Pope praises America's founding ideals at Independence Hall
PHILADELPHIA -- Standing at the birthplace of the United States, Pope Francis extolled America's founding ideals of liberty and equality Saturday while warning that religious freedom is under threat around the globe.
The pontiff arrived in the City of Brotherly Love on the final leg of his six-day U.S. trip, and in a moment rich with historical symbolism, he spoke outside Independence Hall - where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were signed - and used the lectern from which Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address.
The pope known for his simple tastes and devotion to the poor and downtrodden arrived to the strains of Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man."
Addressing an exuberant crowd of tens of thousands with the red-brick colonial building as a backdrop, he extended a warm welcome to Hispanics and immigrants.
But he said he wanted to talk mostly about religious freedom - a rallying cry for U.S. bishops who have waged high-profile fights against gay marriage, abortion and insurer-provided birth control.
Francis didn't mention any of those topics by name in his speech, putting religious liberty instead in a historical and global context.
"In a world where various forms of modern tyranny seek to suppress religious freedom, or try to reduce it to a subculture without right to a voice in the public square, or to use religion as a pretext for hatred and brutality," he said, "it is imperative that the followers of various religions join their voices in calling for peace, tolerance and respect for the dignity and rights of others."
In a moment that appeared to go off script from his prepared statements, Pope Francis touched upon globalization.
"Globalization in of itself is not bad. On the contrary, the globalizing tendency is good. It brings us together, but what may be bad is the way this happens. If globalization would seek to make everyone the same as if it were a single sphere that globalization destroys the richness and particularity and individuality of every person and every people. If globalization seeks to bring all of us together, but to do so respecting each person, each individual person's richness and peculiarity, respecting all peoples and their own distinctives, that globalization is good and makes us all grow and leads to peace," he said.
Pope Francis brought in geometry during his impassioned remarks on globalization.
"If globalization is a sphere where each point is equidistant from the center then it isn't good because it annuls each of us," he said, "But if globalization joins us as a polyhedron where we are all together, but each conserves his or her own identity then it's good and it gives dignity to all men and grants them rights."
