Just 20,000 tickets now left amid big demand for Pope Mass
MORE than 480,000 tickets for Pope Francis’s Mass in the Phoenix Park have now been allocated.
Just 20,000 tickets remain to see the pontiff when he visits the park for the World Meeting of Families (WMOF) in August.
He will say the final Mass of his trip to Ireland at the venue.
The 45,000 tickets for his visit to Knock Shrine were snatched up almost immediately, having been put on sale at the same time as the tickets for the Mass last week.
A spokesperson for the WMOF told the Irish Independent there had been a big demand for tickets both in Ireland and abroad.
“The request for tickets for all the World Meeting of Families 2018 events has been overwhelming by any standards,” she said.
Meanwhile, a campaigner involved in the protest which involved buying up tickets for the Phoenix Park with no intention of using them has expressed regret.
Richard Duffy was involved with the ‘Nope to the Pope’ campaign against a welcome for Pope Francis in light of the sexual abuse scandals caused and covered up by the Church.
He said that while he still wanted to protest about the visit, he didn’t want to deprive of a ticket anyone who wanted to go to the event.
“My intention was to express disappointment that the Pope was being made welcome,” he said.
He booked almost 700 tickets and said if anyone missed out, he would try to help them.
“I have a couple of friends who wouldn’t be regular Mass-goers but an awful lot of people felt it was a personal attack on their faith,” he said.
He admitted he regretted booking the tickets “a little bit”.
But he also had a serious problem with people, including Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, calling the campaign petty.
“This was a response to the horrendous abuse covered up by the Church, I don’t see how you could call that petty,” he said.
WMOF had expressed disappointment about the protest campaign.
“It is disappointing that some people would try to undermine the right of ordinary families to go to Mass with the Holy Father, showing little respect for the right to religious freedom.
“However, the WMOF2018 is confident that it has robust systems in place to check all bookings and there will be a number of verification requirements before people actually receive a ticket,” it said.