Pope Francis urges compassion in historic address to Congress

Pope Francis addresses joint Congress.
(Image credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Pope Francis invoked the importance of the Golden Rule across issues ranging from poverty to climate change to the migrant crisis Thursday in his historic speech during a joint meeting of Congress. Continuing his trip's theme of helping those who are most vulnerable, Pope Francis called on Congress to remember its duty to "protect, by means of the law, the image and likeness fashioned by God on every human life."

Most notably, he urged Americans to view migrants "as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories" and those "trapped in the cycle of poverty" as people who need to be given hope. Similarly, when addressing the divisive issue of climate change, he reminded Congress that the future of our planet "concerns and affects us all."

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