Pope Francis visits the White House, hangs out with President Obama

Like many rightwingers who have felt the need to turn Pope Francis’s USA visit to into a campaign talking point, Mike Huckabee is really offended on behalf of Pope Francis, because Barack Obama went and invited some LGBT guests as well as climate change activists to the White House to hear Francis speak.

The pontiff has now left the White House and started off in a procession from inside his “pope mobile” but only after he and President Obama spent some time alone in the Oval Office.

As the crowd awaited the pope, a red-jacketed Marine Band played martial music, a color guard carried the USA and Vatican flags, and military trumpeters positioned themselves on the portico of the White House. But the talk Wednesday took on special emphasis, coming on the first full day of the pope’s first USA visit, with the nation’s bishops assembled before him. Your messages of love, hope, and peace have inspired us all.

Among the thousands of people who lined up along the National Mall and near the White House on Wednesday to catch a glimpse of Pope Francis on his parade through Washington, D.C., many spectators – Roman Catholics, other Christians and nonbelievers – said Francis was helping remake the image of the church.

“Holy Father, you remind us that we have a sacred obligation to protect our planet, God’s magnificent gift to us”, Obama said, according to prepared remarks.

Pope Francis also expressed his appreciation to Obama for the welcome he had received in the US , while lightly alluding to the question of immigration.

He made only a passing mention of other hot-button issues, including same-sex marriage, saying he supports “the institutions of marriage and the family at this critical moment in the history of our civilization”.

Francis, the first Latin American pope, called himself the son of an immigrant family, and he said that he was proud to visit a country built largely by immigrants.

Michelle looked appropriate and chic in a short-sleeved, baby blue Carolina Herrera cowl-neck wool crepe fit-and-flare dress, while her daughters rocked conservative, chic separates, showing off an effortless way to wear the midi skirt trend – a silhouette that we’re bound to see a whole lot more of this season!

Francis’ next stop after the White House was a worship service with America’s 450-strong bishops’ conference at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle, where he took note of the clergy sex abuse scandal that erupted in the U.S.in 2002.

Many bishops have given a lukewarm response to Francis’ new social justice focus for the church.

American last carried a pope, John Paul II, in 1993, flying him from Denver to Rome. They prioritised drawing clearer boundaries for Catholic behaviour and belief in the face of legalised abortion and advances in gay rights. Several thousand of the 25,000 tickets to the event were set aside for Spanish-speaking people, many from California.

Later in the afternoon, ahead of a Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the scene was much the same, as delighted throngs pressed against fences and vied for the pope’s attention when his motorcade passed.

A frequent critic of the damage caused to the world’s poor and the environment by capitalism’s excesses, Francis this year released a papal document, or encyclical, demanding swift action on climate change. Both men see eye-to-eye on climate change and defence of the poor but hold different views on abortion rights and gay marriage. He will bring that message to the United Nations on Friday.