and the reporting that allows you to make sense of your world. >> ali velshi on target only on al jazeera america ♪ here we go, live pictures right now from the downtown heliport downtown new york city and arrived in manhattan for the first visit, the second leg of his trip to the united states and welcome to al jazeera america special live coverage of pope francis and i'm tony harris in new york city and continues his visit to the united states

in the big apple and he is making his way shortly to st. patricks cathedral and earlier today the pontiff addressed the joint meeting of congress then met with homeless people, being assisted by catholic charities and had lunch with them. we are going to get back to the pope's story in america in just a moment but there is another huge story we are following as well. tragedy on one of the holiest days in islam, over 700 people were crushed to death in a stampede during the annual hodge in saudi arabia. hundreds more were injured as many as 800 more injured. saudi arabia's king solomon promised a swift investigation into the worst disaster in two decades, we will have much more tonight in our 7:00 eastern hour. let's get to libby casey now live on capitol hill as our coverage of the pope continues and libby is it safe to say the

pope left quite the impression on capitol hill tonight? >> absolutely tony and a lot was on a personal level. as we heard from senators and house members reacting to the speech a lot of them heard from the pope what they wanted to hear and hearing from those both on the right and left who are picking out. >> libby, can i interrupt for just a second because i have to announce anyone who is watching us right now the pope is in the fiatt. there is an fiatt and an open question as to whether or not there would be an fiatt in new york for the pope, the pope is in the fiatt, libby, back to you. >> fantastic and the fiatt is a symbol of what the pope stands for right now tony this small car, something that is environmentally friendly certainly much more so than the giant beast we see and often driving dignitaries around washington d.c. and democrats are reacting to the pope's

message on climate change which is a really positive response and republicans are picking out other aspects of what he had to say that appealed to them. one senator jim inhoff who is a climate change denier perhaps the most well-known in congress said well because the pope never said the words climate change i bet environmentalists are disappointed but environmentalists are actually very pleased that the pope is bringing a lot of attention to issues and pointing out the pope defended life and even though he didn't utter the word abortion he did talk about protecting life, implying that includes the unborn and talked about family in society and religious liberty. so we are hearing from republicans like that. democrats like some similar aspects but they are also picking up on this concern of income and equality. caring for the less fortunate. and also working on some global issues like trying to come to a

solution of what to do and the migrant crisis that we are seeing in europe and also here in the united states, trying to open arms to immigrants who are seeking a new life tony. >> libby you are right, so much covered there. libby casey with us now from capitol hill, appreciate it and good to see you and thank you and patrick is the chair of the university theology department and providing wonderful commentary, that is a noted commentary for me. >> thanks so much tony appreciate it. >> all week on the pope's visit, i asked you at the end of last year and i'll ask it again and want folks to here and and don't assume people stay in front of the television and watch us every minute of every day, how does the pope want this visit to the united states, his first ever, to be received? >> the theme we were talking about tony was the theme of joy. this is a pope who loves to talk about joy, in his native spanish

and his first official document or major document of pope was called the joy of the gospel and talks about how bishops and priests should be happy and full of joy and bring this message out to the people so if there is a word to capture his message is people should be joyous and not happy in extatic sense. >> he was saying the mundane, it can bring about a bit of glumness and we got to fight against that and we got to pull that offing right. >> that is it and the pope is a jesuit and to understand the pope we have to understand what it means to be a jesuit. >> would you explain that for us. >> the largest order of male catholic religions in the church, there is more than 20 new jesuits around the world and go to the 1540s to a spanish saint and he taught the way in which we live our interior lives and emotions and spirits and they are deeply connected to

