For the procession in Central Park, ticketholders were barred from bringing backpacks and other items.
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But the pontiff told an overwhelming crowd during his second public Mass in the USA that Christians have a special hope.
In a homily delivered to 20,000 worshippers, who waited in security lines stretching several blocks, Francis called on New Yorkers to pay attention to “the faces of all those people who don’t appear to belong”. “I couldn’t be prouder to share this memorial and museum with him“.
The people of God, Pope Francis said, are called to “contemplate” the light which is Jesus, “a light to the nations, as the elderly Simeon joyfully expressed it”.
He apologized for not being at the Mass in person, but said he had promised CBS that he would “do (his) new talk show every night”.
Crowds gathered outside the school, and the pontiff posed for selfies and shook hands.
(At one point, he needed some help operating the touch screen of an instructional “smartboard.”) He then entered the school’s gym, where older students and Catholic Charities recipients were assembled.
The pope’s flight from Kennedy to the City of Brotherly Love took just under an hour later. “I can’t even remember the last pope’s name, I was so disinterested”.
Francis will give his remarks in Spanish, his native language. “His dream was that many children like you could have access to education”. “It is lovely to have dreams and to be able to fight for them”.
Next on the itinerary was the processional drive through Central Park. Before the mass started, Francis rode around the famous arena in a “mini” popemobile – a white gold cart – and waved to the cheering crowd.
Pope Francis is scheduled to leave New York for Philadelphia Saturday morning.
The Pope’s opening acts are pretty good, too: Jennifer Hudson, Harry Connick Jr. and Gloria Estefan.
Tomorrow it’s on to Philadelphia for the meeting the pope originally decided to come to this country for, The World Meeting of Families where Pope Franics will urge people to commit to taking care of one another.
Fresh from two days in Washington, the pope moved to a global audience, the 193 member states of the United Nations General Assembly.
Francis’ speech, the fifth by a pope to the United Nations, was a distillation of his recent teaching document on the environment, “Praise Be”, which has delighted liberals and environmentalists and drawn scorn from big business interests.
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He also condemned human trafficking and the drug trade, and advocated a respect for life in all its forms and stages.
