Two Billion To Tune In To Pope's Funeral

[DudeAsInCool]

Two billion set to see funeral

By Robert Mendick In London And Jeremy Charles In Vatican City, Evening Standard

5 April 2005

A worldwide television audience of two billion people - believed to be the biggest ever - is expected to watch the Pope's funeral on Friday.

Read more here...

[eclectica]

That figure sounds high. Are there even 2 billion Christians with access to TV?

[DudeAsInCool]

That figure sounds high. Are there even 2 billion Christians with access to TV?

Not everyone watching will be Christian...

[Shawn]

It makes you wonder why though.

I think there are 1 Billion RC's. It leaves a lot of others watching for strange reasons.

[slum_goddess]

don'tcha know the pope's funeral is totally so much more important and interesting than what's going on over in iraq.

ooh, now they're showing the preznit sitting there for like five minutes, see him sitting, trying to articulate to laura...

[Lord_of_the_Dense]

Not everyone watching will be Christian...

But most nom-christianS will not be watching.

[method77]

I will even though I don't believe in those things. 2 billion seems normal to me for such an event

[Malicious Intent]

According to the Florida International Museum [http://www.floridamuseum.org/diana/home.htm], 2.5 billion watched Princess Diana's funeral - so from that POV, 2 billion is nothing.

It does seem like everyone with a tv must be watching though o_0

[method77]

it doesn't say 2 billion tvs. It says two billion people.

[Shawn]

Here is a list of the top 12 contenders hoping to become infallible.

I was...amused(?) to find that 8 of them were born in the 1930's. Any of those would lead to a long reign(?).

[method77]

I was reading about them on the paper and thought the same thing. I was really surprised about the views of some of them. The Indian candidate things of homosexuallity as a soul sickness!

Anyway, I like the Brazilian guy but who am I and what do I know?

[Malicious Intent]

it doesn't say 2 billion tvs. It says two billion people.

You know full well what I mean :P

[Kooperman]

who am I and what do I know?

nah.....too easy

[DudeAsInCool]

"The funeral of the Pope on Friday will draw the biggest gathering of the powerful and the humble in modern times. Four kings, five queens, at least 70 presidents and prime ministers and more than 14 leaders of other religions will attend alongside what the Vatican expects will be two million faithful; the largest number of pilgrims to converge on St. Peter's Square in its history."

(You can view a slide show on the Pope here:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...r1643200999.jpg

[Amber]

There are no words for how much coverage this is getting....goes to show that this world isn't so bad after all huh?

[slum_goddess]

see my comment above.

[rainbowdemon]

Maybe I'll just dowload it later!!

;)

[DudeAsInCool]

Here's a pic outside the Vatican:

[slum_goddess]

what he said:

CNN's news coverage the past week:

POOOOOOOOOOOOOPE

JackCaffertyStockMarket

POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE

MichaelJackson

POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE

Therefore, I'm not surprised that 24-hour nets are struggling with how to fill airtime. The Pope's death and the selection of a new Pope are critically important issues in terms of both religion and politics, and the news networks should cover it. But at this point, we're simply in the period of viewing, mourning, and celebration/analysis of the man's life - CNN doesn't need to run four hours of stories a day informing us that there are a whole lot of people waiting in line to see him.

One of the excesses that 24-hour networks, in the twenty five years since CNN launched, have never gotten control of is the propensity to overcommit to stories - and news judgement is so utterly awful. Right now, CNN's breaking in with a story about a brush fire in Florida. A brush fire. Is the fire near residents? No. Is the fire widespread? No. But it does allow a segue into stories on the Masters and Duchess Camilla. This is it. This is the media. A series of inoffenisively useless People cover stories mixed with actual news beaten into the ground like it stole money. Even from a marketing standpoint, this is nonsense to me - big stories draw ratings, but how do you keep viewers by ignoring all other serious stories? The last break in the "Boy, There's A Shitload Of Catholics" saga was the revelation that Peter Jennings had cancer - and while a tragic event in a public figure's life, why was that, of all the things that impact our world, worth the non-Papal attention?

[DudeAsInCool]

You can find fulll coverage here:

http://www.npr.org/

[Kooperman]

Two Billion To Tune In To Pope's Funeral

That's easy money...where do I collect?

[Wolfie]

Maybe I'll just dowload it later!!

;)

Won't you go to Hell for that?

[slum_goddess]

does anyone apart from me think this shit is outrageous?

The Vatican's decision to let Cardinal Bernard Law lead a funeral Mass for Pope John Paul in Rome has prompted outrage back home, where the ousted Boston archbishop is seen as a symbol of a pedophile priest scandal.

Victims of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergymen were particularly harsh in their reaction, saying the decision to give Law a prominent role in the pomp and circumstance surrounding the pope's death came as a slap in the face.

from here

he should be cleaning out the fucking toilets in St Peter's...w/his tongue, dammit. FUCK!

[slum_goddess]

they boo'd his lying ass in rome yesterday:

When Bush's face appeared on giant screen TVs showing the ceremony, many in the crowds outside St. Peter's Square booed and whistled.

from here

and from here, check out the captions and pics LOL

[slum_goddess]

HA-ha: