Pope Francis to address a Congress that strays from his teachings
By Joel Connelly on February 5, 2015 at 6:56 PM
Pope Francis will deliver an unprecedented speech to a joint session of Congress during his September visit to the United States.
Pope Francis: He will address Congress in September
he pontiff will be the first religious leader who is head of state to go before the podium in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Pope Francis accepted an invitation from House Speaker John Boehner, who said: "His teachings, prayers and very example bring us back to the blessings of simple things and our obligations to one another."
Although its leadership holds numerous Catholics — Boehner and Rep. Paul Ryan most prominent among them — the Republican-run Congress has frequently taken actions at odds with the Pope's teachings and the U.S. Catholic Conference.
The House voted recently to block President Obama's initiative that would allow long-established but undocumented families to remain in the United States.
It also voted, along partisan lines, to roll back a program that allows young people, brought to the U.S., at an early age, to remain and go to school.
Pope Francis has repeatedly called out the plight of immigrants, and made his first major trip as Pope to an Italian island in the Mediterranean where dozens of refugees from Africa had recently drowned.
The U.S. Catholic Conference has strongly supported initiatives to keep immigrant families together and spare young people deportation.
At the same time, however, the House Republican leadership has strongly supported restrictions on abortion. A revolt by GOP women in the House recently forced leaders to scale back legislation that would outlaw abortion after 20 years of pregnancy.
But the House has also voted to make cuts in such social programs as Women Infants and Children, Head Start and food stamps. One dissenting Democrat has joked that the "pro-life" majority believes that life begins at conception and ends at birth.
Pope Francis will be in the U.S. to attend the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, and to attend events in New York marking the 70th anniversary of the United Nations.
Forty-nine years ago, his predecessor Pope Paul VI similarly broke precedent with an address to the United Nations General Assembly in which he declared: "War no more. War never again."
"Pope Francis has renewed the faith of Catholics worldwide and inspired a new generation of people, regardless of their religious affiliation, to be instruments of peace," said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.