ROCK STAR Pope Francis waves to the crowd from his popemobile during a parade in Philadelphia on Saturday. AP
PHILADELPHIA鈥擨n the US Congress and at a parish school, at the United Nations and a city jail, Pope Francis spent a whirlwind US visit bridging the realms of the disadvantaged and elite, trying to turn the attention of the mightiest nation on earth away from ideological battles and toward a world he said desperately needs help.
From his very first appearance, he wove together issues that are rarely linked in American public life.
At the White House with US President Barack Obama, he upheld religious freedom while seeking urgent action to ease climate change.
Addressing the US Congress, he sought mercy for refugees, while proclaiming a duty 鈥渢o defend human life at every stage of its development,鈥� a challenge to abortion rights.
Standing on altars before the nation鈥檚 bishops, he acknowledged the difficulties of ministering amid 鈥渦nprecedented changes taking place in contemporary society,鈥� a recognition of gay marriage.
But he urged American Catholic leaders to create a Church with the warmth of a 鈥渇amily fire,鈥� avoiding 鈥渉arsh and divisive鈥� language and a 鈥渘arrow鈥� vision of Catholicism that he called a 鈥減erversion of faith.鈥�
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Reframing of issues
The statements amounted to a dramatic reframing of issues within the Church and a hope for less polarization overall in the United States.
鈥淩ecalibration and reorientation are good words to describe it,鈥� said John Green, a specialist in religion at the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron in Ohio.
鈥淭he Pope is very adept politically. Even people who ended up disagreeing with him on certain points find him a very attractive and persuasive man. I thought he was quite inspiring,鈥� Green said.
So did many others. Tens of thousands of cheering, flag-waving people lined the streets in Washington, New York and Philadelphia to greet Francis, some waiting for hours to catch a glimpse of the wildly popular Pope.
On a highly scripted, six-day visit that ended on Sunday, and despite unprecedented security, Francis managed to inject spontaneity鈥攌issing babies, adding a last-minute event to honor Catholic-Jewish relations and going off text in Philadelphia for a heartfelt meditation on family life.
鈥淭he atmosphere was electric,鈥� Auxiliary Bishop John O鈥橦ara of New York said after Francis celebrated Mass for 18,000 people at Madison Square Garden.
Amid all the official ceremonies and the crowds, Francis made the deeply personal gestures of compassion that have become emblematic of his papacy.
He bowed in prayer over a disabled child as the sobbing father looked on in New York.
He gave a bear hug to an inmate during a visit to a Philadelphia jail.
The Argentine Pope on his first visit ever to the United States introduced himself as a fellow American and quoted from the country鈥檚 founding documents.
He answered critics who said he was overly focused on the poor to the exclusion of the middle class, and wrong on economics, given his critique of the excesses of capitalism.
In Congress, he praised the 鈥渢housands of men and women who strive each day to do an honest day鈥檚 work鈥� and noted 鈥渉ow much has been done in these first years of the third millennium to raise people out of extreme poverty.鈥�
But on every occasion, he transformed these compliments into a call for the Church and the country to do better.
Moral challenge
His moral challenge could be seen in the complex heroes he held up in his speech to Congress: Abraham Lincoln; the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.; Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk who condemned war and advocated interfaith cooperation; and Dorothy Day, founder of the pacifist Catholic Worker Movement that helped and advocated for the homeless.
Commentators quickly dubbed the group the Pope鈥檚 Mount Rushmore.
鈥淭he history of this nation,鈥� Francis said at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, is 鈥渢he tale of a constant effort, lasting to our own day, to embody those lofty principles in social and political life.鈥�
By his very presence, as a Spanish-speaking son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, Francis gave the growing Latino Catholic community a moment like no other, putting them at the heart of the US Church, where they are eventually expected to be the majority.
He canonized the Franciscan missionary Junipero Serra of Spain, who brought Catholicism to the West Coast, spoke about immigrants in nearly every public appearance and told Latinos, 鈥淒o not be ashamed of what is part of you.鈥�
Gonzalo Mercado, director of the Staten Island Community Job Center in New York, a nonprofit facility that works with day laborers and domestic workers, many of them in the country illegally, said Francis鈥� message on immigration was particularly needed amid the hardline rhetoric on border control and deportation from several GOP presidential candidates, including Donald Trump.
鈥淭o have an amazing figure like the Pope take a stand with the least among us and recognize the contributions of immigrant workers is a breath of fresh air,鈥� Mercado said at the Harlem parish school that Francis visited in New York.
Mercado gestured to the gymnasium, where the immigrants and refugees were seated at long tables in front of the stage while city politicians, donors and community representatives were on the sidelines: 鈥淲orkers here have center stage. That speaks volumes.鈥�
Compassion over rules
Francis had already upended the American Church before he arrived.
Just months after his 2013 election, he had said the Church should put compassion over rules, unsettling American bishops who had been taking a harder line on Church teaching in the face of increasing acceptance of gay relationships and other societal changes they found immoral.
The Pope did not suggest they drop any specific activity, but he pressed for a different tone.
John Carr, who served for more than two decades as the social justice director for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, summarized the Pope鈥檚 message on issues such as abortion and the family, as 鈥渘o obsession, no retreat.鈥�
鈥淗e said he came not to lecture the bishops, but what he did was to show them how to be pastors in challenging and promising times in the Church,鈥� Carr said.
It鈥檚 unclear what lasting changes will come from the Pope鈥檚 trip. He broke a barrier in the United States: He became the first Pope to ever address Congress, an appearance that provided a robust endorsement for the role of faith in public life at a time when about a quarter of Americans say they have no particular faith.
Within the Church, the impact of papal visits can only be measured after years or decades.
Pope John Paul II, over his more than two-decade pontificate, visited the United States seven times, inspiring a generation of American clergy who call themselves 鈥淛ohn Paul II priests.鈥�
Msgr. Raymond Kupke, a Church historian at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, said, 鈥淭here certainly could be a half century wave or ripple from a visit like this,鈥� because of Francis鈥� clear, familiar way of speaking and his gestures big and small that captured so much attention, including his use of an economy car, a Fiat, a humbler choice that stood out amid the hulking SUVs of his security detail.
鈥淥ver the long haul, there are connections,鈥� Kupke said, 鈥渁nd with Francis, in so many ways, he鈥檚 saying things that people here like.鈥�
Francis headed back home to the Vatican from Philadelphia on Sunday, ending a 10-day trip to Cuba and the United States.
His private American Airlines plane took off on Sunday night, hours after he celebrated Mass for hundreds of thousands of people in downtown Philadelphia.
Francis announced that the next World Meeting of Families would be in 2018 in Dublin. The event in Philadelphia this week was the original reason he embarked on the US trip.