what god wants for us so he says we should look for signs of god in what he calls consolation, this feeling of not just joy but contentment, this knowledge we found our place in the universe so to speak and that is the joy and happiness the pope is seeking to spread to people and seeking to incarnate while he is in the u.s. and it's not just joy in general but experience of people in the margins and talks about how the church needs to happen by, joyfully go out to the people who are at the margins of society, poor people, disabled people, and to bring that message to them. >> you know, it's interesting and we've talked about this a bit and i'll give to jonathan betz in a moment as we set the stage for the rest of the quotes late afternoon and evening here in new york city and to the events tomorrow, but i asked you remember you were on the program about a week or so ago and i asked you what it's like for you

and your position to follow and to cover this pope, do you remember how you said that? >> i don't remember exactly but i'll tell you how it feels now a deeply joyful and moving experience, tony. i first met jesuits 20 years ago at a college in preparatory in phoenix, arizona and my life has never been the same ever since then. there is something about the jesuit connection between one's faith and the way that one lives their life and basically say you cannot have religion be a separate sphere and it cannot be separate from the way you live and ever since the 1970s they insisted that faith is connected to justice and that one can't simply believe but one has to go out and act in the world and of course christians believe that through the centuries but in the last 40 years jesuits at the front line for the catholic church working in el salvador and africa and asia and now the first world's jesuit pope and

giving us a master class of what it can do for the world. >> i want to come back to a couple of issues and talk about the senate that is coming up, and i want to talk about as some of the things that the pope has said in setting up that, some considered pretty controversial but i want to get to jonathan betz outside of st. patricks cathedral in manhattan and let's go to you and set the scene. >> anticipation and waiting for the pontiff to arrive in 45 minutes and you can see among the three most powerful men in new york state talking right here, ready to greet the pope in fronts of st. patricks cathedrals and charles schumer and mayor bill de blasio and greeted the pope when they arrived at 6:45 eastern time and they are among thousands of people who are waiting for the pope along 5th avenue here and

thousands and thousands waiting for the pope to arrive. we understand that he is going to change out of that fiatt possibly and actually into the pope mobile as he begins his procession up 5th avenue in a couple of minutes. >> i'm not in a rush or hurry by i want to give folks a sense of a timeline how do you think it will take the pope to get from where he is now and do the car switch whatever that entails and then make the trip to st. patricks how long do you think? >> the schedule is supposed to be he is supposed to be here at 6:45 greeting everyone on the steps for about 15 minutes and supposed to begin at 7:00 sharp, his plane arrived at jfk a little late but the expectation is he might try to makeup the time on the drive up here. >> i'm curious is there a -- there is clearly a motorcade and imaging that there are people along this route who will obviously get an opportunity along 5th avenue to see the pope

so this could take a while is what i'm driving at here. >> since this is a man of many surprises as we have all seen, if he decides to stop and get out and greet people that is a possibility and something we have seen in the past, a lot of unknowns here is partly what makes this so attractive to so many people and why so many people are willing to stand out here in the heat, in the sun for hours just for the possibility of meeting the pope. >> you got a little bit of shade now, we are creeping in on the end of the day, pretty nice day in new york city as it was a wonderful day in washington d.c. and jonathan appreciate it and back to you shortly, i want to try to sneak in a quick break here and let's do that and we will take a break and come back with more of the pope's visit to new york city. his first time in new york city. we will be back in a moment.

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welcome back everyone to al jazeera america, that is the pope arriving i guess a little over an hour ago. maybe right on the number. to jfk, john f. kennedy international airport where he did what he has been doing at every stop along the way, he took his sweet time and he just engaged those who gather and he walked the rope line and he blessed children, that is what he has been doing at every stop. i want to move ahead and talk about tomorrow, tomorrow morning the pope will head to the u.n. to address the u.n. general assembly. let's speak to kristen at the united nation and united nations for us and kristen good to see you and what is the pope expected to say and do when he visits the united nations tomorrow morning? >> well, tony, the pope is coming here to united nations to

kickoff a major u.n. event what is the largest gathering of world leaders in u.n. history and more than 150 world leaders are expect to gather here over this weekend to kickoff what is known as the, sorry a little distraction there. >> no worries. >> coming to kickoff the sustainable development goals. this is a summit of wide ranging goals agreed on by all nations in the world, they are coming to put their support behind this, wide ranging goal and 17 of them that include ending ofty to combatting climate change. they are supposed to be reached by 15 years from now in 2030 the goal is to achieve all of these aims and the pope is the keynote address. of course these are themes that are close to his heart.

