Pope targets human rights at U.N. stop

PAPAL VISIT | Historic trip also includes visit to N.Y. synagogue

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 U.N. speech highlighted another active day on Benedict's first papal trip to the United States, one that also included the first visit by the leader of the Roman Catholic Church to an American synagogue.

In his U.N. address, Benedict said that respect for human rights, not violence, was 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 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.''

The pope made no mention of the United States in his speech, though the Vatican did not support the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which occurred despite the Bush administration's failure to gain Security Council approval for it.

The pope said questions of security, development and protection of the environment require international leaders to work together in good faith.

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.