Only a week after registration began, fifty thousand people signed up for Pope Francis’ upcoming mass in Transylvania, the portal of the Romanian Roman Catholic Church reports.
Márta Bodó, press organizer of the papal visit told Romkat.ro that since online registration opened on March 1, some 300 groups and 45 to 50 thousand individual pilgrims have completed the registration and received their unique barcodes.
The online registration is needed so the organizers can establish how many pilgrims they can expect. On the other hand, the location of the ceremonial mass which will be held by pope Francis on the 1st of June in the so called “saddle” between the Kis- and the Nagysomlyó-mountain, will be an area protected by the Romanian State Security Services, and only those people will be allowed to enter the perimeter, who have completed the online registration and have their voucher printed with the unique bar-code on it.
While individuals can also register, the organizers suggest group registration as the easier way: the leader of a group can apply for a single registration, assemble the list of people in his or her group, thus only having to provide his personal details and the size of the group. He will then receive barcoded tickets for the members of the group, print and distribute them to the participants.
Groups will also be given preference when assigning places in the viewing area, romkat.ro writes. Registration will end on March 31.
