“It was so nice to hear from him, to speak directly to the people who have the power to change all that”, Ruiz said. “He held them from the moment he said “the home of the fearless and the land of the free” all the way to when he said, “God bless America.’ He held their attention”.
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The long-awaited arrival of Pope Francis to Washington, has met the expectations of many Catholics, who look to him for guidance, as the leader of the Vatican and the Catholic Church as a whole.
A tourist told PJ Media that coming to D.C. was a “calling from God”.
This week, Pope Francis has thrilled pro-life activists with countless pro-life statements before Congress and at different venues in the United States.
Following his comments on migration, the pope continued on with the “Golden Rule” adage, noting that “it also reminds us of our responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development”.
He also and spoke approvingly of public financing: “Perhaps public financing would allow for me, the citizen, to know that I’m financing each candidate with a given amount of money”.
“On this continent, too, thousands of persons are led to travel north in search of a better life for themselves and for their loved ones, in search of greater opportunities”, he added, referring to immigrants from Mexico and Central America. “For those peoples and their nations, from the heart of American democracy, I wish to reaffirm my highest esteem and appreciation”.
The crowd was much more diverse than the mainly Latino and Catholic crowd who on Wednesday waited for hours to see the pontiff pass through downtown Washington in his Popemobile.
“We must resolve now to live as nobly and as justly as possible, as we educate new generations not to turn their back on our “neighbors” and everything around us”, Francis said, speaking in English to steady rounds of applause from the bipartisan gathering of members of Congress.
On that issue, Francis called for a responsible effort to “avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity”.
In a year of political divisiveness, Pope Francis emerged as a global political leader rather a moral and spiritual voice alone.
“All of the modern popes haves called for the abolishment of the death penalty, so John Paul II and Benedict XVI have both said that there is no place for it in modern society”.
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“I hope and pray our government officials take something from that and really work for the people”, she said.
