By NICOLE
WINFIELD and RACHEL ZOLL
Pope Francis headed for Washington on Tuesday for the
first visit of his life to the United States, bringing his "church of the
poor" to the world's wealthiest superpower and a country polarized over
issues closest to his heart: immigration, social injustice and economic
inequality.
During his six-day, three-city visit to the U.S., the
pope will meet with Obama, address Congress, speak at the United Nations in New
York and take part in a Vatican-sponsored conference on the family in
Philadelphia.
The 78-year-old Argentine known as the "slum
pope" for ministering to the downtrodden in his native Buenos Aires is
expected to urge America to take better care of the environment and the poor
and return to its founding ideals of religious liberty and open arms toward
immigrants.
Francis' enormous
popularity, propensity for wading into crowds and insistence on using an
open-sided Jeep rather than a bulletproof popemobile have complicated things
for U.S. law enforcement, which has mounted one of the biggest security
operations in American history to keep him safe.
The measures are unprecedented for a papal trip and
could make it nearly impossible for many ordinary Americans to get anywhere
close to Francis. For anyone hoping to get across town when the pope is around,
good luck.
For all the attention likely to be paid to Francis'
speeches, including the first address from a pope to Congress, his more
personal gestures — visiting with immigrants, prisoners and the homeless —
could yield some of the most memorable images of the trip.
"What the pope does in the United States will be
more important than what he says," said Mat Schmalz, a religious studies
professor at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts. "There are a
lot of things he will say about capitalism and about wealth inequality, but
many Americans and politicians have already made up their minds on these
issues. What I would look for is a particular gesture, an unscripted act, that
will move people."
In Cuba, Francis basked in the adulation of Cubans
grateful to him for brokering the re-establishment of diplomatic relations
between the U.S. and the communist island. The pope is expected to raise the
"normalization" process while in Washington, where Congress alone can
lift the embargo long opposed by the Vatican.
He arrives at a moment of bitter infighting across the
country over gay rights, immigration, abortion and race relations — issues that
are always simmering in the U.S. but have boiled over in the heat of a
presidential campaign.
Capitol Hill is consumed by disputes over abortion and
federal funding for Planned Parenthood after hidden-camera videos showed its
officials talking about the organization's practice of sending tissue from
aborted fetuses to medical researchers. While Francis has staunchly upheld
church teaching against abortion, he has recently allowed ordinary priests, and
not just bishops, to absolve women of the sin.
Francis' visit comes three months after the U.S.
Supreme Court legalized gay marriage, putting U.S. bishops on the defensive and
sharply dividing Americans over how much they should accommodate religious
objectors. The pope has strongly upheld church teaching against same-sex
marriage but adopted a welcoming tone toward gays themselves, saying, "Who
am I to judge?" when asked about a supposedly gay priest.
Americans are also wrestling anew with issues of
racism. A series of deaths in recent years of unarmed black men at the hands of
law enforcement has intensified debate over the American criminal justice
system. Francis will see that system up close when he meets with inmates at a
Pennsylvania prison.
U.S. bishops, meanwhile, expect Francis will issue a
strong call for immigration reform, a subject that has heated up with hardline
rhetoric from some of the Republican presidential candidates, especially Donald
Trump. He has painted Mexican immigrants as criminals and said he would build a
wall along the U.S. southern border and force Mexico to pay for it.
Francis will be sending a powerful message on that
front by delivering the vast majority of his speeches in his native Spanish.
"Our presidential candidates have been using
immigrants as a wedge issue," Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski said.
"It's our hope that the visit of Pope Francis will change this
narrative."
The issue is particularly dear to Francis: He took his
first trip outside Rome to the island of Lampedusa, ground zero in Europe's
immigration crisis, and recently urged every parish and religious order to take
in a refugee family. The Vatican itself is sheltering a Syrian family.
Francis' most eagerly watched speech will be his
address Thursday to Congress. Republicans and many conservative Catholics have
bristled at his indictment of the excesses of capitalism that he says
impoverish people and risk turning the Earth into an "immense pile of
filth."
Some conservative
Catholic commentators have urged Francis to spend more time fighting abortion
and gay marriage instead of focusing on the environment. Catholic GOP
presidential candidates have rejected his arguments as flawed, and one Republican
climate doubter, Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, announced plans to boycott Francis'
speech.
Nevertheless, Francis
enjoys popularity ratings in the U.S. that would be the envy of any world
leader. A New York Times/CBS News poll conducted last week found 63 percent of
Catholics have a favorable view of Francis, and nearly 8 in 10 approve the
direction he is taking the church.
Just how far Francis
presses his agenda in Washington is the big question.
Paul Vallely, author
of "Pope Francis, The Struggle for the Soul of Catholicism," said to
expect both "warmth" and "some finger-wagging" from the
pope.
"He won't
necessarily confront people head-on," Vallely said, "but he'll change
the priorities."
·
AP reporter Erica Warner contributed from Washington.
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