LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The Eternal City is preparing for an estimated two million pilgrims for Pope John Paul II's beatification this coming May 1, when the city will be thronged with Easter week tourists. There are no tickets and no reservations for the event as many of the faithful want to be there to see the Polish-born pontiff beatified, the last formal step before canonization.
The Rev. Ciro Benedettini, a Vatican spokesman says "We don't give estimates" of the size of the crowds who will come. Italian news reports say authorities in Rome were planning for two million pilgrims.
With St. Peter's Square and the boulevard leading from the Tiber to the Vatican able to hold a few hundred thousand people, large video screens are expected to be set up in nearby streets so the spillover crowd can watch the ceremony led by Pope Benedict XVI.
The last comparable event to draw as many people in Rome was the three million mourners for John Paul's funeral following his death in April 2005 after he struggled for years with Parkinson's disease.
The most popular ceremonies in his papacy didn't come near to drawing so many faithful. When an ailing John Paul beatified Mother Teresa in 2003 in St. Peter's Square, 300,000 pilgrims attended. Padre Pio's sainthood ceremony, led by John Paul in June 2002, saw about 200,000 faithful in the square in one of the larger turnouts in his 26-year-long papacy. In 2000, about 700,000 young Catholics streamed into Rome for church World Youth Day events stretched out over several days at locations throughout the city as well as at the Vatican.
La Stampa, an Italian daily, said the national civil protection agency personnel hope to rein in any chaos by meeting pilgrims' buses and channeling the faithful down selected streets to the square.
In addition, Easter falls on April 24, meaning Rome's hotels will be brimming with Easter week tourists, when many students are on school break and families pour into Italy, so organizers might look to Romans to open their homes to pilgrims.
The Rev. Ciro Benedettini, a Vatican spokesman says "We don't give estimates" of the size of the crowds who will come. Italian news reports say authorities in Rome were planning for two million pilgrims.
With St. Peter's Square and the boulevard leading from the Tiber to the Vatican able to hold a few hundred thousand people, large video screens are expected to be set up in nearby streets so the spillover crowd can watch the ceremony led by Pope Benedict XVI.
The last comparable event to draw as many people in Rome was the three million mourners for John Paul's funeral following his death in April 2005 after he struggled for years with Parkinson's disease.
La Stampa, an Italian daily, said the national civil protection agency personnel hope to rein in any chaos by meeting pilgrims' buses and channeling the faithful down selected streets to the square.
In addition, Easter falls on April 24, meaning Rome's hotels will be brimming with Easter week tourists, when many students are on school break and families pour into Italy, so organizers might look to Romans to open their homes to pilgrims.
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