The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI is visiting the United States this week. The leader of the world's Roman Catholic faithful begins his 6 day journey in Washington DC and wraps up the historic visit with an Ecumenical Mass in Yankee Stadium on Sunday the 20th.

I invite you to join me, photojournalist Pat Driscoll and the whole Channel 3 Eyewitness News Team for complete local coverage of the Papal visit to New York. If you can't watch our regularly scheduled broadcast, catch our coverage on-line @ http://www.wfsb.com/ .

Personally, this is going to be an exciting and ultimately an exhausting week. Just take Sunday the 20th for example the Mass in Yankee Stadium. The 2000 or so tickets distributed to "security cleared" guests will board buses and trains before 6am Sunday just so they can be "seated" in the stands by 10am for a security sweep. The Holy Father won't arrive in the Pope-Mobile until 2pm....the 3 hour celebration of the Eucharist won't start til 2:30. But organizers proclaim the music will be moving. Expect every portion of the visit to operate on Military precision. Just distributing communion to the 57 thousand has been calculated to take 15 minutes, thanks to the assistance of 500 local priests.

This will be an Historic week and we're excited to tell the stories.