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While delivering the first address from a pontiff to a joint meeting of Congress on Thursday, Pope Francis touched on topics ranging from the plight of immigrants to climate change and the death penalty. Many of his comments were lightly delivered and unlikely to elicit much controversy, though the reaction might be different if they were given by another world leader. Case in point: Toward the beginning of his address, Francis alluded to religious extremism, noting that "no religion is immune" from it. His full quote as prepared for delivery: "Our world is increasingly a place of violent conflict, hatred...

Pope Francis on Thursday gave an historic address to a joint meeting of Congress that delivered big applause lines for Democrats on issues like the need to end armed conflict, welcoming immigrants, and taking steps to stop climate change. And while Republicans have spent the week reminding people that the pope agrees with the GOP on issues like family and abortion, the pontiff only gave a few brief nods to those issues, and in far less specific terms. For example, he stressed that the "Golden Rule" reminds people of their "responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage...

Believe it or not, the one line he devoted to abortion was one line more than he devoted to the subject of Jesus, who wasn’t mentioned at all in this morning’s speech according to the transcript. Maybe that was a deliberate choice made by Francis, to stick to politics and universal principles before a domestic television audience with many millions of non-Christians. (He did mention Moses.) Or maybe he just had more important things that he wanted to talk about, like the environment.This is exactly right: The Holy Father's politics, as w/his predecessors, defy easy right-left categorization. Not sure...

Mr. Vice-President, Mr. Speaker, Honorable Members of Congress, Dear Friends, I am most grateful for your invitation to address this Joint Session of Congress in "the land of the free and the home of the brave". I would like to think that the reason for this is that I too am a son of this great continent, from which we have all received so much and toward which we share a common responsibility. Each son or daughter of a given country has a mission, a personal and social responsibility. Your own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this...

Pope Francis was not afraid to critique Congress in his historic address on Capitol Hill, calling on the body to do better in several areas of political debate. In a speech of about 40 minutes made in front of a joint meeting of Congress on Thursday, the pope commended positions supported by both parties. He nodded to the plight of immigrants and refugees, also noting the sanctity of human life "at every stage of its development" and hinting that Congress should take action to address these problems. And, as he did on Wednesday from the White House, he explicitly called...

Here is the text of Pope Francis’ address to a Joint Session of the United States Congress at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. * * * Mr. Vice-President, Mr. Speaker, Honorable Members of Congress, Dear Friends, I am most grateful for your invitation to address this Joint Session of Congress in “the land of the free and the home of the brave”. I would like to think that the reason for this is that I too am a son of this great continent, from which we have all received so much and toward which we share a common responsibility. Each...

Pope Francis delivered a stinging blow to nativist conservatives bent on keeping illegal immigrants and Middle Eastern refugees out of the United States, saying Thursday in a landmark address to Congress that Americans should show compassion to immigrants of all stripes.

September 24, 2015: Pope Francis becomes the first Pope to address a joint session of Congress.

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1. There are bigger, more pressing problems than climate change No, really, there are. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), the congressman who is boycotting the papal address because he thinks the Pope is behaving “like a leftist politician” gives some excellent examples here. Foremost, surely, is the persecution and murder of Christians (and other minorities) in Africa and the Middle East by Islamist groups such as Boko Haram and ISIS. If the Pope isn’t going to stick up for his flock in times of crisis what exactly is the point of the Papacy?

If I’m reading the calendar correctly we have about four congressional working days until the government shuts down, assuming we don’t get some sort of deal on a continuing resolution. So what happens next? For one thing a whole bunch of federal workers will be placed on unpaid leave and sent home unless they are in “critical” positions which can’t be left vacant. This clearly calls for quick action by our elected representatives and you may rest assured that they’re all over this thing. A bipartisan proposal is in place to make sure that as soon as the curtains...

Iran wants sanctions relief to be lifted, immediately, and not merely suspended. Iran should not get that. If it doesn't, it may well terminate the "deal" unilaterally. If Iran gets what it wants, the Senate should review the "deal" as a treaty and reject it. Either outcome would be a substantial improvement over the current "deal" and the morass in which it is embedded.This post is based on a September 21st article at Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) titled "Expected September 28 NY Meeting Between P5+1 Foreign Ministers And Iran Could Signify Reopening Of Nuclear Negotiations To Address Khamenei’s September...

Pope Francis arrives in Washington D.C. on Tuesday to kick off a six-day American tour in which he'll meet the president, address Congress, speak to the United Nations, headline star-studded celebrations, lead thousands in prayer and visit with immigrants, prisoners and the homeless.

The bologna surrounding the Nuclear Iran Deal was sliced even more thinly on Monday, Sept. 21. Remember the alarms raised when a version of one of the confidential secret side deals obtained and reported on by the Associated Press revealed that Iran would be permitted to inspect its own Parchin military site? At least some of Iran’s nuclear weapons activity is suspected to have taken place at Parchin. On Monday, most of the headlines about the Parchin inspections revealed that what had been suspected was, in fact, the case. Tehran said that Iranians “independently collected samples” at Parchin with no...

The pope has become a political football. Republicans want to use Pope Francis’s visit to Congress this week — the first-ever by a pontiff — to highlight their opposition to abortion rights. Democrats, meanwhile, hope the pope will lend new momentum to their efforts to address climate change, reform immigration law and win public approval for a nuclear deal with Iran.

Why on earth would Republicans do that?” That is a question I’ve been asked at least a dozen times since illustrating that the GOP has played a cynical game in connection with President Obama’s Iran deal. “Follow the money” is a common answer to questions about political motivation. It may not explain everything in this case, but it is certainly relevant. This spring, Republican leadership colluded with the White House and congressional Democrats to enact a law — the Corker-Cardin Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act — that guaranteed Obama would be authorized to lift sanctions against Iran (the main objective...

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would grant legal protection for babies born alive in an attempted abortion. In a vote of 248 yeas to 177 nays taken on Friday H.R.3504, titled the "Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act" was passed in a largely party line tally. Introduced by Arizona Congressman Trent Franks earlier this month, H.R. 3504 seeks to amend the federal criminal code to mandate that abortion providers must give proper medical care to any baby born alive in their facility. "If an abortion results in the live birth of an infant, the infant is a...

Dozens of House Republican lawmakers are making a late stab at pressuring Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to abandon the filibuster on legislation to block the nuclear deal with Iran. A total of 57 House lawmakers signed on to a letter led by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) telling McConnell that blocking the deal was “simply so consequential” that it demanded a change to the Senate’s rules, known as invoking the "nuclear option." “Our request to eliminate the filibuster for some votes simply underscores that in a democracy the majority should decide,” they wrote. “The super-majority now required to advance legislation...

It is difficult to convey the excitement I first felt when it was revealed that His Holiness Pope Francis was invited to Washington D.C. to address the world from the floor of the House of Representatives. Many believed, like I did, that this was an opportunity for the Pope to be one of the world’s great religious advocates and address the current intolerance of religious freedom. An opportunity to urgently challenge governments to properly address the persecution and execution of Christians and religious minorities; to address the heinous and senseless murders committed by ISIS and other terrorist organizations. An opportunity...

[Cuccinelli] believes GOP leaders could be much tougher... "Make the Democrats stand up there for hour after hour and defend Iran. Defending Iran! Can you believe we're saying this? Make them do it. Where's the guts on this and, frankly, where are the brains?" .... Republican leaders dismiss Cuccinelli's approach, saying the party will badly lose the public relations battle if there is a government shutdown and President Obama will never back down on issues... Cuccinelli said the strategy should be much more aggressive. "If it were me and I sent him a budget that defunded Planned Parenthood and he...