{"id":3586,"date":"2006-03-30T09:09:26","date_gmt":"2006-03-30T09:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/record-breaking.html"},"modified":"2006-03-30T09:09:26","modified_gmt":"2006-03-30T09:09:26","slug":"record-breaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/record-breaking.html","title":{"rendered":"Record-breaking"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Catholic News Service article on big crowds in Rome:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

According to the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household, more than 2.8 million people attended the weekly general audiences, the Sunday blessings, special papal audiences or liturgical celebrations at which Pope Benedict presided.<\/p>\n

Also, the number of visitors going through the doors of the Vatican Museums in 2005 broke all records, even surpassing the huge crowds that came during the jubilee year when the museums extended opening hours into the afternoon. Last year, more than 3.8 million people squeezed through the turnstiles. That number was up from more than 3.4 million people in 2004.<\/p>\n

Some speculate the unprecedented global media coverage the Vatican received during last April’s papal transition had a hand in putting Rome and the Vatican back on the map as a sought-after tourist destination for both secular globetrotters and Christian pilgrims.<\/p>\n

While curiosity about the new pope and the desire to pay homage to the late pontiff with a pilgrimage to his tomb have accounted for some of the boom in visitors, one tour guide said there are other factors involved.<\/p>\n

For example, the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the euro, which became Italy’s official currency in 2002, has stabilized, said Paul Encinias, co-founder of the Rome-based Eternal City Tours.<\/p>\n

"That means there’s more economic accessibility" for tourists coming from the United States, he said.<\/p>\n

While the number of visitors "has definitely increased since last April, it was already on the rise from two years ago," he said.<\/p>\n

"I would say having a new pope accounts for about 5 percent" of the increase in the number of visitors who use the company, said Encinias.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There’s more – an interesting article, as I said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Paul Encinas and Eternal City Tours sponsor Theology on Tap in Rome – Here’s their website, and if you click on the TOT logo you can see some photos of, er, recent events.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

All of the Roman residents I spoke to on this topic noted that crowds were, indeed growing in Rome. We were there in late February, "off-season," and one person, I don’t remember who, noted that the lines to get into St. Peter’s at that time were at a size you might not have seen, in past years, until later spring…<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Catholic News Service article on big crowds in Rome: According to the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household, more than 2.8 million people attended the weekly general audiences, the Sunday blessings, special papal audiences or liturgical celebrations at which Pope Benedict presided. Also, the number of visitors going through the doors of the Vatican Museums…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nRecord-breaking - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/record-breaking.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Record-breaking - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A Catholic News Service article on big crowds in Rome: According to the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household, more than 2.8 million people attended the weekly general audiences, the Sunday blessings, special papal audiences or liturgical celebrations at which Pope Benedict presided. Also, the number of visitors going through the doors of the Vatican Museums…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/record-breaking.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-03-30T09:09:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Record-breaking - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/record-breaking.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Record-breaking - Via Media","og_description":"A Catholic News Service article on big crowds in Rome: According to the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household, more than 2.8 million people attended the weekly general audiences, the Sunday blessings, special papal audiences or liturgical celebrations at which Pope Benedict presided. Also, the number of visitors going through the doors of the Vatican Museums…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/record-breaking.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2006-03-30T09:09:26+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/record-breaking.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/record-breaking.html","name":"Record-breaking - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-03-30T09:09:26+00:00","dateModified":"2006-03-30T09:09:26+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/record-breaking.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/record-breaking.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/record-breaking.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Record-breaking"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}