In America’s birthplace, pope gives pep talk to immigrants

From the airport he headed to the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul for mass. His homily included a call to action.

The Saturday afternoon Mass marked the first time a Pope had addressed a congregation at the church since Pope John Paul II visited the city in 1979.

Tony Coletta, a 62-year-old surgeon and CEO of a health care company outside Philadelphia, nabbed an aisle seat at the cathedral where Francis was celebrating mass on Saturday.

As part of the security plan, large swaths of downtown Philadelphia have been designated secure zones that will have varying levels of restrictions for traffic and pedestrians.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Pope Francis kissed the forehead of a boy with cerebral palsy after landing in Philadelphia on Saturday morning, coaxing a small smile from the severely disabled 10-year-old.

Francis, the first Latin American pope, has taken up the plight of immigrants a main issue of his papacy, along with climate change, economic equality and religious freedom.

In his address at the UN General Assembly on Friday, the pope noted that Christians and others in the Middle East “have been forced to witness the destruction of their places of worship, their cultural and religious heritage, their houses and property” and have been forced either to flee or face death or enslavement.

Francis then noted the increasingly important role of women like St. Katharine in the church, a theme that he’s touched on in the past – although the church still does not ordain female priests. The 49-year-old Gaffigan attends Mass weekly with his wife and five children and regularly references his Catholicism in his stand-up and on his TV Land sitcom. “America was born from people that came from Europe and my family were immigrants from Italy so I think to exclude somebody is just wrong”, Dybas said.

The pope has received a rapturous reception in America – he was welcomed personally by President Barack Obama when he arrived on Tuesday and by giant crowds lining the streets of both Washington and the Big Apple.

Last month, conservators removed the lectern from its display space at The Union League of Philadelphia to prepare it for the pontiff’s speech.

New York treated the pontiff to a rock-star reception, shutting down the city with draconian security measures to allow him ease of movement.

Attention all – the pope is now in the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia!

A lot of people are wondering who is paying for all of this weekend’s festivities? He said a few words to the child’s mother, who appeared moved nearly to tears. “That’s why they give us Cliff Notes on Sunday”.

At the city’s somber September 11 Memorial, he laid a white rose and led a gathering of 700 in multi-faith prayers for world peace and paid tribute to the almost 3,000 victims killed in the 2001 attacks.