 |
| Can't make out his pectoral cross? |
When Pope Francis arrives in Washington, D.C., on September 22nd, it will not only be his first papal visit to the United States; it will be his first visit ever. He's 78 years old, but he spent most of his life in his native Argentina, as a Jesuit priest and later cardinal. Aside from required trips to Rome for official church business — he always insisted on flying economy —the former Jorge Bergoglio rarely left Buenos Aires. His one substantial vacation for pleasure, a trip to the Holy Land in 1973, was not well-timed: He arrived just as the Yom Kippur War was breaking out and so spent most of his visit confined to his Jerusalem hotel room.
In Washington, Francis will meet with President Obama at the White House. He will also travel to New York — where he will speak at the United Nations General Assembly, celebrate a mass at Madison Square Garden and visit the 9/11 Memorial — and Philadelphia, where he will visit Independence Mall and inmates at a local prison and appear at a global Catholic conference called the World Meeting of Families. And he will become the first pope to address a joint session of Congress, thanks to an invitation from House Speaker John Boehner, a devout Catholic. The New York Times described the papal visit as a "long-held dream" of the speaker, who has been sending feelers to Rome for the past two decades. Francis is "not afraid to take on the status quo or . . . say what he really thinks," Boehner told the Times. "So I'm sure the pope will have things to say that people will find interesting, and I'm looking forward to his visit." (more...)
Not to worry! A hillbilly cross proudly displayed below.
No comments:
Post a Comment