I would also like to enter into dialogue with the many elderly persons who are a storehouse of wisdom forged by experience, and who seek in many ways, especially through volunteer work, to share their stories and their insights. They generate solidarity by their actions, and they create organizations which offer a helping hand to those most in need. These are men and women who are not concerned simply with paying their taxes, but in their own quiet way sustain the life of society. Here, together with their representatives, I would like to take this opportunity to dialogue with the many thousands of men and women who strive each day to do an honest day’s work, to bring home their daily bread, to save money and –one step at a time – to build a better life for their families. Today I would like not only to address you, but through you the entire people of the United States. Moses provides us with a good synthesis of your work: you are asked to protect, by means of the law, the image and likeness fashioned by God on every human face. On the other, the figure of Moses leads us directly to God and thus to the transcendent dignity of the human being. On the one hand, the patriarch and lawgiver of the people of Israel symbolizes the need of peoples to keep alive their sense of unity by means of just legislation. Yours is a work which makes me reflect in two ways on the figure of Moses. To this you have been invited, called and convened by those who elected you. Legislative activity is always based on care for the people. A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics. You are the face of its people, their representatives. Your own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this country, by your legislative activity, to grow as a nation. I would like to think that the reason for this is that I too am a son of this great continent, from which we have all received so much and toward which we share a common responsibility.Įach son or daughter of a given country has a mission, a personal and social responsibility.
Joint session of congress free#
I am most grateful for your invitation to address this Joint Session of Congress in “the land of the free and the home of the brave”.
VISIT TO THE JOINT SESSION OF THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS APOSTOLIC JOURNEY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCISĪND VISIT TO THE UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS
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