Pope Francis landed in New York City for the next part of his U.S. visit. One audience member at the airport gifted the pope with a toy doll version of himself. (Reuters)
In his first address before the U.N. General Assembly, Pope Francis on Friday morning is expected to use his commanding moral stature to urge world leaders to combat enduring problems such as climate change, hunger and poverty.
The pope’s 8:30 a.m. speech is the first in a series of stops scheduled Friday, the emotional apex of which probably will be his visit three hours later to Ground Zero, the memorial in Lower Manhattan where nearly 3,000 people died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
After a late-afternoon tour of a Catholic elementary school in East Harlem and a motorcade past sprawling crowds in Central Park, Pope Francis is to preside at a 6 p.m. Mass before 19,000 worshipers at Madison Square Garden.
The pope’s address at the United Nations, occurring as the assembly celebrates its 70th anniversary, is an opportunity for him to deliver to a worldwide audience his expansive views on the environment and economic and social issues.
The pope’s address could influence the General Assembly as it prepares to approve a set of sustainable development goals that include ending world hunger and poverty and ensuring the availability of clean energy and water.
In his writings, the pope has urged world leaders to battle climate change, linking it to broader cultural practices that encourage wasteful behavior. Pope Francis also has written that global warming disproportionately hurts people in poor countries who are least capable of helping themselves.
“We may well be leaving to coming generations debris, desolation and filth,” the pope wrote in his encyclical on the environment, entitled “Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home.” “The pace of consumption, waste and enviornmental change has so stretched the planet’s capacity that our contemporary lifestyle, unsustainable as it is, can only precipitate catastrophes, such as those which even now periodically occur in different areas of the world.”
In his first trip to the United States, a five-day tour that includes Washington, New York and Philadelphia, jubilant crowds have showered the 78-year-old spiritual leader with adoration as he has traveled between stops, some of which have highlighted his commitment to the poor and dispossessed.
The figurehead for the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, Pope Francis has addressed several complex issues during his trip, imploring congressional leaders at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday to set aside bitter partisan differences to achieve progress on immigration reform.
Earlier in the week, during a visit to the White House, the pope expressed support for President Obama’s campaign to tackle climate change.
When he visits the 9/11 memorial in lower Manhattan, the site where planes struck the World Trade Center 14 years ago, the pope is expected to meet with families of some of the victims who died in the attack.
The pope’s whirlwind day will conclude with the Mass at Madison Square Garden, the warmup for which will include performances by singers Harry Connick Jr., Jennifer Hudson and Gloria Estefan.
On Saturday morning, Pope Francis is to travel to Philadelphia, where his stops will include the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Center City, Independence Hall and a correctional facility.
The pope flies back to Rome on Sunday.
