Members of Congress mixed in across the ballroom with the 3,000 diplomats, dignitaries, clergy, veterans and many more from 140 countries who bought a ticket to join in
the ecumenical prayer event.
The Faith Alive group in Southampton has in the past decade initiated Alpha courses, an
ecumenical programme sharing ideas about leadership, formation and outreach methods with other denominations, a city guildhall
event with a Catholic inspirational speaker and
prayer teams, a city mission, an introductory programme for «new seekers», that is people interested in the Church and who might wish to continue with the RCIA, displays outside a church on a main road and a manned gazebo to provide information and resources to passers - by during the papal visit, and the Anchor catecheticscourse making use of the «way of beauty» for evangelising parishioners, seen as a primary target.