BLOOMSBURG -- Tickets for bus trips to see the pope in Philadelphia later this year went on sale Tuesday and they sold quickly.
Pope Francis is the leader of the Roman Catholic Church and later this year he will make his first trip to the United States, stopping in Philadelphia on September 27.
It is no surprise many Catholics from northeastern and central Pennsylvania will make the short trip to Philadelphia to see Pope Francis.
The Diocese of Harrisburg is making that easy.
Nancy Becker is the principal at St. Columba, a Catholic school in Bloomsburg. She got her tickets right away.
"I ordered them for my husband and for me and I'm very excited about seeing Pope Francis."
The Diocese of Harrisburg is selling bus tickets for $30 each.
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"It will be a great honor to be anywhere near him, and hopefully I'll be able to see him. There will be about two million people there so it will be a challenge."
Becker's coworker Alicia Smiley did not have such good luck. When she tried to order a ticket from the diocese website, it said they were temporarily unavailable.
"God willing, I can get one!" Smiley said.
There are 28 buses scheduled to leave from the Diocese of Harrisburg, including two locations in our area: Elysburg and Berwick.
"We have a unique opportunity to see the pope, how could you not be excited about that?" asked David Brown, the principal at Holy Family Consolidated School in Berwick.
Brown and his wife Donna saw the two previous popes in person and look forward to catching a glimpse of Pope Francis.
"Seeing him might mean I'll be at the top end of the stadium somewhere looking down on him. But you know what? He'll be in the same area as I am so that will be wonderful."
The Diocese of Scranton is doing something similar charging for bus tickets. Buses are leaving from individual parishes.
The Diocese of Allentown has around two dozen parishes doing buses themselves and the diocese itself is looking into it.