we heard him talking about climate change and heard him talking about helping the poor in congress earlier today and he is expected to talk about those themes again when he addresses the general assembly on friday and also another theme that we've heard him talk about helping the poor and the responsibility of congress to help the less fortunate to be echoed here and rich countries he says have a responsible to help those with less. so that is what we are expecting tomorrow and also going to meet with some staff members at the united nations and stir things up a bit people are expecting. >> kristen it's not uncommon, right, for a pope to visit the u.n. but i'm wondering this is kind of a tone, a mood question, is there i don't know excitement would you say about this pope's visit? >> oh, absolutely, they have given addresses at the united nations but i think this one is very anticipated, the pope is as popular here as we have seen

around the country and his other visits around the world, people are very excited not only to hear what he has to say but to see what he can do because these issues that he is talking about particularly climate change are things that the united nations has been working on a long time trying to build a global consensus to get countries to agree to limits on carbon emissions and things like that, very difficult problem and many see this as a tipping point, crucial moment for that and other issues. so i was talking to the president of the world wildlife federation and asked him what he thought about the pope being here and he was esstatic to have attention on this issue and elevating an issue to a moral issue, not just a scientific one. >> terrific, all right, kristen great to see you with us from the united nations, and we have to tell you it has been quite a day for the pope and there is much more to come. david shuster is here with some of the highlights so far, david?

>> tony take advantage of the fact we have live pictures for everybody who did not see the pope this morning. >> wait, wait, wait, we got to get your mic sorted. all right. >> say that again. >> we just need -- can you hear david at all because we need to hear david? is that possible? give him a five count, i don't know. >> one, two, three, four, five. >> we still can't hear you, we will figure it out, we will figure it out. in the meantime we will go back out to st. patricks cathedral and jonathan betz and jonathan while we take a moment here to sort of get david shuster all sorted, give us a little bit of a tour, a scene setter and maybe some of the other important people in quotes who have arrived. >> yeah, let's give you a scene setter tony, thousands of people here waiting for pope francis to arrive and is supposed to be here at 6:45 and we will see if

he makes it on time but standing right in front of the cathedral you can see governor andrew cuomo and mayor bill dada -- dablazio and you have school students hoping to greet the pontiff and in the neon vest are construction workers who took part in restoring the cathedral, $177 million cost, three-year project, they had to rush to finish the job, add extra shifts and work on saturdays but got it done three months early and this is what the pope will see when he arrives in a few minutes a cathedral that has not looked this good in 40 years. >> that is interesting and i'm getting a bit of information about bill de blasio, the mayor of new york and his relationship with the catholic church, i think that is an interesting story and jonathan or patrick

maybe you want to take that. >> so mayor de blasio and they may not be the best of friends, one is a liberal democratic and one has been a more conservative person and someone who opposed the affordable care act but they have become fast friends since mayor de blasio took office and were on statin island of what took place with the police this year and worked together providing school programs and so on and so forth and they really are quite close. mayor de blasio claiming the heritage and doesn't go to church all that often but inspired and developed a partnership in the way that new york mayors and bishops have not done before. >> i will give david another moment just to make sure everything is where it should be and let us get back to the shot

of st. patricks and that shot in particular, we were talking about a bit earlier here and talking about the construction workers are there and the rehab, the renovation job that was done on st. patricks and you were able to give us a little bit of a timeline, the st. patricks cathedral timeline which i thought was particularly interesting. >> it was built back in the middle of the 19th century and it began under hughs and founder of fortum university and he had a vision that catholics who were at the time regarded as a sort of despised minority and seen as immigrants and poor and anticatholocism in the press and wanted to give the catholics a home be fitting their tradition and as the protestant churches of new york was built he built st. patricks cathedral. >> i think it's sorted and david we are taking this moment before the pope gets to st. patricks. >> before anybody sees the live pictures if anybody missed the pope in congress this morning we

