Pope Francis may visit CHOP during September visit to Philadelphia

This fall, Penn students may have the chance to shake hands with the pope during his visit to Philadelphia.

Pope Francis will likely visit either a children’s hospital or a juvenile prison while in the City of Brotherly Love, Archbishop Bernardito Auza told the Catholic News Agency. As one of the few pediatric hospitals in the city, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia will plausibly attract the pope directly to Penn’s campus. CHOP has a strong link to the Penn community, with the Department of Pediatrics of the Perelman School of Medicine closely allied with CHOP.

“CHOP would be honored if Pope Francis were to take some time out of his very busy schedule to visit with some of our patients and their families,” CHOP’s Director of Public Relations George V. Bochanski said in an email statement. “We are certain they would carry the memory with them for a lifetime.”

According to the official website for the World Meeting of Families , Pope Francis’ visit will fall on Sept. 26 and 27. He will attend the Festival of Families and Papal Mass on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway during his stay, which is estimated to draw two million people to the city, according to the NBC reports. This is part of his itinerary to attend the World Meeting of Families, a triennial conference held by the Church. Pope Francis will also visit New York and Washington, D.C. during his trip.

This will be Pope Francis’s first visit to the United States, and he will be only the fourth reigning pope to visit the country.

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