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The Soulhern Diocese of Savannah OSS VOL. 81, No. 1 Thursday, January 4, 2001 Cathedral ORGAN FEATURED IN NEW BOOK —PAGE 6 $.50 PER ISSUE Vatican says 8.5 million people attended papal events in Rome during Jubilee By Cindy Wooden Vatican City (CNS) ore than 8.5 million people attended papal Masses and audiences in 2000, the Vatican said. The figures released December 30 by the Prefecture of the Papal Household reflect only the number of free tickets the office distributed for papal events. The figures do not include people who showed up in Saint Peter’s Square without a ticket, nor people who came for the pope’s Sunday recitation of the Angelus following a morning papal Mass in the square, the Vatican press office said. In addition, if an individual or group requested tickets for more than one papal event during their stay in Rome, they were only counted once. For example, the prefecture said more than 2 million people attended papal ceremonies in August. The figures assume that the 700,000 youths gathered for the August 15 opening events of World Youth Day were among the crowd of 2 million people who attended the August 20 closing Mass. The prefecture, headed by U.S. Bishop James M. Harvey, said its figures for the year 2000 refer only to events at which Pope John Paul II was present and not to the number of Holy Year visi tors to the Vatican. The city of Rome’s jubilee office announced in mid-December that it expected the total number of jubilee year pilgrims, tourists and visitors to Rome to be just more than 24 million, almost 7 million more than in 1999. The city’s estimates were based on surveys con ducted by a government-related polling agency and by the Italian association of currency exchange bureaus. The surveys did not distinguish between Holy Year pilgrims and tourists. The prefecture reported nearly 1.5 million peo ple attended the 45 weekly general audiences with Pope John Paul in 2000. The only time during his 22-year reign when more people participated in the gatherings was in 1979—the first full calendar year of his pontificate—when nearly 1.6 million (Continued on page 11) Jubilee year closing Masses scheduled B ishop J. Kevin Boland will be the principal cele brant of the Savannah Deanery’s solemn closing Mass for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 on January 7, the Feast of the Epiphany, at 3:00 p.m. at the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist. All Catholics of the Savannah Deanery are invited and encouraged to attend this special Sunday liturgy that will mark the end of this great Jubilee year of grace. T he Church of the Most Holy Trinity, the designated Jubilee pilgrimage church for the Augusta Deanery, will celebrate the closing of the Jubilee year with a Solemn Sung Mass at 10:00 a.m. on Epiphany Sunday, January 7. The Mass will end with a liturgical procession to Most Holy Trinity’s new Parish Center and its Solemn Blessing. An open house and reception at the new Parish Center and Saint Patrick’s Hall will follow its Solemn Blessing. The church is located at the comer of 8th and Telfair Streets in historic down town Augusta. The new Parish Center and Saint Patrick Hall is diagonally across the street. 2 () 0 ^ Christmas at the Cathedral Left: Bishop ]. Kevin Boland venerates the Nativity scene at the Midnight Mass of Christmas. Right: Rusty and Deanna Van Wyk, with their children Joey and Kaitlyn, carried the image of the Christ Child in the procession. Photos by Jonas N. Jordan