MEXICO CITY - Officials of Mexico's Roman Catholic Church reported Tuesday that some unscrupulous travel agencies are trying to sell package tours including admission to the Mexico City basilica where Pope John Paul II is scheduled to celebrate mass at the end of July.
There are, in fact, no tickets for sale. The Mexican Council of Bishops will distribute the 1,500 available tickets for each of the July 31 and Aug.1 events to the country's dioceses, who will in turn give them free of charge to parishioners
"We've gotten reports that some unscrupulous travel agencies are offering all-included tours to Mexico City, complete with admission" to the papal ceremonies where John Paul will canonize the Indian saint Juan Diego, said Janet Galindo, a spokeswoman for the Basilica of Guadalupe.
The church expects 22,000 people to attend the canonization at the Basilica of Guadalupe, but most of them will have to witness the ceremony — possibly on video monitors or by loudspeakers — in the sprawling patio of the basilica compound.
The basilica is named for the Virgin of Guadalupe, who appeared to Juan Diego near the spot in 1531.
The Vice president of the Bishops Council, Bishop Jose Guadalupe Martin Rabago told local media there were reports of "people are going around trying to make illicit profits with fake tickets."
"Surely we are going to start seeing this kind of thing, it happens every time there is kind of event," said Rabago, bishop of the northern city of Leon. "These people have no other aim than to wrongly try to make a profit from the faith of the most humble of our people."
The Pope is also scheduled to beatify two Indian martyrs from the southern state of Oaxaca. Beatification is the last formal step before sainthood.
"Of course, the churches in Oaxaca will get more tickets, because the beatification ceremony involves their martyrs," Galindo said.