Pope Francis returns to Rome after charming, gently chiding America

During his six days in the United States, Pope Francis met with President Obama, delivered speeches to Congress and the United Nations, canonized a saint, and addressed millions of people in Washington, D.C., New York City, and Philadelphia, slipping in visits with prisoners, immigrants, victims of clergy sex abuse, nuns and bishops, and the homeless. And he left with a smile still on his face.

"Please know that as I prepare to leave, I do so with a heart filled with gratitude and hope," Francis said at the Philadelphia International Airport, before boarding his plane back to Rome.

During his visit, the 78-year-old pope touched on plenty of hot-button political issues — climate change, immigration, religious freedom, the death penalty, the penal system, marriage — but talked about them in generally pastoral, not political, terms. He didn't use the fiery rhetoric that has concerned conservative Catholics.

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"I was frankly taken aback at how savvy he was," Stephen Schneck, the director of the Catholic University of America's Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies, tells The New York Times. "He was clearly aware of all the very divisive issues for Catholics in American public life but talked about them in a way that didn't give ammunition to either conservatives or progressives in the United States to use in their political wars." Reuters has a brief recap of Pope Francis' trip to the U.S., which you can watch below. Peter Weber