VATICAN CITY, APR 13, 2005 (VIS) - Yesterday evening, Holy See Press Office Director Joaquin Navarro-Valls released the following declaration:
"This afternoon Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, substitute of the Secretariat of State, received Salvatore Festa, head of the Italian Police Inspectorate for Vatican City State.
"The substitute of the Secretariat of State again wished to explicitly thank Festa, and with him each of the functionaries and the agents of the Inspectorate, for their extraordinary commitment over the days following the death of the Holy Father John Paul II, days that saw the arrival in the Vatican of exceptional numbers of faithful and of civil and religious authorities.
"Archbishop Sandri praised the Inspectorate's exalted sense of responsibility and its tireless dedication to ensure an orderly flow of pilgrims, as well as its fruitful collaboration with all the other forces involved in organizing this exceptional event."
Statistics relative to the media presence, number of pilgrims in Rome and the welcome given them by the city of Rome and the Vatican for the period of April 3 to 8 were released by the Vatican yesterday afternoon.
More than 6,000 journalists, including those of print and electronic media, were given credentials by the Holy See Press Office and the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, both of which were given additional office space to accommodate the huge numbers of media people present for the funeral of John Paul II. Though it is impossible to gauge the number of radio and TV stations that transmitted the funeral service, says the communique, more than 80 TV stations were linked through Mondovision and 137 television networks from 81 countries covered the funeral Mass and surrounding events.
The Vatican internet site reported that there were 1,300,000 visitors to its Streaming Live coverage of the funeral Mass, reaching points of 54,000 simultaneous connections, and occupying a 9 gigabyte per second band.
For the funeral Mass: 157 cardinals concelebrated; 700 archbishops and bishops were present, as were 3,000 priests, of whom 300 distributed communion. There were 169 foreign delegations, representatives from 23 Orthodox Churches, delegations from Judaism and 17 delegations of non-Christian religions and organizations for inter-religious dialogue.
Among the statistics released today were those from the Italian Civil Protection and the city of Rome: over 3 million pilgrims in Rome; 21,000 people per hour entered St. Peter's Basilica; average wait was 13 hours and the longest was 24 hours; on the day of the funeral, 500,000 people filled St. Peter's Square and Via della Conciliazione; 600,000 were present in the areas where giant monitors were available; 400 handicapped were near the altar.
Personnel involved in assisting pilgrims: 8,000 volunteers; 2,000 Boy Scouts; 11,900 security people; 1,000 firemen; 6 helicopters, 400 soldiers; 2,700 city police; 7,000 people from the State Railway system; 4 disaster managers, more than 20,000 municipal employees and city volunteers assisted the above-mentioned personnel.
Other statistics: 1,000 special trains for 8,000 travellers; 6 special trains from Poland for 5,000 pilgrims; trains carried a total of 800,000 travellers; 29 giant TV screens throughout Rome; 3 million bottles of water distributed; 3,600 chemical toilets; 21 portable medical units and 100 ambulances added to medical facilities already available in Rome; 1,150 tents set up at Tor Vergata University for 8,000 people; 8 field kitchens, 400 water fountains; 5,000 beds set up at Rome's fairgrounds.
Rome's Call Center, which usually receives 8,000 calls per day, received over 20,000 calls a day and its operators responded in Italian, English, French, German, Spanish, Chinese and Arabic.
Over 400,000 flyers - written in Italian and English - were distributed to pilgrims with useful information on transportation, the location of basilicas and giant screens, etc.
The communique noted that on Sunday morning, April 3, the morning after John Paul's death, "the city awoke to 3,500 posters, and two giant banners, 22 by 10 meters each, on both sides of the Tiber river, which read 'Thank you - Rome cries for and salutes her Pope'."
OP/STATISTICS:GRATITUDE/NAVARRO-VALLS VIS 20050413 (670)
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