By Annie Laurie Gaylor

Co-President

Freedom From Religion Foundation

The fawning invitation by the mayor of Green Bay, Wis., inviting Pope Francis to visit Green Bay next year for the express purpose of making a “pilgrimage” to a local shrine to the Virgin Mary, may be just the beginning of “pope madness” by pious U.S. politicians. Read about FFRF’s complaint to Green Bay.



The pope’s presence at a September 2015 global conference on families in Philadelphia has not even been officially confirmed.

But U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have now officially invited Pope Francis to address a joint session of Congress next year.

The Washington Post notes that, not surprisingly, both Boehner and Pelosi are Roman Catholic.

The Post quoted a popular conservative Catholic commentator: “But it’s just a measure of how much impact this particular pope is having — everyone wants him there. Who needs it more than Congress, right?”

Congress needs a visit from the pope like Boehner needs more time in a tanning bed. To date, Pope Francis is a “kinder, gentler” version of Pope Benedict, but he’s made no actual reforms or changes to official theocratic Catholic dogma that seeks the worldwide overthrow of legal contraception, abortion, gay rights and marriage equality.

Nor has he reformed theology. The Wall Street Journal just this week reported Francis’ perpetuation of ignorance and superstition by saying, “He who doesn’t pray to the Lord, prays to Satan.” Yet the church hierarchy reaps all the credit for his nominally human pronouncements, while working harder than ever to undermine abortion and contraceptive rights, and, in this country, the Affordable Care Act.

Francis has taken no action following the devastating United Nations report in February, demanding the Vatican immediately remove all clergy who are known or suspected child abusers, and open its files on pedophiles and bishops who concealed their crimes. Not only has he failed to cooperate with the U.N. investigation, but earlier this month he defended the Catholic Church’s despicable response to unremitting sex abuse scandals, telling an Italian newspaper, “no one else has done more.”



Boehner and Pelosi’s invitation to the pope is an insult. It’s an insult to all nonbelievers and all non-Catholic citizens. It’s an insult to the thousands and thousands of survivors and victims of priestly predation, who should be the guests invited to address Congress instead of the pope. It’s an insult to the women of the nation who deserve equality, who deserve the right to make their own decisions and choices about contraception and birth control without clergy interference.

It’s an insult to gay Americans who are told by the pope’s church that the expression of their sexuality is a sin, and that they should be denied the right to love and marry. Pelosi of all people should recognize that the U.S. Catholic Conference is archenemy No. 1 of the Affordable Care Act and is the force behind dozens of lawsuits challenging the law and its contraceptive mandate.

The invitation most of all, of course, is an insult to our secular Constitution.

There is probably no person in the world who gets more media than the pope, who commands more unearned respect, whose every utterance — not to mention head cold — rates page one coverage. Seriously, how can Boehner and Pelosi make the case that the pope now needs the ear of Congress?

Contact them now to strongly object (phoning is best if you aren’t a constituent):

U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi

Washington, DC Office

235 Cannon H.O.B.

Washington, DC 20515

phone: (202)225-4965

hours: M-F 9-5:30 p.m.

H-232 The Capitol

Washington DC 20515