Young Catholics carry a wooden cross and icon of the Virgin Mary - symbols of the Church's World Youth Day - on a beach in Niteroi, near Rio de Janeiro.
The crowd gathered to watch looks sizeable, but this is just a small prelude to a much bigger event: World Youth Day itself, when Pope Francis will travel to Brazil on his first international trip as pontiff to preside over the celebrations that take place from 23-28 July.
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"I am sure that there will be no lack of people wanting to present the Pope with a jersey from one of Rio’s four biggest soccer clubs."
As soon as we received the official agenda for Pope Francis’ July trip to Rio de Janeiro, we went straight out to photograph the sites that he’ll visit.
Brazil has 123 million Roman Catholics, according to the latest census – more than any other country. But many residents of Rio say that their city is the most irreverent in the world, so all Popes are received here with the slogan, “The pope is pop.” What with the large number of events that he’ll participate in here, that slogan will be on everyone’s minds.
I think the high point of the Pope’s visit will be the two days visiting Copacabana Beach, a place that every year sees two million revellers celebrating New Year.
The Rolling Stones brought 1.5 million fans to Copacabana in 2006. Since Cariocas are natural partiers, I’m sure that during the two days of the “Pop Pope” on Copacabana Beach, we’ll see millions of Catholics, non-Catholics, tourists, and many more than at any of those past events.
I can already imagine the bay full of yachts, small boats and even canoes. The sand will be occupied by pilgrims, bikini girls, beer vendors and thieves. Ironically, Cariocas will confirm that Francis is much more pop than Mick Jagger.
After the beach, the competition for the next largest event will be between the masses he will hold at a ranch in Guaratiba, in the Varginha favela, and in the Aparecida Basilica near Sao Paulo.
The day the agenda was announced and we made our rounds to photograph these places, a Varginha slum dweller immediately claimed that her home had been chosen for the Pope to visit, and the two chapels in the slum were disputing the right to host him.
But what was confirmed was that it would be a soccer field where Francis – a loyal fan of the San Lorenzo de Almagro soccer club in his native Argentina – will hold mass.
Knowing Cariocas well, I am sure that there will be no lack of people wanting to present the Pope with a jersey from one of Rio’s four biggest soccer clubs.
When Pope John Paul made his first trip to Rio in 1979, a song was composed for the occasion titled “A benção, João de Deus“ (A blessing, John of God). The song became a hit, and one day in 1980, when the immensely popular soccer club Fluminense was in a penalty shootout with Vasco da Gama, thousands of fans began to sing it. Fluminense turned the score around to win the match and the championship, and the entire stadium was convinced that it was the pope who had intervened.
During the last Vatican Conclave, people here wanted a Brazilian Pope. But when it was announced that the new Pope is from Argentina, Brazil’s greatest soccer foe, he suddenly became labelled the “first Latin American Pope” and nobody talks about or remembers the fact that he was born in the rival country.
It remains to be seen which Brazilian soccer club will be the one to win over the Pop Pope.