I'm assuming tourist can just get into St Peters Square for the Sunday noontime mass,
so that if I'm there around 11am for the mass and just wait until the Pope does the Papal Blessing around
12:30 noon, then I essentially attended the papal blessing.

Is this right? If I do not have time to get tickets for the papal blessing,
does it just make me about 50 meters further away, than those who have tickets?

What is the difference between those who have tickets, and those who do not have,
if you are in St Peters square anyway around the time of the papal blessing. Seats? Distance?

We would welcome any feedbacks.

There is a mass inside in the morning around 10-11:00 Am and the seating is in front of the Bernini columns. The Pope usually appears in an upper window at noon and speaks for 15-20 minutes. The "square" will be fairly crowded but you'll be able to see him and his voice is well-amplified. Hope this helps some.

There is normally no outside Mass in St Peter's Square on Sundays, unless it's a special occasion like Beatification or Canonisation, at which the Pope celebrates and for which tickets are always required. The Pope doesn't celebrate Mass publicly very often in St Peter's (he says privately for his staff), but appears on the Vatican balcony for a blessing at noon when he is in residence. Though it will be crowded, no tickets are required for this.

Intrepid, do you mean there is a mass "inside" the church of St Peters around 10-11am even though not said by the Pope?

Then the Pope does his Papal Blessing in the upper window to the crowd "out" in St Peters Square??

So if we actually wait from around 11am around his upper window, then we'll get to almost as close as anyone with a ticket could. Is that right?

I'm hoping that with tourism down in Europe, the difference in distance from his window, between those who have tickets and those without, would not be something like 500 meters (half kilometer).

Sorry for all the fuss, because we will have very limited time in the Vatican.
We're hoping you could still reply. Thanks to all those who answered, it's these answers that makes a great difference to trip planning.

NathanCLA, do you know exactly when you will be in Rome? I have a friend who works at the Vatican and I should be able to get information on whether the Pope will be in residence when you are there.

The Pope's address/blessing at noon on Sunday is called the Angelus. There are no tickets for this at all. The window is fairly high up in the Papal Palace so no matter where you are standing in the Piazza, you are not going to be "close" to the Pope. You may be confusing this with the Pope's audience which occurs on Wednesdays at 10:30 am and for which tickets are necessary. This is held outside in the Piazza in good weather but in the heat of the summer it is sometimes moved into the airconditioned audience hall. Wherever it takes place, the color of your ticket to the audience will determine how close you are to the Pope. Only a select few will be in the choice seats at the front near him.

We were there in 2001 (Sept.12th). We got our tickets by emailing Santa Susanna (English catholic church in Rome). You can probably find a reference to it here or on Google. They appreciate a donation for the service, but there was no explicit charge - just pick up the tickets by the night before.

The Wed. morning they had blocked off the front half of the semicircular square (?) and put folding chairs out - hundreds of them. The pope sat under a canopy at the top of the steps near the front doors of the basilica. The ceremony lasted about 90 minutes; the poep spoke a few minutes at a time, then a series of priests repeated it in a dozen languages. He blessed a number of newlywed couples (we saw one couple a few days earlier having their wedding pictures taken by the trevi fountain). It was Carmelite day, he blessed one of their shrine's staures...

At the end of it all, he drove down the (shallow) steps in his open Mercedes, about 20 feet from us.