At Sept. 11 Memorial, Pope Francis Says ‘Grief is Palpable’

Pope Francis attends a ceremony inside of the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York, September 21, 2015.

Pope Francis is set to deliver a New York City mass at Madison Square Garden on Friday night. As many as 1 million people are expected for the final Mass on Sunday.

Francis is giving his remarks in Spanish, his native language.

Pope Francis became the first Pope to address the U.S. Congress on Thursday in an emotional speech that focused on immigration, the death penalty, racial injustice, the weapons trade and poverty. This is not only important for you, but also for your families. It was attached to a parish until 2007, when New York’s Catholic archdiocese shut the church down as part of a consolidation program for the sake of financial solvency.

And he repeated his denunciation of the “ideological colonization” of the developing world – a reference to how Western ideas about contraception and gay rights are often imposed on poor nations as a condition for development aid. They offer us friendship and understanding, and they try to help us not to feel like strangers.

“He’s an instinctual politician and the people he relates to are those he regards as the most fragile”, said Margaret Crahan, director of the Cuba program at the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University.

Among those in the audience was Nobel peace laureate Malala Yousefzai, who was shot and gravely wounded by the Taliban for advocating schooling for girls. Also on hand were German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Bill and Melinda Gates.

The pope waved, smiled and accepted some flowers and other gifts. I see your teachers, your parents and your family members. “Forward!” is actually quite catchy and features trumpeting horns and electric guitars throughout Francis’ speech.

Pope Francis’ call for a world free of nuclear weapons drew applause, including from Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

“We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation”.

As schoolchildren sang to him, the pope was whisked away through the halls of the United Nations, riding on what looked like a golf cart, Ban at his side.

“I hope our presence here sends a powerful sign of our wish to share and reaffirm the wish to be forces of reconciliation, forces of peace, of justice”, he told a gathering of 700.

Murray Lipp, a social worker from East Harlem, considers himself ex-Catholic, but he said Francis is taking the proper steps to make the church more welcoming.

Like many people around the world, Joseph Henken eagerly awaits Pope Francis’ first visit to Philadelphia, and he’s capturing the experience through the lens. The mass started at about 5 p.m. Central Standard Time, but beforehand, Pope Francis visited a school in East Harlem before traveling through Central Park, where thousands lined the route to catch a glimpse of him.

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Later, a papal Mass was scheduled at Madison Square Gardens. He lives in New York City now, but he only moved down from a town just outside Albany, New York, in June.