Hundreds of thousands crowd the heart of Philadelphia to bid farewell to the Pope: [tr]

UK Daily Mail ^ | September 27, 2015 | Chris Pleasance and Kelly McLaughlin

[C19fan]

Pope Francis urged hundreds of thousands of the faithful gathered Sunday for the biggest event of his U.S. visit to be open to "miracles of love," closing out his joyful six-day trip with a message of hope for families, consolation for victims of child sexual abuse and a warning to America's bishops. The wide Benjamin Franklin Parkway overflowed with the jubilant, who stood in line for hours and endured airport-style security checks to see history's first pope from the Americas celebrate an open-air Mass in the birthplace of the United States. The Mass - the last major event on Francis' itinerary before the 78-year-old pontiff took off on the flight home to Rome at 7.45pm - was a brilliant tableau of gold, green, white and purple in the evening sunlight of a mild early-autumn day.

[C19fan]

The family and I went to Philadelphia for the events. You can see our spot we spent the two days in the first overhead photo; the open green space on the right. My wife and kids spent a couple of hours along the Pope Mobile route while I relaxed in my folding chair defending the spot. The music and testimonies were very nice on Saturday night with Jackie Evanchenko, how she has grown to be a beautiful young women, Mark Wahlberg as the MC, Andrea Bocelli, and a Latino music star, Juanes, my wife is a big fan of. The crowd was amazing and we meet people from all around the world. I chatted with a man who was with a group from Tanzania. There were only three arrests. We got some good cheese steaks from the Reading Food Market while we walked to Ben Franklin Parkway.

[wny]

don’t let the door hit you on the way out....

[Mercat]

Thanks for representing freeperdom so well. God bless.

[fishtank]

[USNBandit]

How painful was security? I couldn’t believe the concept of putting all those people through metal detectors.

[C19fan]

We arrived at the security checkpoints hours before the events. Saturday was about 30 minutes and Sunday it took almost 2 hours. There are stories about people who arrived “late” on Sunday not being able to get through security on time. It was not only metal detectors but they, TSA employees, did intensive searches of bags and they checked electronic devices to see if they are the real deal.

[USNBandit]

The secure zone downtown in Philly was the largest I have ever seen. I think the local government was very concerned over the projected crowd sizes. It was a very expensive operation.

[Salvation]

Great pictures at that link.