Pope Francis presided over services in Foundation Hall alongside the Slurry Wall and the Last Column.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan opened the service by highlighting New York City’s “atmosphere of respect and appreciation for religious diversity.”

“We — who have the honor of pasturing our people — we work together, we pray together, we meet together, we talk to one another, and we try to serve as one, the city we are proud to call our earthly home while awaiting our true and eternal residence in heaven,” Dolan said.

Pope Francis Holds Interfaith Service At 9/11 Memorial & Museum

About a dozen religious leaders from the Jewish, Muslim, Greek Orthodox, Hindu and other faiths stood behind the pope as he prayed at the opening of the service.

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The Holy Father asked God for eternal peace for those killed, as well as healing for the relatives of the victims. He prayed to God to bring “peace to our violent world” and “to turn to your way of love” those who justify killing in the name of religion.

Francis’ prayer was followed by meditations of peace led by religious leaders from Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Christian and Muslim faiths, some of which were read in sacred tongues while others were in English.

Ahead of Francis’ formal remarks, a cantor sang a Jewish prayer in honor for the victims of the attacks.

“I feel many different emotions standing here at Ground Zero, where thousands of lives were taken in a senseless act of destruction,” Pope Francis said. “Here grief is palpable.”

As WLNY’s Alice Gainer reported, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg introduced the pope to relatives who lost loved ones in the attacks.

The pope listened intently to their words and gave a tender touch to the children.

The pontiff spoke of how meeting the families of the victims reminded him of how acts of violence are never impersonal.

Web Extra: Full Text Of Pope Francis’ Remarks At Interfaith Service

“In those family members, we see the face of pain, a pain which still touches us and cries out to heaven,” Francis said.

But in the face of that pain, the pope said he saw another side to the attacks. Speaking of the power of love and remembrance, the pope said he saw “a palpable sense of the heroic goodness which people are capable of.”

“When the firefighters were running up the stairs to save 20 to 25,000 people that day, nobody cared about what religion you are, what socioeconomic class, what ethnicity,” Daniels said ahead of the service. “Afterwards everyone just came together so to be here in Foundation Hall with this pope with a representative of the Jewish religion, of the Muslim religion, of Hindu, of all these different religions on one stage sends a huge message to the world.”

The Holy Father urged the world to build peace from its differences.

“I trust that our presence together will be a powerful sign of our shared desire to be a force for reconciliation, peace and justice in this community and throughout the world,” the pontiff said. ” … In opposing every attempt to create a rigid uniformity, we can and must build unity on the basis of our diversity of languages, cultures and religions, and lift our voices against everything which would stand in the way of such unity.”

Closing out the service, the Young People’s Chorus of NYC sang “Let There Be Peace On Earth.”

Prior to the service, the pope paused at the memorial in front of 1,000 invited guests and honored the 2,983 whose lives were lost on 9/11.

Francis prayed silently and laid a white rose at the edge of the south pool, inscribed with the names of those killed in the attacks in New York, at the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field, as well as in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

The pontiff spent about 15 minutes speaking to 11 families who lost loved ones in the attacks and gave each family a box of rosary beads.

“This pope represents so much unity and peace for this world we live in today and we need all the peace and love we can get,” said Monica Iken-Murphy, whose husband, Michael Patrick Iken, died inside the south tower.