Papal Audience at St. Peter's★★

Pope Francis I greeting the flocks at a papal audience in Rome's St. Peter's Square. (Photo by SMCS Music Office)

How to get tickets to hang with his Holiness on St. Peter's Square in Rome

The crowds in St. Peter's Square for the Papal Audience (Photo by Matt Adams)

Tickets are free for the weekly mass "general audiences" held in Piazza San Pietro in front of St. Peter's every Wednesday around 10:30am (sometimes 10am in summer—to beat the heat).

Keep in mind, you'll be just one in a horde of thousands filling the plastic chairs in Piazza San Pietro.

Arrive several hours early to nab a good seat. The pope will wend his way through the crowd on some sort of Popemobile, but once he gets up to the dais to give his blessings and such, he will be just a tiny white dot under a large canopy.

(Note: In the dead of winter and/or during inclement weather, the papal audience occurs in the modern, 6,300-seat Pope Paul VI Audience Hall, where the Pope sits in front of a slightly creepy sculpture of tangled branches that is probably meant to symbolize something holy but reminds me of a prop from a Guillermo del Toro film.).

Now, I haven't been to an event with the Big Guy since John Paul II's day—last time I elbowed in with the crowds was during the summer of Jubilee Year 2000—but Benedict XVI kept things largely the same, and one can only assume Pope Francis I will as well.

(We'll just have to wait and see if Francis continues the tradition of decamping to the Papal palace in Castelgandolfo, south of Rome, for a few weeks each summer, so audiences may not necessarily run year-round—though Benedict XVI did hold blessings in Castelgandolfo on Sundays in summer.)

• Papal audience tickets (just tickets)
• Papal Audience Tickets and Presentation (includes guide to explain history and such)
• Papal Blessing at Castelgandolfo Day Trip from Rome (summer only)

What the weekly papal audience is like

An indoor papal audience inside the Pope Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican (Photo by Father Maurer)

The Pope usually wheels around the crowd filling St. Peter's Square his Plexiglas Popemobile for a little while before heading to the steps to the basilica, which serve as his stage for the event.

The Blessing of Your Stuff
Make sure you bring something you want to have sanctified during the mass blessing the Pope performs as part of the ceremony. Most folks bring (or buy from a nearby gift shop) a handful of little Crucifix necklaces, either for themselves or to give to Catholic friends back home. Last time I went, I brought my group of Boy Scouts to the event—partly because it would be neat, but mostly because it was a Jubilee Year and they, being teenage boys, certainly could use the soul-cleansing. However, I forgot to bring anything to get blessed. In a moment of inspiration, as the Pope flung his blessing over the crowd, I held aloft my plastic bottle of water. It now sits in my fridge, with a hastily scribbled note around the top in Sharpie marker: "Holy Water: Do Not Drink."

His Holiness sits upon a bishop's throne to oversee the ceremony—which consists largely of ecclesiastical flunkies reading out a list of groups in attendance that day, pausing for each to clap and cheer when their name is called.

There are also Jumbotron TV screens connected to cameras trained on His Holiness the whole time—to most of the crowd, the real thing is a white dot waaay at the other end of the piazza.

Other chances to see the pope

If you don't want to bother with the audience, you can always just show up Sundays for the noon Angelus or Regina Coeli papal blessing that the pope flings from his Vatican office balcony (to the right of St. Peter's).

It is free, and no tickets are required.

His Holiness also presides over various liturgical celebrations, from vespers to mass, throughout the year. You can get dates, details, and tickets at www.vatican.va.

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