quickly want to run through the highlights, i promise we will breakout if we see live pictures of the pope but the point is tony it was a very personal moment for people on capitol and someone nervous and right from the start. the protocol dictated that republican house speaker john boehner would be the first law make tore greet the pope and welcome him to capitol hill and he is catholic and nervously paced around his speakers office down from the floor and there he is walking back and forth and pacing and talking to photographers there. once the pope arrived the speaker welcomed him with it's good to have you here. we will show this in just a second. this is the next. pope walks in and boehner stiffens and there is the pope. >> we have to see that. we will work it out and work it out, we have it somewhere. >> second video there is boehner and the pope coming in. boehner is looking around and he is nervous. >> yes. >> the ceremony office used to be part of the appropriations

committee, that is a miscellaneous. >> no doubt he is a little on edge. >> on edge, the second video of the pope walking in. >> looking around. >> so the pope walks in trust me on this and have a discussion, boehner doesn't know what to say and he said look i'm a little catholic boy from ohio, this is such a big deal for me and it's emotional so the pope compliments him on his tie so he said i might wear the blue tie i wore in school, he said that is a lovely green tie, the green tie is a symbol of hope in the catholic church and he said we need a lot of hope today and not clear what he was referring to and may refer to the jacket the vatican asked for dignity in the event when lawmakers would receive the pope as the pope would go down the aisle so one of the things lawmakers have been asked to do when the pope walked in the house chamber, do we have this video? pope walking to the house chamber do we have that video.

>> we have it, work backwards. >> we will get this ordered. nice to have you here, pope says thank you. here is the pope walking down the aisle, lawmakers unlike state of the union say avoid the partisan and avoid the handshakes, don't touch the pope and had members of congress on the other side who would be trusted to do that so the pope was able to walk down the aisle and wasn't touched and wasn't high 5 or jostled then the speaker of the house introduced the pope to members of congress, watch this. >> members of congress, i have the high privilege and distinct honor of presenting to you pope francis of the holly sea. ♪ [applause] he said good luck, he wished good luck, why would speaker john boehner say that, in part boehner know this is a rucus

group in washington and show you highlights including when john boehner cried during the speech, afterwards on the house balcony and show some highlights and standing ovations but back to live coverage of the pope going down 5th avenue. >> we have to get back out to jonathan betz and want to see the shot and not sure what we will see outs of st. patricks cathedral and jonathan betz what have you been given with the pope's pending arrival? >> any minute now and people anticipating the pope will arrive and dignitaries are standing outside the cathedral waiting to reach him, hundreds of people standing on the steps here of st. patricks cathedral and thousands and thousands of people lining this avenue here in midtown manhattan, basically shutting down the central part of the city. waiting for the pope to drive-by, wave to the crowd, bless the crowd, maybe, maybe stop, unlikely, it's not

scheduled but you never know what the pope will do and he will stand there greating the dignitaries and watch through the 9,000 pound bronze doors here, they are decades old, refurbished, rehung, part of a huge ambitious project to restore this pope inside the cathedral and it's similarably glorious and the ceilings restored and stain glass windows repaired and completely refurbished and the best i have said all night in decades and part of the simplism of this church and of the pope that he arrives here to a refurbished cathedral trying to renew the faith her. >> give a sense of security, we can't talk about what is invisible but what is visible? >> yeah, massive, massive amount of security, tony, many, many blocks here shut down with not just concrete barriers that are stopping traffic, the new york police department has trucks

