POPE FRANCIS IN NEW YORK, TAKES ON INEQUALITY AND EXTREMISM

Pope Francis swept across Manhattan Friday from the center of global diplomacy to a worn classroom in East Harlem, challenging world leaders to protect the planet, warning against the dangers of fanaticism at the site where terrorists took thousands of lives and reaching out to those at the margins of society.

As he crisscrossed the city in his now-famous Fiat, he was greeted by adoring crowds lining heavily fortified streets, many having traveled far and waited hours for a chance to catch a glimpse of the pope.

The tangle of humanity trying to get into Central Park, where the pope was scheduled to make a brief appearance, was so dense that several people fainted in one section and had to be taken for medical care. When he arrived shortly after 5 p.m., most of those waiting in line had made it into the park as pope took to the popemobile to be be seen by the people.

As he waved, they screamed. As he offered his blessings, they offered their love. The hours of waiting seemingly forgotten.

In a city marked by extremes of haves and have-nots, Francis denounced “exclusion and inequality” and condemned a “quietly growing culture of waste.” He also proclaimed a theology of diversity, a dynamic that has helped fuel New York’s success, but his words cut against the current political climate in which the debate about immigration and migration often has a harsh and unforgiving tone.

At the World Trade Center, standing alone and taking in the vast void where thousands of people lost their lives in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, Pope Francis lamented “a mind-set which knows only violence, hatred and revenge” and warned against the kind of “rigid uniformity” of belief that leads to fanaticism.

His words were calibrated, but his message was clear.

“Together we are called to say ‘no’ to every attempt to impose uniformity and ‘yes’ to a diversity accepted and reconciled,” he said. read more The New York Times