On Sunday Oct. 24, 1954, more than 150,000 people gathered on the National Mall in the shadow of the Washington Monument for a rally and mass dedicated to Mary, Queen of Peace. The rally was the culmination of a year of activities in the Archdiocese of Washington to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the promulgation of Ineffabilis Deus, which established the Immaculate Conception as a dogma within the Catholic Church. This was the first international Marian Year.
Members of the archdiocese had taken various pilgrimages to Marian shrines all over the world. Every parish in Washington had sent parishioners to the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which was still under construction in 1954. There was a campaign going on nationwide to raise the $8 million needed to complete construction on the Upper Church. Families were encouraged to build their own personal shrines to Mary in their homes and gardens, and more than 70,000 families in the archdiocese took the family rosary pledge, to say the rosary as a daily family prayer. The year culminated in a massive rally and Mass on the grounds of the Washington Monument.
On that cloudless Sunday, the area from Constitution Avenue to the Washington Monument was packed with rally goers. Constitution Avenue was closed to traffic. Buses were parked on the Ellipse, but many people just drove into the city, parked blocks away and walked to the Mall. Archbishop Amleto Cicognani, the Apostolic Delegate to the United States, celebrated the Mass with then-Washington Archbishop Patrick O’Boyle presiding. Auxiliary Bishop John McNamara read the prayer sent by Pope Pius XII, and Bishop Fulton Sheen preached the sermon on the topic of Mary as the universal Mother.
During the Mass, the altar was surrounded by the color guard of the Knights of Columbus and members of the U.S. military. A choir of 165 students from the Theological College was also positioned near the altar and sung the entrance and recessional hymns. There was also a 1,000-member children’s choir dressed all in blue that sang at the Mass from a stage near the Washington Monument. News reports about the Mass and rally touted the amplifiers and microphones used so that the crowd could hear the goings-on. The event was recorded for the newsreels and part of the tape has been placed on YouTube.
The platform on which the altar was situated had been used at rallies in the Archdiocese of Washington since 1921 and was repainted for the occasion. It could hold as many as 225 people. The altar itself was new and designed by Edward J. Wunder, the head of facilities at The Catholic University of America. It took two weeks to set up the site. The new altar was surmounted by a 12-foot statue of the Virgin Mary as the Queen of Peace. It was covered in blue and white velvet and had three prominent parts signifying the Trinity. The National Park Service allowed the altar to remain in place for prayer for two days after the Mass. It was taken down beginning Wednesday of the next week. Interesting, Holy Communion was not distributed at the Mass to the people attending.
The day before the rally, an article in the Washington Star encouraged those of all faiths to attend. It said, “Any such assemblage of people is important, if only because it is a gathering of men, women and children who, being neighbors, have a like fate. Doctrinal limitations have little significance compared with the elemental reality of our common humanity. Whether we wish it or not we move toward the same destiny. What hurts or harms one group injuries all…The need for such a demonstration is compelling in this ‘age of confusion.’”
(Dr. Jacobe serves as the director of the Archives for the Archdiocese of Washington.)
