The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston is making 3,000 tickets available for Boston-area Catholics who want to see Pope Benedict XVI on April 20 at Yankee Stadium in New York.
The event will be one of the few opportunities for the public to see Benedict during his first papal trip to the United States, which will take him to Washington, D.C., and New York. Benedict will be in the country for six days, but the events all require tickets, and only two are for relatively large crowds: a Mass at the new Nationals Park in Washington on April 17 and the Mass at Yankee Stadium.
At the 2:30 p.m. New York Mass, the pope will acknowledge the bicentennial of the Archdiocese of Baltimore and creation of the dioceses of Boston, New York, Louisville, and Philadelphia.
The Boston tickets can be requested online at boston200.org. Ticket requests must be made by 5 p.m. Feb. 11. The archdiocese is making tickets available only to registered parishioners who are over age 14, and is planning to hold a lottery if more than 3,000 people request seats, said Scot Landry, coordinator of the event. The archdiocese will offer bus transportation to and from New York the day of the Mass.
"Many Catholics have called asking if the archdiocese would have tickets, so we requested a number from the archdiocese of New York, and we were thrilled that they allocated such a large number for us," Landry said. "There's a natural affection for the Holy Father, and this is his first trip to the US, and I think people want to experience it firsthand."
Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston will be traveling separately to New York and will concelebrate the Mass at Yankee Stadium with the pope.
Michael Paulson can be reached at mpaulson@globe.com.