filled with sand to block streets in case anybody tries to get through so it's massive. ♪ i mean the streets in the city, this is a thorough canvassing and jonathan thank you for that, i want to come back to patrick here for a moment here and patrick give us a sense of the rest of the day, the rest of the evening, what we might hear, what we might see, there is a prayer service to come, i believe we will be able to see that as well but give us a sense of what the rest of the evening looks like. >> so tony the pope has been dividing his days between public policy in the mornings and prayer in the afternoon so yesterday he was at the white house in the morning, today the congress, tomorrow the united nations and yesterday he

canonized and today st. patricks and tomorrow mad sand square gardens and we will not have a mass but a prayer service and throughout history, for the last several hundred years and many hundred years monks and nuns gather five times a day to prayer the different prayers of the hours, this is the traditional evening prayer of the catholic church and includes songs and readings from the bible and includes an homily and sermon by the pope and at the very end the cardinal of new york will deliver words of welcome, welcoming the pope to new york city and st. patricks cathedral and we may not catch this but the pope will pray and bless the cathedral and it's important after it has been renovated to mark this moment of rebirth and this great landmark. >> moving forward for you, what are you most looking forward to moving forward from this point of the trip forward? >> so the u.n. speech tomorrow is going to be very, very

crucial for the pope's agenda, not just for the u.s. but the world so we should look to him to speak of in many of the topics he addressed in congress. >> he gave us a preview and warm up today as to what we will hear tomorrow? >> these are topics he has been addressing for the last 2 1/2 years as pope, income and equality, global war, environmentalism and immigration and refugee rights, this is going to be a global key tomorrow. today he focused primarily on what that looks like from the perspective of a u.s. legislature but tomorrow it will be the world on display for this pope to address as four of his predecessors had done before him and then after the u.n. visit the pope becomes a pastor again, he is always a pastor of course, but the rest of the trip is dedicated to intra church activities, in philadelphia he will attend the world family and it happened every three years since 1994 and you talked about the sinad of the family and begins in the second part when he comes back to rome on october

four and this is where the catholic church will be doing some new thinking about what it means to be a family in the contemporary world. so that is what we are going to see when he moves to philadelphia on saturday morning. >> i want to get back out to jonathan betz as we wrap here and prepare to toss things to race and "inside story" and if you would jonathan just one last quick little sweep here of the scene, who are you are seeing and who you are anticipating. >> there is a reason they call it the america's perish church and that is one of many reasons why this is a must-stop destination for pope francis, expected to be here any minute, the crowds are lined up and dignitaries standing tall and cathedral has been refurbished and polished and waiting for this momentum occasion when pope francis makes his first visit to new york city and the first stop at st. patricks to lead evening prayers in front of 2500 members of clergy. >> okay, there is the pope mobile. we knew we would see it and there it is.

and patrick last thoughts from you, we talked about the pope's style a lot but i'm curious has he indicated that he is changing doctrine at all in his, what, two years as pope? >> popes don't often do that tony, changing doctrine in the catholic church is a complicated thing and some people will tell you it just doesn't happen. but what we have talked about is a change of style, a change of approach and perhaps most change of emphasis, what he talks about is part of the traditional teaching of the church and not emphasized by the to men who came before him and as it continue we will see more of the new style and emphasis from pope francis and the world will be waiting on the edge of his chair to see what he says. >> i will tell you what that is a wonderful shot, take a look at that patrick, that is 5th avenue and you've got all of the security vehicles, you've got the formation of a convoy,

gumballs are going everywhere on these official police vehicles. >> absolutely and looks like and we cannot tell if they are sirens or the motorcade approaching and if they are it's a few minutes before the pope gets in the pope mobile and starts the trek down 5th avenue and thank you and that sit for the special edition of al jazeera america and i'm tony harris in new york and "inside story" with ray begins right now. >> the head of the catholic church made a much anticipated speech to a jointly meeting of congress. he touched on many issues, including wealth and poverty, care of the planet and caring for the world's poor and vulnerable. francis is the first to ever speak to congress. we'll look at his agenda and how in the modern era the