First Papal Mass at St. Patrick's Catherdral

+JMJ+

by Karin Zeitvogel
Sat Apr 19, 10:35 AM ET


NEW YORK (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI on the third anniversary of his pontificate Saturday became the first leader of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics to celebrate mass in St Patrick's cathedral in New York.

Members of the Roman Catholic clergy rose from the pews and leaned over barriers to kiss the pope's ring as he walked slowly down the central aisle of the cathedral to the altar.

A crowd of hundreds pressing against metal barriers outside the 150-year-old cathedral had erupted in a cheer as Benedict descended from a black stretch limousine on Fifth Avenue minutes earlier and climbed the few steps to the entrance of the church.

There, beneath the Gothic spires, he was welcomed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, before turning to raise both hands in greeting to the cheering crowd.

The mayor had told the hundreds of members of the clergy and religious orders inside the cathedral that, only in New York, "which has long stood as a beacon of tolerance ... could a middle-class kid named Bloomberg grow up and be asked to welcome the pope."

Bloomberg is Jewish, a community to which Benedict has made a special effort to reach out to during his six-day US visit, holding private meetings with Jewish leaders and becoming the first pope to set foot in a synagogue on US soil.

A choir sang and the congregation rose and applauded as the pope entered the cathedral, walking down the center aisle toward the altar, bathed in sunlight streaming in through stained glass windows.

Benedict was on the penultimate day of his US visit, his first since he was elected pope three years ago.

Addressing the UN General Assembly Friday, the 81-year-old pontiff reminded all 192 UN member states of their duty to protect their people from human rights abuses.

"Every state has the primary duty to protect its own population from grave and sustained violations of human rights," he told a packed assembly on his first visit to UN headquarters since becoming pope three years ago.

"If states are unable to guarantee such protection, the international community must intervene with the juridical means provided in the United Nations Charter," he said.

In his remarks, the pontiff extolled the virtue of "multilateral consensus" which he said "continues to be in crisis because it is still subordinated to the decisions of a few, whereas the world's problems call for interventions in the form of collective action."

Benedict also underscored the need to foster dialogue between cultures and religions at a time of tension between the West and the Islamic world.

"The United Nations can count on the results of dialogue between religions and can draw fruit from the willingness of believers to place their experiences at the service of the common good," the pope said.

He later entered the sanctuary of the Park East synagogue in New York, as the first leader of the Roman Catholic church to visit a Jewish place of worship in the United States.

The pontiff also held an unprecedented meeting with several sex abuse victims from the Boston area at the Vatican Embassy in Washington on Thursday.