When House Speaker John Boehner invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress earlier this year in opposition to the emerging deal to curb Iran's nuclear capability, the all-but-explicit partisan purpose was to exploit the tension between the fact that most American Jews are Democrats and that Democrats were acting at cross purposes with the leader of Israel. That gambit failed to derail the agreement, but it succeeded beyond all expectations at bringing that tension to light.

Boehner’s purpose in inviting Pope Francis to address Congress this week was nothing like that. But the effect might turn out to be similar—except this time it will be at his own party’s expense.

Consider the timing of Francis’s visit, which happens to coincide with an outburst of Islamophobia within the Republican Party. The flareup began last week when Donald Trump placated an anti-Muslim bigot at a campaign event in New Hampshire, and exploded over the weekend when Ben Carson, who’s battling it out for second place in the Republican primary, said he thinks Muslims are unfit for the presidency, and out of step with the U.S. Constitution.

Francis, by contrast, has rejected Christian intolerance of Islam. He considers the Koran to be no less a spiritual tome than the Bible, and condemns those who equate Islam with violence. As if to troll the entire American right, he quoted a Muslim poet in his climate change encyclical, which is a moral call to action Republicans overwhelmingly oppose.