WYD Blessed Sacrament Scandal: Woman in White Received No Answer

Another report von that horror night

<< My name is A. and I was an attendee at the recent WYD in Lisbon. Myself and the others in my pilgrimage group, were also witnesses to the “Tupperware Tabernacle” debacle that took place during the overnight vigil. I know that I speak for many others in our group when I say that it was heartbreaking, devastating, and incredibly sad to see our Lord treated in that flippant of a manner.
However, we decided to make the best of a horrible situation. One of our priest in the group said that we must all pray to make reparations for the horrible wrong that was done to our Lord. One of the transitional deacons in our group decided that we should make our own Holy Hour sign ups so that we could at least make sure that Jesus wasn’t left alone in the horrible situation that He was in that night. And so we did.
My holy hour was from 4-5 am. They had closed the chapel tent around 1 o’clock that morning and would not let anyone in after that, because people were sleeping on the floor of the chapel tent. I did my holy hour, sitting on my sleeping bag, facing the chapel, which was not very far from where our group was sleeping. We made the best we could out of a bad situation and tried to adore and spend time with our Lord as best we could. I can also send you a picture of what the set up looked like in the chapel tent that was in our sector of the grounds. I took this photo because I did not think family/friends back home would believe me when I told them about the situation. I knew I would need proof.
One of the five priests in our group told me that they (the clergy) were told that the Tuppernacles held consecrated hosts and that that was how communion would be distributed at the closing Mass on Sunday morning. Also, the volunteers that I asked told me that the “gray boxes” held hosts which were already consecrated for the closing Mass. I am unsure of who brought the candles. When my friend and I were walking back to our sleeping area, we were walking by and she just said, “It’s Jesus!” We looked over there was the whole chapel tent set-up and some of the seminarians in our group were already inside praying. The picture I took is exactly how we found the tent and how it stayed all night until they temporarily closed the tent to place Jesus in the many, many ciboria for the Mass itself.
After that was done, they reopened the tent and there were so many people kneeling and praying around the tent that it was impossible to get close enough to get a picture. When I first saw the chapel tent, I sent a group message to our entire Archdiocesan group and said, “We found the chapel and Jesus!” We gave directions on where it was and that’s when one of our transitional deacons came to pray and began to make the plan to have at least two of us from our group stay with Jesus all night long, every hour. One of our priests told us we must pray in reparation for this atrocity to our Lord and so our Holy Hours came to be!
When my friend and I saw this whole chapel tent situation/set up and what was inside, we were floored. I had been to a previous WYD and had never seen anything like this before. It made me sick to my stomach and all I could think at first was “Jesus, I’m sorry… My Jesus, mercy… Father, forgive them.” I was embarrassed and saddened for the lack of faith and decorum in this situation. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the only sad thing. Throughout that whole day and night before and through the closing Mass itself, we witnessed many sad things I had never seen before at a WYD. There was a huge lack of modest and edifying clothing present overall, even during Mass itself. We saw people brushing their teeth during Mass. We saw a guy walking and smoking during Mass and another eating a sandwich during Mass. Some were sleeping, talking, playing on their phones, or dancing. It blew my mind! I could not believe what I was seeing. I had never seen anything like this before. >>