Pope goes back to school, meets students, community in Harlem

By David Agren, Catholic News Service

NEW YORK - Pope Francis encouraged an audience of Catholic school students and immigrants to live with joy and dare to dream. He also highlighted the immigrant experience -- in a way children could understand, comparing it to seeking acceptance and making friends in school, not always an easy place for them to fit in or find their way.

They tell me that one of the nice things about this school is that some of its students come from other places, even from other countries, Pope Francis told students and a group of immigrants at the Our Lady Queen of Angels school, where he visited Sept. 25.

I know that it is not easy to have to move and find a new home, new neighbors and new friends, the pope said. At the beginning it can be hard. ... Often you have to learn a new language, adjust to a new culture. ... There is so much to learn! And not just at school.

The message, spoken simply, continued the pope's call for inclusive attitudes and actions in favor of immigrants, who often occupy the peripheral places to which he has called on Catholics to carry the Gospel. Immigrants at the school greeted him personally, engaged in small talk and read from the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 25. I was a stranger and you welcomed me.

The Our Lady Queen of Angels School serves Spanish Harlem, a section of New York originally home to African-Americans, then newcomers from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Mexicans have arrived in large numbers of late.

Some residents expressed hope the pope would speak to the immigration issue and bring about better relations between immigrant groups in the area.

We're all immigrants here. We came searching for a better life, said Vianel Garcia, manager of a hair salon across the street from the school -- which was adorned with posters asking the pope to come and bless us.

I'd like to hear a message of unity between all Hispanics, she added.

While at the school, the pope spoke of dreams and invoked another religious leader, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whom he had also highlighted in his speech to Congress.

One day he said, 'I have a dream.' His dream was that many children, many people could have equal opportunities. His dream was that many children like you could get an education, the pope said.

Wherever there are dreams, there is joy, Jesus is always present, he said.

But he warned that someone wanted to sow distrust, envy, evil desires and stealing dreams: the devil.

He does not want us to be happy, Pope Francis said.

The pope's visit to Our Lady Queen of Angels was a reminder of the role of Catholic education and its historic mission in parish communities of stressing academics and imparting church values to generations of children, often immigrants, struggling to adjust to a new country and culture.

Catholic education has changed in recent years, with fewer religious communities running schools and lay Catholic groups taking over and offering innovative options, which often appeal to non-Catholic families, said Holy Cross Father Timothy Scully, director of the Institute for Educational Initiatives at the University of Notre Dame.

What we're seeing is a lot of lay involvement and social entrepreneurship, Father Scully said.

Many of the students in Catholic schools are non-Catholics -- and many come from immigrant families: 69 percent of the students at Our Lady Queen of Angels were from such backgrounds.

The evidence is clear that the greater the disadvantage, the greater the advantage of Catholic education in helping students to overcome it, Father Scully said. The pope is trying to underscore the importance of this civic asset.

Pope Francis and the students prayed the Hail Mary; students then showed him science projects highlighting environmental themes. They even showed him a touch screen, with one girl advising the pope to double-click.

He started his speech with an apology for taking the students from their studies and ended by assigning homework.

Please don't forget to pray for me, so that I can share with many people the joy of Jesus, the pope said. And let us also pray so that many other people can share the joy like yours.

Pope brings Gospel of 'encounter' to Madison Square Garden

By Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service

NEW YORK - Seeing New York for the first time in his 78 years of life, Pope Francis said he knew Madison Square Garden was an important gathering place for sporting events and concerts. For him, it was transformed into a chapel in the heart of the Big Apple.

True peace in a big city comes from seeing the vast variety of people not as a bother, but as a brother or sister, Pope Francis said in his homily during the Mass Sept. 25 at The Garden where 20,000 people gathered to pray with him.

With tough security and long lines, people arrived hours early. They prayed and listened to inspirational music sung live by Gloria Estefan, Jennifer Hudson and Harry Connick Jr.

Before vesting for Mass, Pope Francis entered the arena in an electric cart, riding up and down the aisles, kissing babies and blessing several sick children.

In his homily, the pope urged the congregation to go out into the city, to seek the face of Jesus in the poor and suffering and to share the joy of the Gospel with all.

Jesus urges his disciples to go out and meet others where they really are, not where we think they should be, Pope Francis said.

Go out to others and share the good news that God, our father, walks at our side, the pope told them. He frees us from anonymity, from a life of emptiness and selfishness and moves people to encounter and to peace instead of competition.

The pope had visited ground zero earlier in the day, participating in an interreligious service for peace. The evening Mass used the readings and prayers for a Mass for peace and justice.

The first reading, from the Book of Isaiah, began with the passage, The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.

People who are faithful to God, the pope said, can see, discern and contemplate his living presence in the midst of the city. The people who walk, breathe and live in the midst of smog, have seen a great light, have experienced a breath of fresh air.

The pope, who was born in and served as archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, a city of 3 million people, said he knows it is not always easy living in a big city, especially one made up of people of dozens of different languages and cultures.

However, he said, those differences are riches that express all the different ways we human beings have discovered to express the meaning of life.

Pope Francis recited most of the Mass prayers in English, although he read the eucharistic prayer in Latin. He preached in Spanish and the prayers of the faithful were offered in Italian, German, Polish and Tigrinya, one of the languages spoken in Ethiopia.

For Christians, the real challenge of big cities is the way that they can conceal the faces of people who don't fit in or even are treated as if they had no right to be there, Pope Francis said. They are the foreigners, the children who go without schooling, those deprived of medical insurance, the homeless, the forgotten elderly.

Too many people just walk by them, he said. They have become part of the urban landscape.

But being a Christian means seeing Jesus in others, all of them, and actually looking for his face in the faces of those who usually are ignored, the pope said.

The Christian virtue of hope frees people from isolation and self-absorption, it is unafraid of involvement, he said, and it makes us see, even in the midst of the smog, the presence of God as he continues to walk the streets of our city.