“Also, we’re trying to make sure that people have a good experience”, Wolf said. Hands reached out, lives were given. He said a prayer of remembrance at an interfaith ceremony, asking God for eternal peace for those killed, as well as healing for the relatives of the almost 3,000 victims in the 2001 terror attacks in New York, at the Pentagon and in a field in Pennsylvania. Our whole family’s here! Four of them are originally from Francis’ native Argentina. “Francisco! Francisco!”
Advertisement
The goal of the pope’s visit would be to continue to promote that coexistence.
He was not the only one anticipating the Pontiff’s arrival.
“The ecological crisis and the large-scale destruction of biodiversity can threaten the very existence of the human species”, said Francis, who this year published the first papal encyclical, a letter to the church, dedicated to the environment.
“He frees us from anonymity, from a life of emptiness and selfishness, and brings us to the school of encounter”, said the pope.
Other plans he has on his visit to Philly are to meet with select inmates and their families at a correctional facility here.
Francis smiled. He departed with a final request: “Don’t forget to pray for me“. “This is sacred ground, so I wanted to be present when he came here”.
The address to the United Nations was just the start of the day.
Hoping to spur concrete commitments at upcoming climate change negotiations in Paris, Francis accused the world’s powerful countries of indulging a “selfish and boundless thirst” for money by ravaging the planet’s natural resources and impoverishing the weak and disadvantaged in the process.
A parade through Central Park and an evening Mass at Madison Square Garden were also on the schedule for Day 4 of the pope’s first trip to the United States.
The stop at the school, with 295 mostly Latino and black children, is in line with Francis’ mission of serving immigrants, the marginalized and the poor.
“And I said “Jordan, I really don’t know”. “He will return there Sunday for the Mass, his last major event before leaving for Rome”.
Pope Francis celebrates high Mass at Madison Square Garden, Friday, Sept 25, 2015, in New York.
Advertisement
The Philadelphia visit, months in the making, all but paralysed Center City, with stretches of Broad and Market Streets and other routes closed to all but pedestrians and lined with metal crowd-control barricades, massive concrete blocks and tall fences.
