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It is a day that Pope’s audience should remember.
However, the day after the Pope visits, only at Capitol Hill will be even more memorable.
The late Pope Francis came to Washington, DC on September 24, 2015 to speak with a joint session of Congress. He was not the first Pope to descend on Capitol Hill. However, the Pope is the head of state and rules the cities and Holy Sees of the Vatican. That’s why Francis became the first pope to speak to a joint meeting of the House of Representatives.
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Pope Francis leads a traditional Wednesday general audience at St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City on March 8, 2023 (Getty Images via Stefano Costantino/Sopa Images/Lightrocket)
The lawmakers applauded the Holy Father and presented two standing ovations. The two Catholics were perched behind Pope Francis of Days. Then Vice President Joe Biden, former House Speaker John Bourner and R. Ohio. As vice president, Biden served as Senate president. As chairman, Bohner was a constitutional officer in the legislative division.
Boehner cut his eyes with a handkerchief several times during his 3,400-word speech.
Pope Francis begged lawmakers to treat each other with dignity.
“We need to avoid the common temptations these days. To throw away anything that proves troublesome. Let’s remember the Golden Rules.
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President Joe Biden on the left will exchange gifts with Pope Francis when he meets at the Vatican on October 29, 2021 (Vatican Media via the AP)
One thing I remember about the Pope’s visit was the choreography. Congress workers stuck small strips of green tape tape on the marble floor of the Capitol. The name was decorated with tapes of black magic markers at various points around the complex. “McCarthy” or “Pelosi” or “McConnell.” All parts of the political and pope are stagecraft.
The tape decided where the main political leaders would stand when he escorted Pope Francis into the house’s room in front of the statue of Juniperocera.
The “X” on the duct tape marked the floor in front of Sera. The Pope canned Serra the day before he visited the capital in the cathedral of the national shrine of Washington’s Immaculate Concept. Serra became the first American to become a saint in the soil of the United States. Pope Francis blessed the statue of Serra. The statue is depicted by a saint, wrapped around a cross in his right hand, looking into the sky towards the heavens.
Someone pointed to the office in the carving room and recorded a green arrow over the black and white tiles of the statue hall.
It shows the next stop of the Pope at Capitol Hill.
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Pope Francis is working on a joint Congress meeting held in Washington, DC on September 24, 2015 (Vincenzo Pinto/AFP via Getty Images)
Pope Francis and his aides walked towards Bohner’s office, towards the speaker’s balcony overlooking the west front of Capitol, and overlooking the National Mall towards the Washington memorial.
A crowd gathered at the grounds of the Capitol.
“Buenos Diaz,” the Pope said. On Sunday, he greeted the crowd from the “Pope’s window” at the Vatican Apostles Palace. “I’m grateful for your presence.”
He then blessed the pilgrims on the ground below.
“Daddy! Daddy!” the crowd chanted.
When the Pope first arrived at the Capitol, he met with Bohner in the speaker’s ceremonial office just off the floor of the house.
Bohner nervously paced Pope Francis with 19th-century Minton tiles adorning his office.
“He’s at Bohner’s time,” the former speaker said. “It’s on time.”
Bohner took the opportunity to wear his signature Kelly Green tie. This is a vintage Bohner apparel that served in the Ohio State Legislature and dates back to when he first ran to Congress in 1990.
A few days later, Boehner choked as he told him what Pope Francis had said to him while he was about to leave the Capitol.
“We found ourselves alone,” said himself and Francis Boehner.
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The Pope grabbed the speaker’s arm.
“The Pope put his arm around me and pulled me over him and said, ‘Pray for me,'” Bohner said. “Wow. Who am I praying for the Pope?” But I did. ”
Bohner left the Capitol that night. However, his encounter with the Holy Father appeared to have transformed the speaker and changed the trajectory of the house for years to come.
The speaker decided to resign the next morning.
“He’d been trying to get out of here for years,” said a source at the time near the speaker.
