VATICAN CORNER
con!nued …On Friday September 25, 2015, on his fourth day in the U.S. and his only full day in New York City, Pope Francis spoke at the United Na!ons General Assembly. He began by blessing the U.N. staff and laying a wreath for U.N. workers who have died in service. He greeted the ci!zen of all the na!ons represented in the hall before addressing the global dangers of unlimited power. He called on world leaders to take firm ac!on on the environment, blaming a “selfish and boundless thirst for power and material” for its destruc!on. We human beings are part of the environment, we live in communion with it, since the environment, itself entails ethical limits which human ac!vity must acknowledge and respect … Any harm done to the environment, therefore, is harm done to humanity.” The speech to the 193-member U.N. General Assembly expanded on themes Francis has already discussed during his visits to Cuba and Washington D.C. His visit to the United Na!ons was the fi(h by a pope. At the ground zero memorial and museum, the site of the horrific 9/11 a+acks of 2001 on the World Trade Center Buildings, Pope Francis spoke and prayed at an interfaith service with about a thousand family members of vic!ms who are s!ll trying to heal. He offered a message of hope. “The names of so many loved ones are wri+en around the towers’ footprints. We can see them, we can touch them, and we can never forget them,” Francis said. “Here, amid pain and grief, we also have a palpable sense of the heroic goodness which people are capable of … hands reached out, lives were given. This place of death became a place of life, too, a place of saved lives, a hymn to the triumph of life over the prophets of destruc!on and death, to goodness over evil, to reconcilia!on and unity over hatred and division.” At a place that’s o(en the site of somber memorials, the crowd eventually cheered and called for “Our blessing, please! Francisco! Francisco! Francisco!” In the a(ernoon, Pope Francis met with students at Our Lady Queen of Angels School in East Harlem. He said “Dear children, you have a right to dream and I am very happy that here in this school, in your friends and your teachers, you can find the support you need. Wherever there are dreams, there is joy, Jesus is always present. Because Jesus is joy, and he wants to help us to feel that joy every day of our lives.” More than 80,000 residents and tourists cheered Pope Francis as he passed through Central Park on his way to Madison Square Garden for Mass there with thousands of Catholics. On his way to the airport and Philadelphia Pope Francis asked the helicopter pilot to circle the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, becoming visibly moved seeing the sights that greeted millions of immigrants to America. He said Buenos Aires “was a city of Immigrants too.”
Sources: CNN.com, USAToday.com, NBC7NY.com, DailyAmerican.com