The World Meeting converges in Philly

THE FIRST resident priest in Philadelphia, the Rev. Joseph Greaton, was a Jesuit who gave his inaugural Mass before just 11 people in a small church on Willings Alley in Society Hill in 1732.

"This coming weekend, nearly 300 years later, another Jesuit will celebrate Mass for us," Archbishop Charles Chaput said yesterday to great applause at the World Meeting of Families opening ceremony. "The first one had 11 people attending Mass. Pope Francis' congregation will be tens of millions of people here, across North and South America and worldwide."

The World Meeting's opening ceremony at the Pennsylvania Convention Center was a joyous event filled with choirs, goals for breaking a Guinness World Record and gifts - including a custom-made bicycle Mayor Nutter had created for Pope Francis.

Move over Popemobile, Popebike is in town. Thank God the Philly Naked Bike Ride isn't also in town this week.

The first official day of the World Meeting was not without its controversy, though. At a news conference preceding the opening ceremony, Chaput and Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, who is the president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, fielded questions about whether same-sex families are equal to heterosexual families.

"You know family is family," Paglia said, before changing his tune. "When God built the masterpiece of the creation, [he did it] with this link between man and woman . . . family is man and woman as God at the beginning of creation."

Chaput was asked about Margie Winters, a former Catholic schoolteacher who was fired in June for being in a same-sex marriage and who was invited, along with her wife, to attend the White House welcoming ceremony for the pope.

"I have no comment on that. Who the president decides to invite to the White House is up to him," Chaput said. "And I don't think the Holy Father makes comments on those kinds of things."

Both at the news conference and at the opening ceremonies, Paglia extolled the virtues of Philadelphia, which is the first city in the United States to host the World Meeting.

"No other city would have been a better city to hold our meeting than Philadelphia, whose very name encompasses the love found in families," Paglia said.

Then, like Oprah giving away free cars to her audience, Paglia announced that not only will every World Meeting attendee get tickets to the papal events on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, they will also get a plenary indulgence, or the forgiveness of worldly punishment due to sin, with their registration.

"It is my great pleasure to tell you that Pope Francis has decreed it that those who participate in this World Meeting of Families can gain a plenary indulgence, even before the Jubilee of Mercy begins," Paglia said to great applause.

That led one Twitter user to speculate: "Great we'll be seeing plenary indulgences on Craigslist for $500 pretty soon."

What hopefully won't show up on Craigslist anytime soon is the custom-made Breezer bicycle that Nutter unveiled as one of the city's gifts to Pope Francis. The sharp, white bicycle bears graphics of the Liberty Bell and the pope's crest along with a chain guard that's shaped like an angel's wing.

"The bicycle was created to celebrate Pope Francis' advocacy for environmentally responsible modes of transit," Nutter said. "It's a people's bike for the people's pope."

World Meeting executive director Donna Crilley Farrell announced during the ceremony that organizers wanted congress participants to try to break the Guinness World Record for the most people contributing to a paint-by-number mural.

The mural of Pope Francis, which is part of the city's Mural Arts Program, was announced this summer, and as of Monday, 942 people had already contributed to it at various paint days across the city.

Farrell said they just need a few more volunteer artists to pick up a paintbrush and beat the record of 2,263 people creating a paint-by-number mural.

"I think we can not only break this record, we can blow it out of the water," Farrell said.

Nutter agreed.

"We're very competitive here in Philadelphia," he said. "We're taking the Guinness record this week."

Gabriel Green, 11, of Cary, N.C., was one of the many who went to pick up a paintbrush right after the opening ceremony.

"I think it's fun to help out," Green said. "And it's of the pope. I think he's really awesome."

On Twitter: @FarFarrAway

Online: ph.ly/crime

Blog: ph.ly/Delco