Posted on 04/06/2005 5:58:13 AM PDT by Pendragon_6
The sea of pilgrims filing past Pope John Paul II's body continued to swell yesterday as Italian authorities prepared to protect millions of people, three American presidents and at least 200 other dignitaries at Friday's funeral.
Attendance Friday is expected to exceed original estimates of 2 million, with Polish officials saying that many pilgrims could come from the pontiff's homeland.
The prefect of Rome, the representative of the central government responsible for law and order, Achille Serra, said Italy was coping with the influx.
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(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
If Jimmah Cahtah wants to attend, he can buy his own ticket to Rome. He's a man of the people, no ?
FoxNews report this morning said the new estimate is some 4 million will visit Rome. Not all may get to pass through the viewing because of the crowd size, but they will 'be there'. Greg Palcott said the viewers' line was already longer than 10 hours and stretching more than a mile from St. Peter's.
Unfortunately, it is a perfect killing ground for suicide bombers.
Those lines sound like the alleged voting lines of disenfranchised DUr's. We have video of the lines to see the Pope. You'da thunk that there would be video of the voting line. It's AWFULLY big. Kinda hard to miss?
They are expecting 2 million just from Poland.
I'm surprised I haven't seen this from AP as of yet:
AP: Out of and estimated 1.1 Billion Catholics throughout the world, only a mere 4 million, 4% percent, will actually pay their respects to the former Pope in person.
A spokesperson, Jane Doe, for the group NPC, "Non Practicing Catholics", said she was dismayed by the low turnout. "The Catholic Church can expect the problem to get worse and worse unless it starts accepting women, married, and homosexual priests into their Church. Other views on abortion on demand and embryonic stem cell harvesting need to change as well...", she said. She also stated that even if those changes were to come about, she still wouldn't attend Mass.
Here's an interesting fact.
JPII was born during a solar eclipse.
There will be a solar eclipse on Friday, the day of his funeral, but over the Americas, not over Europe.
From Yahoo News "Sky-watchers from the South Pacific to the Americas will witness the first solar eclipse of 2005 on Friday when the moon blots out part of the sun. . . . In much of the continental United States, people will see what looks like the moon taking a bite out of the sun, with the bite bigger over the South. In Central America and the northern portion of South America, the sun will be reduced to a narrow ring of fire."
Malachy was right -- JPII's life truly was "a Labor of the Sun."
How odd if the next pope comes from the area of the world from which Friday's eclipse is visible.
If the jihadi idiots commit any terrorist acts in Rome during the pope's funeral, they will even lose Western Europe as allies and collaborators.
As I understand it, the invited guests will arrive at a
special entrance to the Vatican, often used by the Pope
and his entourage when they want to go and come without
public fanfare. And since the "seats" for the service have
been assigned already (Bush's group seated next to Iran's"), security should be somewhat more in control
indoors.
Also, the official USA contingent is 5; I heard an
additional 55 Congress folk will be going on their own (Pelosi, et al.) But noone's stating how many American Security Guards are flying over. As usual, they'll be "under cover."
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