300,000+ may attend John Paul the Great's beatification

From The Catholic News Service

Church and local government organizers are planning to accommodate at least 300,000 people in St. Peter's Square and the surrounding area for Pope John Paul II's beatification Mass May 1.

Msgr. Liberio Andreatta, head of Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi, the Vatican-related pilgrimage agency, told reporters March 29, "Rome is ready to welcome every pilgrim who wants to come. Earlier, newspapers published megalithic numbers and said every hotel is booked. That's not true."

Father Cesare Atuire of Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi said as soon as Pope Benedict XVI announced the beatification date, travel agents and others booked large blocks of hotel rooms. Now that the beatification is just a month away, they have a more precise idea of how many rooms they will need and so they are freeing up the extras.

In addition, he said, two campgrounds outside of Rome will be reserved for pilgrims who want to keep their costs to a minimum. The commuter trains, which usually do not run on weekends, will be on a special schedule to get them to the prayer vigil April 30 in Rome's Circus Maximus and to the Mass the next morning.

Because the pope is the bishop of Rome and the pilgrims will spend most of their time in Rome, not at the Vatican, the Diocese of Rome is responsible for much of the cost of the event, Msgr. Andreatta said.

The diocese is passing the collection basket to large Italian companies to come up with at least $1.7 million to cover the costs of handling 300,000 pilgrims for the beatification, Msgr. Andreatta said.

Although the city of Rome and its hotels, restaurants and shops will benefit financially from the pilgrims, Msgr. Andreatta said the financial crisis still weighing on Italy made the diocese look to donors instead of the local government for funding.

The money will cover building a stage and installing a sound system and lighting at the Circus Maximus, running extra buses, covering the cost of the bus and subway tickets included in the pilgrim's package, renting and erecting crowd-control barriers and renting dozens of large video screens.

The screens will be placed in the squares around the Vatican and in most of the churches in the historic center of Rome so that people who cannot get close to St. Peter's Square or would prefer to stay away from the crowds can still follow the Mass, he said.

An Italian beverage company has donated 1 million bottles of mineral water, he said, and a restaurant chain has donated the ingredients for thousands of box lunches.

Father Atuire said that as of March 29, the largest numbers of pilgrims were coming from Italy, then Pope John Paul's native Poland, followed by Spain and the United States.

Opera Romano Pellegrinaggi has launched a special website -- www.jpiibeatus.org -- to assist pilgrims with reservations and information. The information is available in five languages, including English.

Romans recall fond memories of John Paul II and look forward to May 1 beatification of their bishop

from The National Catholic Register

With more than a million people expected to descend on Rome for Pope John Paul II’s beatification May 1, the event is being described as yet another pilgrim “invasion” of the Eternal City.

Because the beatification falls on a public holiday, some have predicted a massive exodus by Rome residents eager to escape the logistical problems caused by such a big crowd.

But Church officials say that Romans, in fact, may represent the biggest group at the beatification, for a very good reason: For them, Pope John Paul was not only a pope, but also a pastor.

The late Pope took the title “bishop of Rome” seriously, visiting the city’s parishes, prisons, schools, hospitals and soup kitchens. He even held an annual audience with Rome’s garbage collectors.

“John Paul II managed to get close to the Roman people, and he’s still very much present in their minds. Even Romans who were not great believers were touched by him,” said Giancarlo Distante, who works in a bookstore near the Vatican.

“Sure, it’s tempting to escape the city May 1. But I think the joy of seeing this man beatified is going to keep a lot of people here,” Distante said.

The Diocese of Rome has even organized its own special event, a prayer vigil the night before the beatification, which will take place in the open area that was once the ancient Circus Maximus. Hundreds of thousands are expected to attend.

When Pope John Paul II was elected in 1978, Romans flocked to St. Peter’s Square and were shocked to hear that a certain Karol Wojtyla would be the new pontiff — the first non-Italian pope in more than 450 years. But the new Pope quickly won the crowd over when he gave his first speech in Italian and invited people to correct him if he made any linguistic mistakes.

The Polish Pope worked hard to build bridges in Rome, carrying on with the pastoral work that he had enjoyed so much as archbishop of Krakow. In an effort to better know his flock, he visited more than 300 of Rome’s 334 parishes, providing every Roman neighborhood with moments of celebration and excitement.

Those visits were not limited to a papal Mass. Typically, the Pope met with parish groups, chatted with young people and toured the facilities. Romans had the sense that this Pope had come to learn about them as well as preach to them.

Pope John Paul met routinely with Rome city officials, and he did not hesitate to weigh in on social and moral problems. He often did so from places that had rarely, if ever, seen a pope: a Rome prison, for example, where prisoners served at the papal altar, read prayers and sang hymns.

He not only visited Rome’s homeless shelters and soup kitchens, but opened a 74-bed hostel for the poor inside the Vatican and, more than once, personally visited with people there.

His annual encounters with the street sweepers and garbage collectors near the Vatican never made headlines, but always gave Romans a sense that this Pope stood with the “little people.”

In 1998, Pope John Paul personally kicked off a city-wide evangelization campaign, knocking on the door of a fifth-floor apartment in Rome and casually visiting with the family that lived there.

In the neighborhood of Rome’s ancient Jewish ghetto, Pope John Paul’s photo still hangs in some shops. Residents there say they’ll never forget when he made history by visiting their synagogue in 1986.

Even more than with special groups, Pope John Paul made connections with a whole generation of young people in Rome. As Pope for more than 26 years, he hosted Roman schoolchildren on dozens of occasions at the Vatican, in encounters that often included song, dance and testimonies by the young. As he grew older and frailer, these meetings had a special poignancy.

When the Pope lay dying, Rome’s young people were the first to arrive in St. Peter’s Square. They came by the hundreds and then by the thousands, serenading and praying for the Pope beneath his window. Eventually they were joined by more than 3 million people who arrived in Rome for the Pope’s death and funeral.

Romans were proud of themselves in 2005 for absorbing and hosting such a huge crowd with little or no problem. They want to do the same for the beatification, but there are some unusual practical problems.

For one thing, May 1 is Europe’s “labor day” holiday, which means a shutdown of most businesses, shops, coffee bars, restaurants and public transportation. Store owners have already petitioned for an exemption from the closure rules and say if no permission is granted they may open anyway.

“Such a great mass of people cannot arrive here and find a city without services,” said Cesare Pambianchi, the president of Rome’s Confcommercio retailers’ association. “The image of Rome is at stake.”