The August Papal visit to the World Meeting of Families by Pope Francis will cost about €1 million an hour.
Pope Francis’s upcoming visit to Ireland is expected to cost a staggering €32 million, the majority of which will be covered by the Catholic Church.
Heading to Dublin as part of the World Meeting of Families on August 25, the Pope’s 36 hour visit will include an massive open-air mass in Phoenix Park, a celebratory concert in Croke Park, a Popemobile tour of Dublin City, as well as a visit to the basilica of Knock in County Mayo.
“This is bigger than the Queen, bigger than Obama,” a Government official said to the Irish Times of the papal visit, the first one to Ireland in nearly 40 years.
The Catholic Church is pledging €20 million toward expenditures for the visit, mainly through funding from parishioners and donors. However, there will be additional governmental costs as well.
“We do not have a cost or budget yet either for the security or for the reinstatement of the [Phoenix] park, but we estimate it will be in the same ballpark as Queen Elizabeth’s visit,” Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said in July about the papal visit.
Read More: Pope Francis to visit holy shrine at Knock, Co. Mayo in August as part of Irish trip
“In other words, it will probably be more than €10 million and less than €20 million but that is only an estimate at this stage.”
RTE said that the exact cost of the visit will not be made available until two days after events.
The Irish State will incur costs through both the Office of Public Works and the Health Service Executive, primarily for the logistics and safety of the mass in Phoenix Park which will draw some 500,000 people.
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