Secret Service To Protect The Pope During NYC Visit

Secret Service To Protect The Pope During NYC Visit, by Ruschell Boone. NY1 News November 15, 2007:

The Secret Service has offered its protection to Pope Benedict XVI for his April visit to New York City and Washington.

The agency says it is standard practice for heads of state.

The report goes into great detail on the planning of the papal mass in Yankee Stadium:

With only five months to prepare for Pope Benedict's arrival, the Archdiocese of New York says it is starting to hammer out the specific details of the visit, including the public mass scheduled at Yankee Stadium on Sunday, April 20.

The service will be free, but only about 60,000 tickets will be distributed as early as January. As the host, most will go to parishes within the Archdiocese of New York.

“And then we'll have a certain number of tickets for the neighboring dioceses, places like the Archdiocese of Newark, the Diocese of Brooklyn, the Diocese of Bridgeport, and the Diocese of Rockville Center in Long Island,” said Joe Zwilling of the Archdiocese of New York. “So we'll make sure the bishops of those places will have a representation of their faithful present as well.” [...]

“In Central Park we had to bring everything and we had to build it from the ground,” he said. “In Yankee Stadium we will have the facilities already there. Very practical things like seats, like concession stands, like bathrooms already in place.”

After having its first committee meeting on Tuesday, the archdiocese is also trying to decide how many languages will be used during the service.

“Creole and Spanish and German and French and English and Tagalog and I'm trying to think of some of the other ones we've used in the past,” said Zwilling. “You can really bring them all in there.”

According to the report, the Saturday, April 19 mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral will be reserved for "about 2,500 priests, deacons and bishops."

And according to the Times Herald Record "There's still one variable in the plan — the name of the parish that will host an interfaith service has yet to be announced." (NYC plans for pope, hoping for perfection, by Michael Randall. November 14, 2007).