The White House confirmed Thursday that President Obama will host Pope Francis on Sept. 23, when they will discuss topics including the environment, religious freedom and immigration. It was the latest detail announced about Francis’s fall trip — his first to the United States — which will include a speech to Congress and the United Nations.
The two men will meet at the White House and discuss “their shared values and commitments on a wide range of issues,” the announcement said, including efforts to help “the marginalized and the poor.”
The Argentinian pontiff will be in the United States for about a week, speaking to Congress on Sept. 24 and at the United Nations the next day. His visit is timed for a major gathering of Catholic leaders in Philadelphia at the end of that week that is expected to move forward church discussions on divorce and annulment and the role of gays and lesbians, among other things. The World Meeting of Families happens every three years.
Other details of the pope's trip are unconfirmed, but a member of the planning committee said earlier this year that he is likely to celebrate Mass both in Washington and New York. It’s not yet clear if those services will be open to the public.
The previous pope, Pope Benedict, visited the U.S. in 2008, but he did not enjoy nearly the popularity that Francis does. Hotel rooms anywhere close to Philadelphia have been sold out for months around Francis's trip and U.S. church leaders say they expect as many as 10,000 reporters to seek credentials on the trip.
The pope has made multiple other trips since his election in 2013, to places including Brazil, Turkey and Israel, but the trip to the United States has different stakes.
It's a way for him to speak directly to a powerful and yet polarized Catholic population at a time when debate is hot about how Catholics should feel about resolving income inequality, environmental issues and marriage, among other issues. Catholics will be glued to his speech in Congress, where 30 percent of lawmakers are Catholic and have hugely divergent views about everything from abortion and the role of government to foreign policy. Francis has focused heavily on the plight of immigrants and refugees, a topic on which U.S. Catholics — and Americans in general — are divided in terms of how specifically the government should act.
As the constitutional officer of Congress, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), himself a Catholic, extended the invitation to the pope.
Francis will be the first pope to ever address Congress, and he doesn't typically speak before government bodies when he travels. He will also give a speech at the United Nations on its 70th anniversary when a large number of world leaders will be in attendance.
Obama and Francis met for the first time last year in Rome for about an hour. The president said at the time that they "spent a lot of time talking about the challenges of conflict and how elusive peace is around the world,” with particular focus on the Israeli-Palestinian situation, unrest in Syria and Lebanon and the persecution of Christians. The two men have a shared focus on the human costs of globalization and the increased divisions between rich and poor, but part ways on issues including immigration policy and the White House requirement that employers provide contraception as part of mandatory health care plans.