Katey Bruno, a George Washington University sophomore, said she talked a young scalper seeking $100 down to $50 for a Washington Mass ticket. But he wouldn’t budge further, she said. Still not sure whether the ticket was worth the price, she consulted her mother, who told her she was crazy. “Mom is into saving every penny,” Ms. Bruno says. Besides, the family took a trip to Italy a few years back and saw John Paul II riding in the Popemobile. She says her Mom’s advice was to “sit on the sidewalk and watch his motorcade.” After checking with her uncle, a priest, who had no tickets, Ms. Bruno settled for a free sidewalk pass through her school’s Catholic center.
Demand has been nonsectarian. “My family came from Ireland, but a couple of generations ago someone married a Baptist and the whole family is Protestant now,” Gary O’Connor, a lawyer with the Maryland attorney general’s office, wrote on Craigslist. Mr. O’Connor says he’d pay $50 to $100 for a seat because it will be interesting to see “people being very into it.”
Michael Adams of Montville, N.J., says he has struggled with his faith but felt it was important to take his 22-year-old daughter to see Pope Benedict. “There’s bound to be some people at any one of these events who are going to have an awakening. Why not make yourself available to it if it is going to happen?” he says. He says he emailed a neighbor who works at Yankee Stadium, who replied that even Yankee staff didn’t get tickets. “I’m sure my plight is hopeless,” he says.
With tickets so scarce, the Rev. Louis Bellopede, pastor of St. Paul’s church in South Philadelphia, decided he didn’t want to play favorites with the three tickets he was offered among the 1,300 members, mostly Italian retirees. “In order not to have a riot on our hands,” Father Bellopede says, he returned the tickets to the diocese. “I didn’t want our people to say, ‘Why did he get a ticket?’ ”
NPR says that the Pope will celebrate eucharist in a sports stadium (today?) and hopes to have 300 priests distribute the eucharist to 46,000 people in less than 15 minutes.
Talk about “Mass” appeal!
[size=1][color=red][url=http://resurrectioncommunitypersonal.blogspot.com/]The Rabbit[/url][/color][color=gray].[/color][/size]
Mass appeal, indeed.
The Roman Catholic Bishop of Rome, whom people call [b]THE[/b] Pope (papas; daddy), also takes the titles, “Vicar of Christ” and “Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church”. Among others.
So be it. It’s hard not to respect him, even though he considers Anglicans as excommunicated Roman Catholics, and that Anglican orders are “null and void”. That’s tough to swallow. For centuries, the Romans have taken pretension, clericalism and parochialism to majestic heights. Not particularly Christ-like, IMHO.
Still, one suspects that a visit from the PB would hardly fill a minor league stadium. Maybe even the ABp of Canterbury.
I guess numbers aren’t important. After Jim Jones had quite a following…