Pope to appeal to leaders at U.N.

NEW YORK — Pope Benedict XVI’s speech to the United Nations next week will be short on specifics but will aim broadly at the consciences of world leaders, the Vatican’s U.N. representative said yesterday.

Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the apostolic nuncio to the United Nations, said yesterday that Benedict’s 25-minute speech will not have time to address specific world crises because “unfortunately, there are too many of them.” Instead, he said, Pope Benedict will highlight essential values and universal human rights and dignity.

“Society is essentially composed of two key figures, kings and prophets,” the archbishop said yesterday, addressing a gathering of religious groups and reporters inside the United Nations. “The kings are those who have to make decisions however complex and inconvenient they may be at times, while the prophets keep alive in the consciences of kings and people those values without which society will crumble.”

Next Friday’s visit will be the fourth by a pope to the United Nations: Pope John Paul II visited in 1979 and 1995, and Pope Paul VI in 1967.

Benedict was invited to the United Nations early last year by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, during a courtesy call at the Vatican.

While at the United Nations, the pope is also likely to express his support for the broad range of peacekeeping efforts, which include fighting extreme poverty and ignorance, Archbishop Migliore said. He said that war used to be fought between nations, but today “working for peace has more fluid outlines.”

Religion scholar Peter Steinfels said yesterday that the pope’s visit to the United Nations will send a message to American Catholics about the powerful role the United Nations can play in global affairs.

“There is a widespread wariness about international institutions, but even without saying a word, the pope’s presence at the U.N. is a very powerful statement … about the validity and importance of international institutions,” said Mr. Steinfels, a professor of religious studies at Fordham University.

The papal delegation will arrive in New York early Friday morning, on the private plane called Shepherd One. In addition to the United Nations, Pope Benedict XVI will also visit the World Trade Center site, a Jewish synagogue and a Catholic church and lead a Sunday Mass at Yankee Stadium.

He is expected to travel through midtown in his Popemobile but take a helicopter to Yankee Stadium. New York police will seal his land routes against traffic, although the faithful will be permitted to line the streets to watch him pass.