What Did the Pope’s Visit Cost Philadelphia?

It has been over a month since Pope Francis and the accompanying Popemania descended on Philadelphia. The pope was in town over the weekend of September 26-27 doing various good works around the city as well as holding a large public mass on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Now that the time has passed and the city as a whole has had some time to recover from all the madness, it is time for Philadelphia to tally up what the papal visit cost.

In this photo, pedestrians cross the Benjamin Franklin Bridge when it was closed to vehicular traffic for the pope’s visit.

According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, city officials are “still reviewing security and logistics, compiling information on what can improve for the Democratic National Convention and crunching numbers to deliver a final invoice to the World Meeting of Families for what it all cost.” That’s right – you might have thought that the craziness associated with the pope’s visit was behind us, but for the city of Philadelphia, the issue carries on. We do have some information, courtesy of a press release by Deputy Mayor Everett Gillison and Samantha Phillips, head of the Office of Emergency Management. We know that a combined 1.1 million people went through security checkpoints on Saturday and Sunday. That number does not include people who watched the pope on giant TVs set up outside of security areas. The city is still trying to get an accurate count of how many people showed up in total.

Gillison is tasked with delivering an invoice to the World Meeting of Families, which is supposed to pay up by November 30th. The WMoF has already shelled out $5.23 million in upfront costs, and signed a contract to pay as much as $12 million more. Gillison says he believes the final figure will be lower than that.

Phillips says that the event was a success in the eyes of the city, including how it was handled.