More than 4 million attended papal audiences and celebrations during first year of
Pope Benedict XVI’s pontificate
(April 19, 2006) : During his first year as head of the Catholic Church, more than 4 million people attended Pope Benedict’s public events. The Vatican Prefecture of the Pontifical Household on Wednesday released attendance figures for Pope Benedict General Audiences held each Wednesday, Sunday Angelus, as well as all other public events presided by the Holy Father at the Vatican during his first year of his pontificate. Then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected one year ago, on April 19 2005. The report showed that the Wednesday general audience continued to draw important crowds to the new Pope, with more than a million people attending from April 2005 to April 2006 and an average of 24,000 each week. The most popular event was the Holy Father’s Sunday Angelus with 1,875,000 people having attended. Overall, for most of the major events, the peak months of attendance were October and November 2005, with an average 150,000 attending the Wednesday audience and 250,000 the Sunday Angelus during the two months. The last week’s Holy Week celebrations demonstrated, the Vatican continues to be a massive centre of attention for the world. Pope’s first apostolic visit was to Cologne in Germany from 18th to 21st October 2005, where he attended the International World Youth Day celebrations. Pope Benedict published his first encyclical entitled “Deus Caritas Est”, God is Love, on 25th January 2006.
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