RAPTUROUS WELCOME Pope Francis waves at well-wishers raising their cell phone cameras to record his historic six-day visit to the United States, where he addressed a joint session of US Congress in Washington and the UN General Assembly in New York.
NEW YORK—From the world stage of the United Nations to an inner-city school, Pope Francis is emphasizing themes that have shaped his popular papacy as he packs in encounters with the powerful and the poor in New York City.
His agenda for Friday reflects both his global stature and his of-the-people approach, while taking him from the solemnity of Ground Zero to the struggles of East Harlem. It includes events as large as a processional drive through Central Park, as personal as meeting schoolchildren and immigrants, and as inspiring for the faithful as Mass for thousands in the Madison Square Garden arena.
The Vatican flag will be raised at UN headquarters for the first time to mark the occasion, only the fifth visit by a Pope to the world body in its 70-year history.
Making his first address to the UN General Assembly, the Pope on Friday made a sweeping call for peace and environmental justice.
READ: Pope beseeches world leaders to protect the environment / Fil-Am kids meet Pope Francis in Washington, D.C.
A day after making history as the first Pontiff to address the US Congress, Francis placed blame for the exploitation of natural resources on “a selfish and boundless thirst for power and material prosperity.”
Standing before the General Assembly in his first speech here, Francis endorsed United Nations efforts to reach a global compact to fight poverty and climate change.
He also chided world powers for putting political interests ahead of human suffering in the Middle East.
Francis repeated his concern over persecuted Christians and, foremost, demanded that action be taken on behalf of the global poor.
“They are cast off by society, forced to live off what is discarded and suffer unjustly from the consequences of abuse of the environment,” Francis said. “These phenomena are part of today’s widespread and quietly growing ’culture of waste.”
Francis became the fifth Pope to visit the United Nations, and his appearance brought enormous security precautions and an electric atmosphere.
People lined up before dawn to enter the building.
Police boats floated along the East River that flows past the United Nations campus in Manhattan.
The senior United Nations police officer barked into his cell phone at the employee entrance as an army of police, Secret Service and other security officers patrolled the area.
Vatican flag at UN
For the first time, the flag of the Holy See was raised above the United Nations headquarters.
As a “nonmember observer state,” the Holy See has limited rights, but flying the flag was made possible by a resolution advanced by the delegation from Palestine, the only other nonmember observer state.
Global agenda
Francis’ global agenda on poverty and the environment is already well known but the rostrum of the United Nations gave him a global stage to articulate an agenda that mostly dovetails with the body’s Sustainable Development Goals, and with the program of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Just as President Barack Obama earlier this week basked in the presence of the popular Argentine Pope, Ban benefited, too.
“In no other hall, from no other platform, can a world leader speak to all humanity,” Ban declared in announcing the Pontiff.
Francis praised the accomplishments of the United Nations and its efforts to resolve conflicts and set human rights principles.
Without that, Francis said, “mankind would not have been able to survive the unchecked use of its own possibilities.”
Francis also sharply rebuked the world powers on the Security Council for their failure to agree on a peaceful transition to the wars in the Middle East, apparently referring specifically to Syria and Iraq, where people “have faced the alternative either of fleeing or of paying for their adhesions to good and to peace by their own lives, or by enslavement.”
Iran nuclear deal
By contrast, Francis praised the recent nuclear agreement reached between Iran and world powers as “proof of the potential of political good will and of law.”
For environmentalists, Francis’ visit to the United States has been a boon. He has repeatedly raised his concerns about environment and climate change, as he did Friday morning at the United Nations.
Environment right
Invoking the principle of international law and equality among nations, Francis endorsed the concept of “right of the environment.”
“Any harm done to the environment, therefore, is harm done to humanity,” he said, later reprising his argument that the global poor are the biggest victims of environmental destruction.
“A selfish and boundless thirst for power and material prosperity leads both to the misuse of available natural resources and to the exclusion of the weak and disadvantaged,” he said.
Francis spoke just before the formal opening of a special summit meeting to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals, a broad range of development objectives that echo many of his own priorities: uplifting the poor, saving the earth’s forests and seas, and combating climate change.
Of the 17 goals, the Holy See has formally objected to only one: gender equality, because of its longstanding reservations on ensuring “universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights,” which is one of the targets included in the Goals document.
UN governance
Francis also delved into the contested issues of United Nations governance, with a call for “greater equity” on the Security Council, which seemed certain to please developing powers such as India and Brazil, which are not permanent veto-wielding members.
Before the Pope’s speech, Ban introduced Francis to 350 cheering United Nations employees in the lobby, calling them “the heart and soul of our work.”
For spots to see the Pope in the lobby, 4,758 staff members put their names into a lottery.
“Dear friends, good morning,” the Pope said in English, in his address to the staff shortly before 9 a.m.
“Viva Papa!” went up a cheer.
He called the United Nations staff members “in many ways the backbone of this organization” and made a joke about “all those who could not be here today,” and with a pause, “because of the lottery.”
True to form, the Pope thanked not only field staff members and interpreters but also “maintenance and security personnel.”
He spoke slowly. He asked the nonbelievers in the audience to “wish me well.” A round of laughter and applause went up.
The leader of the world’s 1 billion Catholics took the podium at the 193-nation assembly as the United Nations stumbles in its efforts to end the war in Syria, now in its fifth year.
More than 4 million Syrians have been driven from their homes in what the United Nations describes as the biggest refugee crisis in a generation.
Fresh from his Washington visit with President Obama and members of Congress, the Pope will seek to shore up UN efforts to reach a landmark deal on tackling global warming at a Paris climate change conference scheduled for December. Reports from AFP and AP
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