Official website of Pope Francis’ visit to PHL crashes

His Holiness Pope Francis. Philip Chidell / Shutterstock

MANILA — Due to “high traffic”, the official website of Pope Francis’ visit to the Philippines crashed on Friday evening, minutes after Catholic Church officials announced the itinerary of the four-day Apostolic and State Visit of the Holy Father on January 2015.

According to an article posted on the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) news website, the www.papalvisit.ph was inaccessible for at least three hours after thousands of people tried to access the website to view the full schedule of the visit, that caused the server to crash.

The site had slowed down and eventually crashed at around 8 p.m. due to an unexpected number of Internet users visiting it, immediately after the press conference announcing the papal visit itinerary.

The website was finally restored at 10:30 p.m.

On the other hand, Msgr. Pedro Quitorio of the papal visit media and information committee assured that measures were being taken up to prevent it from happening again.

This, as they expect more people to visit the website as the papal visit draws near.

The website is the official source of statements, press releases, homilies, speeches related to the pastoral visit.

Pope Francis will be in the country from January 15 to 19, 2015.