Pope Francis urges compassion in historic address to Congress

(Image credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

published 24 September 2015

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."

"In a word, if we want security, let us give security; if we want life, let us give life; it we want opportunities, let us provide opportunities," Pope Francis said. "The yardstick we use for others will be the yardstick which time will use for us."