Pope Ends U.S. Tour with Outdoor Mass in Philadelphia

Hundreds of thousands flocked to see Pope Francis celebrate the final mass of his visit to the United States in Philadelphia on Sunday.

Pope Francis led hundreds of thousands of the faithful Sunday at the last and biggest event of his joyful, six-day U.S. visit — a mass on Philadelphia's grandest boulevard — after consoling victims of the church sex abuse scandal and offering words of hope to jail inmates.

Riding through the streets in his open-sided Popemobile, the pontiff waved to cheering, screaming, singing crowds as he made his way up the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and reached the altar, a towering golden crucifix as a backdrop.

Francis told his listeners that their presence itself was "a kind of miracle in today's world," an affirmation of the family and the power of love.

"Would that all of us could be open to miracles of love for the sake of all the families of the world," he said.

Some 1,500 priests and deacons joined to give communion at the mass, expected to be the largest event of the Pope's visit that began in Washington on Tuesday

The mass itself was a vibrant tableau of brilliant gold, green and white in the slanted evening sunlight of a mild early-autumn day. It was the final event on the pope's itinerary before the 78-year-old pontiff returned to Rome.

June Bounds, 56, of Rochester, New York, watched along with fellow parishioners on a large screen set up a few blocks away from the mass, closing her eyes and blinking back tears as it opened.

"It's very overwhelming," she said. "You feel like you're one body with everyone here, whether you're here, whether you're back home, whether you're anywhere in the world."

Organizers predicted a crowd more than a million people, though there were fears that the unprecedented security, including airport-style bag searches, crowd-control cattle chutes and blocked-off streets, had scared many people away and would depress the turnout. There was no immediate estimate of the crowd at the mass.

Philadelphia's mass transit agency reported increased ridership on special papal trains heading into the city. More than 500 buses carrying 26,000 people had arrived by 11 a.m., nearly half of the shuttles organizers expect for the Mass.

Source: The Associated Press