AmP Tip: DC Papal Ticket details made public - allotments to be finalized Friday

The skinny, as promised.

Here is how tickets to the Pope's Mass in Washinton DC on April 17th will be distributed:

• 14,000 tickets will be made available to residents outside the Archdiocese of Washington
• Of these, 6,000 will be made available to the Diocese of Arlington and 2,500 will be made available to the Archdiocese of Baltimore
• Other dioceses in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Delaware will share about 1440 tickets.
• Parishes in the Archdioces of Washington will be given their final portion numbers this Friday.
• Parishes will receive tickets based on Mass attendance as well as whether they have a school or religious education program. Each pastor decides how the tickets are to be distributed.

The method of choice within each parish seems to be some sort of lottery system.

The Mass at National's stadium can accomodate about 46,000 people. So that means 30,500 tickets or so will be available once the outside-DC tickets have been distributed. After you factor in priests, press, dignitaries, etc, that number will probably be closer to 27,000, if that much. And that's a very rough guess.

Sources: Washington Post's "District Breafing" and USA Today.

more information: "AmP Tip: How to get tickets to see Pope Benedict XVI in April"