For the members of the Pope Squad

   For the members of the Pope Squad, making a pilgrimage to New York City was a no brainer.
   “I knew these two would want to come,” said DeWitt resident Taryn Lanczy, of her daughter, Sarah, and Sarah’s best friend, Kelly Doyle. The best friend duo joked with Sarah’s dad that they: Kelly’s sister, Abbey, and cousin, Amanda Schenck – along with all the girls’ mothers – were the Pope Squad because they were joining a pilgrimage to New York City, where Pope Benedict XVI would offer Mass at Yankee Stadium.
   “We were kind of joking when we said we should get T-shirts,” Sarah said. But when the two showed up with the shirts at St. Jude Parish on Saturday morning, the group knew it was no joke.
   All seven women donned the T-shirts, which read ‘The Pope Squad’ on the front. The back featured a picture of a rosary with the girls’ names in the beads.
  The group are part of a 40-member group from St. Jude Parish in DeWitt and St. Joseph Parish in Adrian, who traveled Saturday to New York.
  The Diocese of Lansing pilgrims spent the day sight-seeing in New York. They visited Ground Zero, the former site of the World Trade Center’s twin towers; Greenwich Village; and Upper Manhattan.
   The group celebrated Mass at the Cathedral of St. Patrick at 5:30 p.m. Earlier in the day, Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass at St. Patrick’s with cardinals and bishops from around the nation.
   A separate group from Flint, met Pope Benedict XVI at St. Patrick’s Saturday morning on the steps of Manhattan’s largest Cathedral.
   “It was awesome,” said Randy Strong, director of the Genesee Catholic Consortium in Flint. A few of the students traveling with Strong’s group stayed on for Mass.
    Later on Saturday, the group saw Pope Benedict XVI again at St. Joseph Seminary in Duwoodie, near Yonkers.
  On Friday, the Flint group led a rosary at Ground Zero, where Pope Benedict XVI will visit Sunday morning.
   Both groups will attend the Mass at Yankee Stadium on Sunday. Several musicians and singers are slated to perform prior to Mass, including Harry Connick, Jr., Jose Feliciano and Marcello Giordani, Metropolitan Opera tenor.