Philly 'at its best:' Nutter, Chaput exult over papal visit

Mayor Nutter joined a weary-eyed but proud collection of city, law enforcement, and transportation officials Monday to declare the Philadelphia papal visit a rousing success.

"It was a tremendous honor for all of us to serve as hosts of hundreds of thousands who flocked to our city," Nutter said in his reception room at City Hall. "They came, they saw, and they experienced Philadelphia at its best."

The mayor did not provide estimates of how many attended Sunday's papal Mass on the packed Parkway, which officials projected would bring in upward of one million pilgrims. He said the city would try to determine a number but dismissed its importance.

"It's not our responsibility to be crowd-builders - folks are coming to see Pope Francis. Unlike a football game, this is not a situation where you evaluate success based on the score. Let's remember what this event was all about," he said.

Just an hour earlier, at a separate briefing, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput had exulted about his and the city's weekend with Francis, and Nutter, a former altar boy, picked up where Chaput left off.

The mayor called the papal service "the most spectacular Mass I think everyone's possibly ever going to attend, and probably the largest outdoor Mass that's taken place in the United States of America."

Fielding questions, Nutter took a renewed shot at the assembled press for contributing, in his view, to doom-and-gloom negativity in the anxious buildup to the event.

"I think the reporting on any number of aspects on this was detrimental to the mind-set of many Philadelphians. I think in some instances you all scared the s- out of people with some of your stories," he said.

"As did you!" one reporter retorted.

" 'Walk for miles?' " Pat Loeb of KYW Newsradio said, referring to Nutter's early warning that people needed to be ready to walk long distances to attend.

Perhaps it was lack of rest or the acknowledgment that everyone in the room had ridden the same three-month roller coaster of alternating glee and trepidation over the coming visit, but by the end of the briefing Nutter was contrite. He circled back to apologize for what he called his "intemperate remark."

"I'll more than likely get a very timely and terse email from my mother, who watches all these events," he said. "I do want to apologize for that."

He was unapologetic for the security measures taken - the lockdown of Center City, the fencing, the hundreds of National Guard, police, and federal officers - an effort unprecedented for the city and even for the Secret Service.

With Nutter from that agency were Special Agent David Beach and spokesman Robert Hoback, who called it the largest "national special security event" since that designation was begun in 1998.

The Secret Service led planning and implementation for the pope's visit, a logistical and law-enforcement undertaking so vast that it included 71 partner agencies broken into 22 subcommittees.

Philadelphia police made only three event-related arrests, the mayor said: One was for drunken driving, one for violation of probation - and a third, he explained, was "a complete idiot" who tried to sneak illegal drugs through a magnetometer.

Medical teams responded to 423 calls for assistance with 129 transports to hospitals over the two days of the pope's visit.

Nutter also recounted how the visit affected him, a product of St. Joseph's Preparatory School. He said his fondest moments were waiting at the airport for the pope's plane door to open; an embrace between an inmate and the pope at the prison; and watching his own mother at the Mass. He'd given his front-row seats to his mother and her sister.

At the archdiocesan briefing earlier in the day, Chaput, too, spoke of the visit, the meetings that gave rise to it, and what it was like for him to spend 48 hours with the pope.

The World Meeting of Families, the first such conference on U.S. soil and the largest since its establishment in 1993, drew 20,000 attendees and 2,000 vendors, Chaput said.

Chaput dubbed "surreal" his weekend with Francis in a heavily guarded Philadelphia. "There were no cars on I-76," the archbishop said, as if still processing the image.

He said the pope was impressed with "the beauty of our city," and enjoyed the food here, but did not eat a cheesesteak.

"He has a very disciplined way of eating, I noticed. When the rest of us ate second helpings, he did not," Chaput said.

Asked if the "people's pope" had enough opportunity to interact with pilgrims here, Chaput described behind-the-scenes moments.

"In every situation when we visited people who have responsibility and authority, he gave equal amounts of time in those situations thanking and greeting the people who were the janitors, the cooks, the people who were greeters at the doors," Chaput said.

"He was constantly aware of everyone in the room, and he went out of his way to spend time with everyone in the room and not just those who might be considered important, because he considers everyone important."

jterruso@phillynews.com

215-854-5506@juliaterruso

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Figures cited by Mayor Nutter Monday related to Pope Francis' visit to Philadelphia.

62,946

SEPTA Regional Rail passengers during the papal weekend.

40,000

Passengers taking the Broad Street Subway to AT&T Station after Sunday's Mass.

25,691

PATCO passengers for the weekend.

13,000

Indego bicycle trips from

Friday through Sunday.

Typical ridership on those days is about 6,000.

591

Vehicles on restricted streets that were towed, a 90 percent compliance rate. The Parking Authority had predicted that 1,500 cars would need to be towed.

69,000

Meals provided to 1,700 public-safety personnel and volunteers who stayed in dormitory rooms.

1,043

EMS professionals on call, with more than 100 ambulances.

423

Calls for assistance received by 10 medical stations, with 129 patients transported to hospitals.

3

Event-related arrests.

250,000

Bottles of water provided free to the public.

9,900

Hotel rooms booked in Center City, about 90 percent of those available.EndText

StartText

Francis calls Philadelphia welcome "very demonstrative." A4.

A joyous occasion, but not for many businesses. A4.

How many people were on the Parkway? B1.

Tough talk from abuse survivors and Chaput. B1.

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