Pope Francis’ cap flies off his head as he deplanes in Havana, Cuba, Saturday, September 19, 2015.
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Police and federal agents are working with the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security to set up barricades through the city. “There are rooms available, and if someone were to start looking now they’d find them, but I don’t know how much longer that’s going to last”, said Ed Grose of the Greater Philadelphia Hotel Association. Isely is with the group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and he has already traveled out east. He says the group will hold events throughout the pope’s high-profile visit.
The power of that Catholic faith can be seen today, not only in the crowds that will greet Pope Francis in the coming days, but in the millions of men and women who heal the sick, comfort the lonely, work for peace and feed the hungry.
There is growing tension between the Vatican and Washington over Pope Francis’ trip to the White House next week after a leaked guest list revealed a number of LGBT people would attend the visit. It’s a nation of people who mostly say religion is very important in their lives. Ledesma specifically points to a June 2013 quote by Francis just months after he was elected successor to Pope Benedict XVI: “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge?”
The extraordinary gesture on Tuesday will mark the beginning of the pomp and pageantry that Washington will put on display to welcome the popular leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics.
Both schools are just blocks from Girard Avenue, one of several streets forming the traffic box that will secure Pope Francis from the rest of us.
The tenor will change when the pope arrives in Philadelphia.
Action 2 News will follow the group’s journey in Philadelphia.
Pope Francis talks with the prefect of the papal household, Archbishop Georg Ganswein. “It’d take a whole lot of weight lifted off of me if I only had just one”, she said.
“We’re excited”, Paul Mulligan said. But the difference, she said, is “we’re not popes – we don’t have the influence”.
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The pontiff played a key role in helping the Obama administration end a 50-year detente between the United States and Cuba, the island nation where the pope will visit en route to the United States.
