135,000 tickets for Pope Francis’
Mass in UAE
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| A poster of Pope Francis at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Dubai ahead of his Feb. 3 - 5 Apostolic Visit to the UAE (AFP) |
The Feb. 3-5 visit of Pope Francis to Abu Dhabi in the UAE
is the first papal visit to the Arabian Peninsula.
By Robin Gomes
Thousands of Catholics are queuing outside churches in the
United Arab Emirates (UAE) for tickets to the first Holy Mass by a pope in the
Arabian peninsula next week, local media reported.
Pope Francis will arrive in the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi,
late Sunday night. The theme of the Feb.3-5 papal visit is, ‘Make Me
a Channel of Your Peace’. This will be the Argentine Pope’s 27thforeign
apostolic visit outside Italy.
The highlight of this trip will be a Mass by the Pope in the
morning on Tuesday, February 5, at Abu Dhabi’s Zayed Sports City, which some
135,000 people are expected to attend.
The ticket will not only grant the thousands of faithful
access to the papal mass in and around the stadium, but also a day off work.
The leave was announced by the Ministry of Human Resources
and Emiratisation and underlines the UAE’s ongoing dedication to facilitating
interfaith dialogue which also coincides with its Year of Tolerance 2019.
Ticket seekers are showing a lot of patience and
determination to get access to the rare occasion of a papal Mass. “There
was already a long line by around 4:30 p.m., even though ticket distribution
started later at 6 p.m.,” said church volunteer Lucy Pascua, who was guiding
the crowds at St Mary’s Catholic Church in Dubai on Tuesday.
Approximately 36,000 tickets have to be distributed to
individuals by the end of Friday, Pascua said.
There are 1 million Catholics living in the UAE according to
estimates by the Apostolic Vicariate of Southern Arabia (AVOSA), the official
Catholic Church jurisdiction in charge of UAE, Oman, and Yemen.
With a huge demand for the 135,000 seats available for
Tuesday’s Mass, names were selected from a draw, often with only one member of
a family being granted access to the Mass.
Choir
A multinational 120-member choir comprising of singers from
9 churches of the UAE has been formed to sing at the Papal Mass. It will
be accompanied by an organ and a ten-member brass ensemble.
The choir members are from among 283 singers from 120 church
choirs who appeared for auditions. They include Filipinos, Indians,
Lebanese, Syrians, Jordanians, Armenians, French, Italians, Nigerians,
Americans, Indonesians, Dutch and Argentinians.
The choir will be led by Joy Santos of the Philippines.
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