White House puts on a colorful show for pope and thousands

Published: 2008-04-16

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Even some of the bishops were in the standing-room sections on the South Lawn of the White House waiting for Pope Benedict XVI to arrive. With about 13,500 people in the invitation-only crowd, more guests were left to stand for the official welcome by President George W. Bush than were able to get a seat in the bleachers set up for the ceremony. Fewer still got an actual folding chair for their wait of as long as three hours for the ceremony to begin. It was their first visit to the White House, said some of the arriving U.S. bishops, dressed in the formal cassocks common around the Vatican, but rarely seen in official Washington. As they were escorted from their buses past the West Wing and the press room, they asked what parts of the building they were passing, seeming a little awed by the surroundings. The escorted busloads of bishops were interspersed with groups of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and Knights of Columbus, each of whom were put in sections of the lawn where they could see well, but had to stand for the duration. Even members of Congress were relegated to standing-room areas where their lines of sight to the podium were limited at best.

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