The papacy of Pope Francis included a little less than half of my sixteen at the Congress, but he was much larger about American politics than his predecessors during this period.
A historic event, Francis’s address to a joint congress session on September 24, 2015, has encapsulated a large part of the interaction of its papacy with politics.
On February 5, 2015, the president of the John Boehner Chamber announced that Francis would be the first pope to visit the Capitol to speak to the Congress and the Nation. The invitation came officially from Boehner and the Democratic leader of the Nancy Pelosi Chamber, two powerful Catholics who illustrated the partisan fracture in the church.
Pope Francis was an extremely popular figure in America – 70% of approval overall, 90% with Catholics – so the two parties wanted to say that he was with them.
With the partisan policy in a zero sum still at stake, each party also sought to show that the pope reprimanded the other. Since none of the parties fully embraces Catholic social education, everyone could choose their favorite problems and use something that the Pope said as a partisan gourdin.