Pope Francis visits New York City

During the Mass at Madison Square Garden, Francis focused his homily on life in big cities populated by many forgotten or “second-class” citizens.

“Once in a lifetime, right?”

“It’s a miracle that we are here”, said Rocha.

The pontiff, 78, arrived in the United States Tuesday evening for the first time as leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics and for the first time in his life.

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.

Pope Francis will then head to East Harlem, and will provide a special blessing to immigrants and refugees, including anyone who is living in the United States illegally. Francis will deliver a longer address to world leaders when he speaks before the General Assembly later this morning.

Garcia added, “Pope Francis has been an incredibly humble leader and has developed a very positive agenda”.

But crystallize it did. “Few have spoken more clearly and eloquently on the importance of these values and the rights of all humanity to be treated with dignity and respect than Pope Francis”, said de Blasio. “To come and see a pope who is so real and down to Earth I think that’s important for kids to see”.

Hours later, at 4 p.m. ET, the Pope will make a visit to Our Lady Queen of Angels School located in East Harlem. “Even though the crowd exploded in a roar, it was pure joy”.

Next on the itinerary was the processional drive through Central Park, the most public event for the pope while in New York.

Echoing concerns he expressed at the White House and Congress this week about the environment, Francis called for “fundamental and effective agreements” at climate change talks in Paris in December.

Francis will visit scarred and sacred ground in New York City later on Thursday, holding an interfaith prayer service with Muslims, Jews, Christians, Sikhs and Hindus.

Before the service, the pontiff was seen silently praying at Ground Zero over the names of those killed at the Twin Towers site.

POPE FRANCIS (through interpreter): In wars and conflicts, there are individual persons, our brothers and sisters, men and women, young and old, boys and girls who weep, suffer and die, human beings who are easily discarded when our only response is to draw up lists of problems, strategies and disagreements.

He’ll wrap up his day in New York with a mass before 20,000 individuals in attendance at MSG with the Pope Francis live streaming and TV coverage through various sources. The Catholic Church has been on a campaign to denounce “gender theory” and the idea that people can choose their sex.

In his address, Francis called for the world to build unity from its differences.

A brass band from a Catholic high school greeted his plane with the classic tune “New York, New York”, and the pope accepted flowers from the crowd of about 200 at the airport.