World Meeting of Families organizers and city of Philadelphia officials will look back on the papal visit at a pair of news conferences Monday morning.
“This is not a situation where you evaluate success based on the score," said Mayor Michael Nutter. "The event itself was successful.”
Nutter joined city officials and WMOF organizers at City Hall to recap Pope Francis’ two-day visit to the Philadelphia region that caused massive road closures and draw hundreds of thousands to the Ben Franklin Parkway for a Festival of Families concert and papal Mass.
"It was a tremendous honor for all of use to serve as hosts to the Holy Father Pope Francis in our city for two days of large public events," said Nutter.
- Nutter also admonished the media for negativity ahead of the vent that may have kept people from attending.
Nutter noted that ore than three-quarters of the "traffic box," aka "Francis Festival Grounds" were reopened overnight.
"Our city is returning to whatever normal is for this time of day."
He also said that the event was successful in many ways but he didn't confirm the 860,000 number of people at the Parkway Mass Sunday that sources said attended.
Earlier, leaders of the Pontifical Council for the Family and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia including Archbishop Charles Chaput at 10 a.m. at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. The Wold Meeting of Families congress at the convention center drew about 20,000 participants.
