Lawmakers present at the pope’s address to Congress welcomed his message of being open to others’ views. He spoke about climate change. See Pope Francis’ full schedule for his US visit.
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“Buenos dias”, he called out in the language of his native Argentina and millions of USA immigrants, legal and not.
Most significant, he called on Congress to live up to its highest goal. Members of Congress didn’t even let him get out the rule itself before giving him a standing ovation.
“Everybody is so excited here because he strikes a cord with everyone”, added Gail Randon, 66, who came with her husband from Haymarket, Va., after scoring tickets through a lottery at their church.
“I want to tell you that my heart is sad”. “God bless America!”
“I know that, as a presbyterate in the midst of God’s people, you suffered greatly in the not distant past by having to bear the shame of some of your brothers who harmed and scandalized the Church in the most vulnerable of her members”, he said addressing clergy and religious gathered for Evening Prayer at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City September 24.
“Let us treat others with the same passion and compassion with which we want to be treated”, he said.
Thousands of people had lined New York’s streets on the route leading to the recently spruced up cathedral, to greet the popular pontiff. Today I would like not only to address you, but through you the entire people of the United States. He’s been greeting people, shaking hands. He reminded his audience that the United States began as a country of immigrants and implored them to follow the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. We expect he will again address the environment, which is one of his issues he’s very passionate about.
“Our world is facing a refugee crisis of a magnitude not seen since World War II”, he said. In the US, tens of thousands of families and unaccompanied minors from Central America have surged across the southern USA border as violence has flared at home. Republican front-runner Donald Trump has painted Mexican immigrants as criminals and has said he would build a wall along the border and force Mexico to pay for it.
Yesterday’s speech was the latest highlight for the pope’s whirlwind three-day visit to Washington, the first stop on a three-city U.S. tour.
This conviction has led me, from the beginning of my ministry, to advocate at different levels for the global abolition of the death penalty. Now is the time for courageous actions and strategies, aimed at implementing a “culture of care” (ibid., 231) and “an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature” (ibid., 139). He quoted a Catholic teaching document that calls business “a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving the world”.
“And Pope Francis was talking about a lot of those issues such as climate change, abortion, capitol punishment, immigration”, Coffey said”.
On the turmoil in the Middle East, Francis has called for an end to the “genocide” of Christians, using a term that sets off alarm bells at the United Nations.
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Sitting in front of Francis for his speech was John Roberts, chief justice of the Supreme Court, which legalized gay marriage across the country. But the Pope seems to be reading from President Obama’s hymnal, in which government is simply a word for what we all do together.
