Hang on, HOW much?
Pope Francis is set to follow in the footsteps of Ed Sheeran by rocking the Phoenix Park next summer, and it's going to cost a fortune.
The proposed upcoming papal visit will amount to over €20 million, according to Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who was speaking on
Today with Sean O'Rourke on Monday morning.
Pope Francis is expected in Dublin next August for the
World Meeting of Families, a week-long international celebration "guided by" the theme "The Gospel of the Family: Joy for the World”.
In conversation with the RTÉ Radio 1 host, Archbishop Martin said that he expects the 81-year-old Pope to deliver mass in the Phoenix Park following his conference duties.
"It will cost over €20 million," said the Archbishop. "Because of the complications of just gathering people together, and the security and technology that is needed to do that."
Asked where the money would come from, Archbishop Martin cited church collections that "might bring about €5 million", with the rest coming from fund-raising.
"I don't know how much a concert in Croke Park normally costs," he began, "but we are very anxious that people and families can come, without them experiencing financial difficulties - for example; we won't charge any admission to anything for children [and] the mass in Phoenix Park will have public access."
Over a million people turned out for Pope John Paul II's visit in 1979, but the Archbishop isn't concerned with numbers, rather "the quality of the events."
"If there were one million, two hundred thousand people at Croke Park the last time, and there were two people less this time, there will be all sorts of comments about it as a failure, and so I think we have to look at it in quite a different way."
Later, O'Rourke enquired as to what the tax-payer should expect.
"I think the State will look on the visit of the Pope in the same way that it looked at any other distinguished personalities who visited the country," said the Archbishop. "As would have happened with the visit of the Queen or President Obama or anybody else who comes, they look at that."
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