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New York: Making a plea for human rights, Pope Benedict XVI warned diplomats at the United Nations on Friday that international cooperation needed to solve urgent problems is "in crisis" because decisions rest in the hands of a few powerful nations.
The UN speech highlighted another active day on Benedict's first papal trip to the United States that also included the first visit by the leader of the Roman Catholic Church to an American synagogue.
In a major speech on his US trip, Benedict said that respect for human rights, not violence, is the key to solving many of the world's problems.
While he didn't identify the countries that have a stranglehold on global power, the German pope, just the third pontiff to address the UN General Assembly, addressed long-standing Vatican concerns about the struggle to achieve world peace and the development of the poorest regions.
On the one hand, he said, collective action by the international community is needed to solve the planet's greatest challenges. On the other, "we experience the obvious paradox of a multilateral consensus that continues to be in crisis because it is still subordinated to the decisions of a few."
His late-afternoon stop at Park East Synagogue, a modern Orthodox congregation, was mostly symbolic, a quick visit to offer greetings as Passover approaches, exchange gifts and signal the increasingly warm relations between Catholicism and Judaism.
The pope later delivered a speech to other Christian leaders during which he advocated holding the line on orthodoxy within denominations. Allowing individual congregations to interpret the Gospels undermines evangelism at a time when "the world is losing its bearings," he said.
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