Worshippers in Greater Glasgow are expected to be offered the largest share of tickets to see Pope Benedict XVI in Bellahouston Park.

One in four of the almost 100,000 tickets will be offered to people living in and around the city, with the other 75,000 split between parishes around Scotland.

The Catholic Church will start sending letters out to parishes over the weekend, telling them how many tickets each of them has been allocated for the mass, which takes place on September 16.

Each parish will be given a set number of tickets, based upon their number of regular worshippers.

Parishes in Greater Glasgow will be offered 25,000, the largest share of the tickets.

Second is Lanarkshire (24,000) followed by Edinburgh, Fife, Lothians

and Borders (17,000); Renfrewshire and Inverclyde (11,000); Ayrshire, Dumfries and Galloway (5,000); Aberdeenshire, Highlands and Northern Isles (4000); Dundee, Angus and Tayside (4000) and finally Argyll, the Western Isles and Lochaber (2000).

Catholics are so keen to see the Pope that 5000 tickets will be also be handed out to parishes in the north of England, as the Bellahouston Park mass offers them the best chance of seeing the pontiff.

A batch of 2500 will also be sent to Northern Ireland.

The Catholic Church has not offered explicit advice on how parishes should decide how to distribute their allotted tickets.

Demand is so high that in some areas ballots are expected to be held.