<img height='275' src='http://vaticanstamps.org/VPS/images/296/1503.jpg'>
<img height='275' src='http://vaticanstamps.org/VPS/images/296/1613.jpg'>
<img height='275' src='http://vaticanstamps.org/VPS/images/296/1778.jpg'>
<img height='275' src='http://vaticanstamps.org/VPS/images/296/1861.jpg'></center>
 
The next International Eucharistic Congress, the 54th, will be held in 2028, as the event returns to Australia and will convene in Sydney. This will be the second time the Congress has been held in that city, having taken place there 100 years prior in 1928. This is the third time it has occurred in Australia, as Melbourne hosted the 40th Congress in 1973.
 
REFERENCES: 
<li>Wikipedia.com, <a href= 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucharistic_Congress'>Eucharistic Congress</a> 
<li>James C. Hamilton, Vatican Notes, Volume 60, Issue 352, pp. 25-33, 2012, <a href='https://vaticanstamps.org/vaticannotes/idisplay.php?p=60-352-24-25&r=0'>International Eucharistic Congress Philately</a> 
<li>Father Herbert Phinney, Vatican Notes, Volume 17, Number 3, pp. 3-5, 1968, <a href= 'https://vaticanstamps.org/vaticannotes/archives/VaticanNotes101.pdf'>XXXIX International Eucharistic Congress, Bogota, Columbia, S.A.</a> 
<li>Vatican Philatelic Society website, www.vaticanstamps.org, Stamp Database Search

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