Pope Francis’s US visit

At least one Republican congressman was displeased with Pope Francis’s speech to Congress — not for what was in it, but for what was absent.

Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Pitts is among the House’s most staunch and active social conservatives, having fought particularly hard to end abortion and prevent same-sex couples from marrying. So even though he knew Pope Francis would please liberals with parts of his address to a joint meeting of Congress Thursday, Pitts said he expected a little more from the pontiff on cultural issues that animate American conservatives.

If President Barack Obama had delivered the text of Pope Francis’s speech to Congress Thursday as a State of the Union address, he would have risked being denounced by Republicans as a socialist.

While most Republicans chose not to complain, and Democrats tried not to gloat, Francis’s speech to Congress was stunning in the breadth, depth, and conviction of its progressivism. That might not have been fully and immediately appreciated by everyone in the House chamber because the combination of Francis’s sotto voce delivery and his heavily accented English made it difficult, lawmakers said, to grasp everything he was saying.

As expected, Pope Francis’s speech to Congress on Thursday included a passage calling for the humane treatment of immigrants. And as you might predict, the Democratic side of the room was more enthusiastic than the Republican side (though everyone applauded lines about being descended from immigrants). But don’t let the applause mislead you: If you focus on what Francis is actually saying, it’s a really radical critique — and a bipartisan one. He isn’t just targeting Republican rhetoric; he’s going after Obama administration policy — and, for that matter, the entire premise of the way the US takes in refugees.

It’s possible Francis’s accent just kept members of Congress from being able to understand the full impact of what he was saying. But here’s the text:

On Wednesday, Pope Francis officially canonized Father Junipero Serra, thereby making Serra a Catholic saint. Serra founded several Catholic missions to convert Native Americans in 18th-century California, and he’s the first saint to be canonized on US soil. The pope actually fast-tracked his confirmation — skipping a couple of traditionally required steps — to make sure he could grant sainthood to Serra during his visit to the States.

But a lot of Americans — particularly Native Americans — have been protesting Serra’s canonization. After all, many people today think that “civilizing” the Native Americans of California did more to erase their culture than it did to save their souls. Here’s why there’s so much controversy over what Serra’s legacy really was — and whether his life is something the Catholic Church, not to mention the reputedly progressive Pope Francis, should be celebrating in 2015.

Pope Francis became the first pontiff to deliver an address to a joint meeting of Congress on Thursday. Here is the text of his remarks, as prepared for delivery:

Mr. Vice-President,

Today at 10 AM, Pope Francis will deliver an address to the House of Representatives, Senate, Vice President Biden, the Cabinet, and justices of the Supreme Court. His speech is expected to tackle topics such as the refugee crisis, the environment, poverty, and the death penalty. You can watch it live above, or follow along with the full prepared remarks here.

Pope Francis has received a lot of criticism from conservatives for indulging in supposedly political issues during his time as pope. One congressman — Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), a Catholic himself — even said he would boycott Francis’s speech to Congress, because the pope has pushed the world to take global warming seriously.

But the pope’s defenders argue he’s really just making a stand for moral issues. Fox News’s Shepard Smith put it quite eloquently in the video above, from Media Matters:

In 1960, prejudice against Catholics in America was strong enough that Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kennedy felt compelled to promise that he wouldn’t take orders from the Vatican. Back then, it would have been unimaginable for a pope to address a joint session of Congress.

So Pope Francis’s very presence at the House chamber’s rostrum Thursday is a testament to a major cultural transition in US attitudes toward religion in the public square. It is now de rigueur — and almost necessary — for candidates and elected officials to discuss their faith. House Speaker John Boehner and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi both openly speak of how their Catholic faith informs their work.

Pope Francis has been widely praised as a progressive figure on LGBTQ issues. Fueled by some of the pope’s comments on gay people (“Who am I to judge?”), some Democrats have praised Francis for his liberal views — with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, for example, stating that Francis has led him to rethink his views on the Catholic Church.

But the pope isn’t as progressive as these characterizations make him seem.

Pope Francis is making his first-ever visit to the United States this week, and only the 10th-ever visit by a sitting pope. His trip will take him through DC, New York, and Philadelphia from Tuesday to Saturday. He’ll speak at Madison Square Garden and a joint session of Congress.

The pope, particularly in DC, will likely use his visit to raise policy issues from abortion to climate change — the latter of which is already drawing some controversy. His trip speaks to the controversial positions this particular pope has taken, as well as fundamental changes in the makeup of the Catholic Church itself, particularly in the US.

Francis will arrive at Joint Base Andrews near Washington, DC today at 4 pm eastern time. He doesn’t have any public events today, but he’ll spend the night at the Apostolic Nunciature of the Holy See to the United States — essentially, the Vatican’s embassy to the US — in the Embassy Row area.

On Thursday morning at 9:20 am, Francis will arrive at the Capitol, where he’ll deliver a 10 am address to the House of Representatives and Senate. (One Republican Congressman, Paul Gosar of Arizona, has said he’ll boycott the speech because of media reports that Francis will focus on climate change, which Gosar believes is “false science.”) Afterward, he’ll visit St. Patrick’s Catholic Church and the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington, before departing the DC area around 4 pm.

Pope Francis’s entry into the contentious debate over climate change was welcomed by many climate hawks as a “gamechanger.” For months, people whose own minds were not changed by the pope’s encyclical, Laudato Si, have been confidently claiming that many other people’s will be. I’ve yet to actually hear from, or even hear about, an actual human being whose mind was thus changed.

I was discussing this on Twitter when, lo and behold, a fellow from the organization Faith In Public Life overheard and sent me a recent survey they did on just this question — or rather, on the broader question of how the pope is influencing American Catholics.

On Thursday, Pope Francis released his big, long-awaited encyclical on climate change and the environment. In the sweeping 184-page letter, he calls on the world’s nations — especially rich nations — to curtail fossil fuel use, revamp their economic systems, and alter their lifestyles in order to avoid “unprecedented destruction of ecosystems.”

Encyclicals are high-level teachings meant to clarify Catholic doctrine and reach a broader audience. This is the first encyclical that any pope has ever devoted solely to environmental issues. The world’s 1.2 billion Catholics certainly aren’t required to obey its every word, but the ideas in the document are expected to percolate down to churches and schools, as it gets taught and discussed in the coming years.