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Papal Visits to the United Nations

A papal visit to the United Nations has occurred three times.

In October, 1965, Paul VI became the first pope to visit the United States and the United Nations.

• At the UN, he delivered an impassioned appeal for peace and disarmament, telling his listeners, "If you wish to be brothers, let the weapons fall from your hands."
  
• The pope stirred the UN delegates with an impassioned cry, repeated three times, “Jamais la guerre!” Never again war!
  

Pope John Paul II visited the United States five times during his pontificate. He visited the United Nations during U.S. visits in 1979 and 1995.

• In 1979, John Paul II spoke out for human rights around the world, calling upon industrialized nations to lend greater support to the world’s less developed nations.
• In 1995, the Pope’s central message recognized “the extraordinary global acceleration of that quest for freedom…” underway around the world and, at the same time, the growth of an unhealthy form of nationalism and economic utilitarianism that threatened global harmony.
  
  • He called on the UN to move away from its institutional character and become a “moral center where all nations feel at home…” to be better able to reach the goal of becoming a family of nations.