Pleas for Tickets to Papal Mass Inundate Archdiocese

To guard against security threats and protests and to prevent the exploitation of a sacrament for profit, the Washington and New York archdioceses are working to make the tickets non-transferable.

The hunt for tickets has spread to eBay and Craigslist, where a photo of a beaming man in a silvery tie was attached to a plea for tickets to either the Washington or New York Mass.

"If I can get tickets to this event, I will be proposing to my girlfriend there or shortly after," the posting said. "Please understand that my girlfriend has brought Christ into my life . . . and I can see us walking with the Lord together forever."

In the interest of fairness, some parishes are opting to raffle off their tickets.

"Oh my gosh, going to the papal Mass is absolutely perfect," said Lori Brown, 48, a Justice Department worker who recently won a ticket to the Mass at a raffle sponsored by the Archdiocese of Washington. "To actually be that close to the Holy Father and to hear his message is going to be magnificent."

At St. Peter's in Washington, Va., the Rev. Robert DeMartino said the sign-up sheet on the wall of the tiny rural church "is jammed. Half the parish wants to go."

DeMartino plans to put all the names into a hat and have an altar server pick out the winners during Mass.

Catholics going to the New York events were told a few weeks ago about how many tickets each parish would get for the Mass and for the youth rally, said Joseph Zwilling, spokesman for the New York archdiocese.

The archdiocese is keeping about a quarter of the 57,000 tickets to the Mass at Yankee Stadium for its parishioners. Another bunch is going to nearby dioceses in New Jersey and New York. Four dioceses celebrating bicentennials this year -- Boston, Philadelphia, Louisville and Baltimore -- are also getting tickets. Others tickets are going to dioceses across the country.

"One wrote for 10,000. Another wrote for 8,000. We did the best we could," Zwilling said. Most dioceses are receiving a few hundred tickets at most. "We made a real effort to include the whole country as best we could," he said.

Since he became pope in 2005, Benedict has traveled mostly in Europe. His only overseas travel was to Brazil last year.

The Rev. Horace "Tuck" Grinnell, pastor of St. Anthony of Padua parish in Falls Church, said he wants to give tickets to some of the poorest parishioners, including recent immigrants. St. Anthony is 70 percent immigrant, largely Spanish-speaking.

"Something like this," he said, "they see as a way of expressing their faith."