More than 90 lawyers, judges, and other members of the John Carroll Society of Washington, D.C., will serve as ushers tomorrow at Nationals Park. They will help direct, greet, and seat the estimated 45,000 attendees for the Mass to be celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI.
“A papal Mass in the United States is a rare occurrence, and opportunities to serve as an usher are even rarer,” says Paul Scolese, parliamentarian for the Carroll Society and a policy adviser at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. Scolese notes that the last time a pope visited Washington was 1979.
The John Carroll Society is a Roman Catholic charitable organization, made up of people mostly in the legal and business community. It started in Washington in 1951.
The volunteer ushers were walked through the ballpark yesterday by event planners and briefed on tomorrow’s crowd expectations. “They certainly need a lot of volunteers in this big effort,” Scolese says. “So we at the John Carroll Society are thrilled to help out.”
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