TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0A Bay area choir is on their way to sing for the Pope in Italy, but all of the delays caused by flight cancellations linked to the government shutdown almost stopped the music for the group.<\/p>\n
The St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church choir was scheduled to leave Tampa Tuesday but they encountered some hiccups.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Flight delays impacting travel for Bay area choir slated to sing in Italy for the Pope\u00a0
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St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church choir was scheduled to leave Tampa Tuesday but they encountered some hiccups
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Eventually, the 37 choir members and director were split up among four flights<\/p>\n
Thankfully they have all taken off, but it\u2019s not as planned. All 37 choir members along with their director were supposed to be on one plane, from Tampa to Newark to Milan. Now, they\u2019ve been split up on four different flights.<\/p>\n
John Paul Cappa is the choir\u2019s director. He said he helped plan the trip and is the leader for the group, so he feels responsible for making sure everyone has a smooth travel day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t think there was much to worry about until this airline thing started,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s taken the trip to Italy twice but for most of his choir members, this is the trip of a lifetime.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of us haven\u2019t seen Pompi. So, we wanted to see that and there\u2019s all sorts of new archaeological excavations happening there. And then of course Catholics also want to go there to see the pope,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But Cappa and his group aren\u2019t just going to see the pope, they\u2019re going to sing for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a papal audience and then we have a mass with him. So hopefully that will all work out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Cappa put a lot of thought into what they\u2019ll sing. \u201cThey\u2019ll be doing the Pitoni Cantate Domino hymn as like an opening. We\u2019ll sing the Orbis Factor chants for parts of the mass. We\u2019ll sing the Adoramus Te, Christe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Making sure the choir hits the right note isn\u2019t his biggest worry. His biggest worry is making sure they all board their flights that have layovers that could be impacted by FAA flight reductions. That\u2019s part of why he told his choir members to lean on what they know, their faith.<\/p>\n
\u201cA couple weeks ago I said prepare yourselves spiritually for this journey because there\u2019s that old adage, you\u2019re preaching to the choir. And it means the choir is very aware of what goes on in the parish and they\u2019re very involved in the parish,\u201d Cappa said. \u201cI\u2019m just asking them to elevate themselves even more. Wear a scapular say a rosery.\u201d<\/p>\n
With that he says he\u2019s sure they\u2019ll make it to see the pope and all of the treasures Italy has to offer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking forward to seeing the shroud, the one relic that seems to pass all scientific tests. It\u2019s just an amazing thing. I\u2019ll be honored to be in its presence,\u201d said Cappa.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an emotional journey ahead they just have to get through their interesting travel day.<\/p>\n
The group plans to sing for the Pope next Tuesday. They\u2019ll return home next Thursday, hopefully with no delays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0A Bay area choir is on their way to sing for the Pope in Italy, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[274,2287,115,99,4368,135,137,136,278,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-43609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-app-top-stories","9":"tag-local-politics","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-politics","12":"tag-saundra-weathers","13":"tag-tampa","14":"tag-tampa-headlines","15":"tag-tampa-news","16":"tag-top-stories","17":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}