Plans are under way for Pope Francis to address Congress and the United Nations during his trip to the US in September, a member of the visit’s organising committee has revealed.
Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the Holy See’s Permanent Observer at the UN, told the US-based Catholic News Agency that the Pope could visit Washington DC, New York City and Philadelphia during the six-day visit.
He said that at a meeting of the organising committee last week it was proposed that Pope Francis visit the White House the morning after his arrival in Washington DC on 22 September, then celebrate Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
Francis has been invited to address the Senate and the House of Representatives, giving a speech that Archbishop Auza predicted would be “the highlight of the Washington visit”.
It was suggested that he address the UN the day after arriving in New York City, on 24 September, after which he would visit St Patrick’s Cathedral “for sure”. Another possible stop would be Ground Zero, the site of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001.
The Philadelphia visit, so far the only officially confirmed leg of the trip, is to focus on the World Meeting of Families, which he will attend on 26 and 27 September. The Pope is expected to celebrate a prayer vigil and Mass there.
Pope Francis on Monday confirmed to journalists that his Philadelphia trip would include stops in New York and Washington, where he will canonise the eighteenth-century Franciscan missionary Fr Junipero Serra.
In a press conference on his flight back from the Philippines he said he would have preferred to enter the US via Mexico – a move he described “as a sign of brotherhood and of help to the immigrants” – but if he did that, without visiting the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City “A war could break out!”
"I think there will only be those three cities," he continued. "Later, there will be time to go to Mexico."
More details are due to be confirmed at the end of February, when a Vatican delegation is to visit the US.
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