Pope Francis Confronts The Death Penalty, Criminal Justice

At the Catholic church’s World Meeting of Families, LGBT Catholic activists and advocates for the church’s traditional teaching on sexuality agree on one thing – the church isn’t always an easy place to have these conversations. That’s because he also promised that he would be proclaiming the “Gospel of the Family” during his visit to the City of Brotherly Love this weekend.

“On October 6, 1979, Pope John Paul II arrived in an open-topped limousine, driving through the Northwest gate as he waved to onlookers on Pennsylvania Avenue“.

Thousands of people from around the world flocked to Washington, New York and Philadelphia to see Pope Francis during his historic visit to the United States.

This week, Pope Francis has been in Washington, D.C. – at the White House, Capitol Hill, the Basilica, and a homeless shelter.

Pope Francis called for embracing “the stranger in our midst” and spoke out on behalf of immigrants everywhere Thursday when he became the first leader of the Catholic Church to address a joint session of Congress. Mitch McConnell is not big on introspection.

But he cautioned that the experience of the last 70 years had revealed that reform and adaptation to the times were necessary.

New York Senator Chuck Schumer told us he was really moved by the Pope’s speech. When he spoke at the White House, he plainly stated Catholics are “concerned that efforts to build a just and wisely ordered society respect their deepest concerns and the right to religious liberty,”adding “all are called to be vigilant, precisely as good citizens, to preserve and defend that freedom from everything that would threaten or compromise it”. “The need for greater equity is especially true in the case of those bodies with effective executive capability, such as the Security Council, the financial agencies and the groups or mechanisms specifically created to deal with economic crises”, he said.

Sitting behind him, Vice President Biden and House Speaker John Boehner both burst into tears. Whether you like him or not, Francis is endeavoring to recapture that sense of larger mission. The Pope arrived to both Cuba and the United States this week on Alitalia charter flights. It’s where stuff is supposed to get done.

“We the people of this continent are not fearful of foreigners because most of us… most of us were once foreigners”. Despite Francis’ progressive stance on many issues, the Catholic Church has remained opposed to abortion and birth control. Dixon, 54, appreciates that Pope Francis “is a people person” but also said, “The Catholic Church is filthy rich, you know”. The calling list was a stratified random sample drawn from a list of all Protestant churches in America. More than 4 in 10 (42 percent) say they value the pope’s opinion, but 50 percent say they do not.

I can’t wait to see Pope Francis interact with the children at the Our Lady Queen of Angels School in East Harlem. Nearly two-thirds view Pope Francis as a genuine Christian and “brother in Christ”. They did not speak English and did not have the proper paperwork to apply for jobs. Day was arrested numerous times for direct-action protests on behalf of many different causes, was under FBI surveillance for half a century and repeatedly sided with socialist and Communist revolutionaries.

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Democrat Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, however, was impressed. “These members of Congress needed to hear something like this”. Now, is Francis trying to reframe Day as a less radical and more palatable figure than she actually was, 35 years after her death?

Over 40 hours in New York, the pope will address world leaders at the United Nations, participate in an interfaith service at the September 11 memorial and celebrate Mass at Madison Square Garden. NPR foreign correspondent Sylvia Poggioli welcomed in 2015 by reporting “The first pope from the global South has irritated some conservative Americans by criticizing laissez-faire capitalism and the ills of globalization”.

His address ranged over several themes including migration, helping the poor, climate change and the death penalty. At least not anytime soon. “Bless the families. Bless them all”.

“You are at home not in palaces, but among the poor; not with the famous, but with the forgotten; not in official portraits, but in “selfies” with young people”, he said.

Of course we should not and cannot rely on the autocratic ruler of an antiquated and deeply problematic religious institution, with numberless piles of skeletons in its closet, to save us from the profiteers and the plutocrats, the warmongers and the apostles of hatred.

President Obama, in turn, hailed the Pontiff as a moral force who is “shaking us out of our complacency” with his reminders to care for the poor and the planet.