 Story highlights Bernie Sanders said Pope Francis' decision to highlight Dorothy Day underscores the Pontiff's emphasis on helping the poor 
 
 Sanders called the Pope 'one of the great moral and religious leaders of our time' 
 
 Washington (CNN) Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders lauded Pope Francis for highlighting Dorothy Day -- a Catholic socialist -- and for calling for action on climate change and poverty in his speech to Congress on Thursday. "He is willing to identify with an extraordinarily courageous woman whose life was about standing with the poorest people in America, and having the courage to stand up to the very powerful," he said.
– Pope Francis made a historic appearance before Congress today, and one person especially pleased with his speech was Bernie Sanders. The Vermont senator tells CNN he loved the reference to Dorothy Day, a "radical Catholic activist," per the Washington Post, who founded the Catholic Worker Movement and fought for the rights of the downtrodden. Day "was a very, very progressive … socialist who organized working people and the poor to stand up to the wealthy and the powerful and to fight for social justice," Sanders said to CNN. He added to the Post: "I think it was extraordinary that he cited her as one of the most important people in recent American history. This would be one of the very, very few times that somebody as radical as Dorothy Day was mentioned." Sanders also acknowledged, per CNN, that Francis likely "touched on some very, very important issues that a lot of people would prefer not to talk about," but he adds the pope approached them in a "very dignified, non-partisan type way." Someone from the other side of the political spectrum is gushing about the pontiff's speech, too, but for different reasons. Ted Cruz told reporters after Francis' appearance that the pope offered a "powerful voice for life at a time when life is profoundly threatened in America," reports Bloomberg (Cruz was speaking specifically about religious liberty, traditional marriage, and abortion). "It was striking, and heartbreaking, to see so many congressional Democrats sitting stone-faced, arms crossed, when the pope urged us all to defend human life," he said. (At least none of them threw a shoe at the pope.)