Papal Audiences

To request tickets for a Wednesday Audience please click here: AUDIENCE REQUEST FORM

About the Papal Audiences

Most Wednesday mornings, the Holy Father gives a General Audience. All pilgrims who are in Rome and would like the opportunity to see and pray with the Holy Father are welcome to participate. The Audiences are normally held in St. Peter’s Square, which can hold about 10,000 pilgrims. During the very warm summer and cold winter months, the Audiences are moved indoors to he Paul VI Audience Hall, which can hold about 6,000 pilgrims. Please note that there are generally no Audiences during the month of July and on big Solemnities when the Holy Father is instead celebrating a public Mass. Because of the limited number of places, tickets are required to attend the Papal audience, but these tickets are always entirely free.

The Papal Audience is not a Mass, but rather a time of catechesis and prayer. Usually, it begins with a short reading from Sacred Scripture. After that, the Holy Father gives a homily based on the reading. When the Holy Father has finished his speech, shorter summaries of what he said are offered in eight major languages. The Audience then concludes with the Holy Father giving his Apostolic Blessing to all pilgrims who are present of following the Audience through social media. Following the Audience, some pilgrims might also have the opportunity to greet the Holy Father personally.

Couples who are newly married within the Catholic Church have a special opportunity to sit in the sposi novelli section at the General Audience, close to the Holy Father. You can find more information about how to participate as sposi novelli here.

Schedule for the Papal Audiences

As you might have seen on the Vatican website, the Holy Father’s official schedule is often only published a few days ahead of the event. In order to help you plan your pilgrimage, we have created a calendar of Papal Events which we expect will take place, based on the schedule from previous years and information from the Prefecture of the Papal Household. Although these events are not yet confirmed, we are happy to receive ticket requests for all these events. If the Audience for which you have requested tickets for is cancelled for some reason, we will contact you to let you know.

Please note that there are no General Audiences during the month of July.

Requesting Tickets

Tickets for the Papal Audiences must be requested through the Prefecture of the Papal Household. Since it can sometimes be a bit challenging to navigate the Vatican/Italian system, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have set up our office to assist American pilgrims with their ticket requests.

We kindly ask pilgrims to submit their requests to our office at least 2 weeks before the date of the Audience, since we then need to send our final request to the Prefecture of the Papal Household. If you contact us less than 2 weeks before the date of the Audience, we cannot submit a request for you, but we can add you to a reserve list in case we receive cancellations from other pilgrims.

To request tickets, please click here Once you have received a confirmation by email, the tickets for the General Audiences will be distributed at our office on Via dell Umilta, 30 from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. the Tuesday afternoon before the Audience. Unfortunately, we are unable to email/fax/scan/mail tickets.

We look forward to hearing from you!