Boehner’s departure plan was hampered in the spring of 2014 when it was revealed that heir, former House member Eric Cantor (R-Va.), had surprisingly lost his primary.
So Bonner became a soldier.
By late July 2015, former Trump White House Chief of Staff and former lawmaker Mark Meadows (RN.C.) had prepared a “movement to clear the chair.” Those following Capitol Hill know all about such a move now. But it was a novel from 10 years ago. Such allegations require the House to vote confidently for a speaker in the middle of Congress. Lawmakers have never used tactics before. It was hardly discussed.
Pope Francis meets President Donald Trump at the private library of the Apostles Palace in the Vatican City on May 24, 2017 (via Vatican/Pool/Galazuka/Archiveo Gruzegortz Galazuka/Getty Images)
Meadows released the resolution just before the August break, but it didn’t cause it.
That gave Bohner and the house a month to boil down whether Meadows would try to drive away speakers when lawmakers returned in September.
On the night after the Pope’s visit, Bohner called his Chief of Staff Mike Somers to tell him he was going to step aside. Bohner also told his wife, Debbie, about his plans.
“This morning I woke up and said my usual prayers and thought, ‘This is the day I do this,'” Bohner said.
Boehner then surprised the House Republican Congress meeting, which had intended to resign.
The movement sent shockwaves through Washington.
“My first job as a speaker is to protect the institution,” Bohner said. “It has become clear to me that this long-term leadership disruption will cause irreparable harm to the institution.”
Bohner’s departure – the day after meeting Pope Francis – has begun moving on what the former speaker might consider to be a very “long-term leadership disruption” that he wanted to avoid.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was considered R-Calif. – Then rise to the House majority leader – work. But just as Boehner’s departure was surprising, McCarthy replaced it. McCarthy withdrew from the contest the moment House Republicans were set to tap McCarthy as their next speaker. He was missing the vote.
R-Caliph Kevin McCarthy is looking for the US Capitol in Washington, DC on October 3, 2023 (Nathan Howard/Bloomberg by Getty Images)
McCarthy’s decision rocked Capitol Hill for several weeks. Former House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. eventually got a job. However, Ryan was reluctant. He issued a statement saying he didn’t want that.
Others jumped in: Rep. Daniel Webster of R-Fla, former Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Uta, and Bill Flores, R-Texas.
But Ryan finally came. “If Ryan wasn’t here at the time, there would be blood on the floor of the house when Republicans played Internesin Donny Brook.”
Ryan remained as Speaker of the House until his retirement in early 2019. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) returned to the lecture she made eight years ago.
However, the Democrats lost their home in the middle of 2022. And despite McCarthy touting the defeat of more than 40 seats for the GOP, Republicans ruled the house with thread.
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House Speaker Mike Johnson, r-la. , left, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. (Getty Images)
Therefore, McCarthy struggled for 15 rounds before he won the speakership, so he began his five-day fight in early 2023. It was the longest speaker race since the mid-19th century.
However, McCarthy had left by early November.
Do you remember the “movement to open a chair” mentioned earlier?
Meadows did not activate his move in 2015. But former lawmaker Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. was held in 2023.
McCarthy is over. And the house spent three weeks trying to pick a new speaker.
First, they tried House Majority Leader Steve Scullyse, R-LA. and then Jim Jordan and R. Ohio, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. It then houses the majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn.
No one won.
Finally, the backventures emerged from the contest: House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA.
Rep. Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, holds a small ol after serving as House Speaker in the first session of House Conver’s 119th Conference in Washington, DC on January 3rd.
The House has not been exactly the same since Bohner made a surprise announcement after he met Pope Francis. Speakership seems to be surprised by the edge these days, at least when Republicans run the room. Johnson regularly endures the threat of “opening the chair.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga) tried to bounce him back last year.
During the 2015 speaker succession battle, during the three-week speaker failure of 2023, a friend asked if “white smoke” could emanate from the Capitol Dome. They proposed facetively that it would mark the election of a new House Speaker.
The Cardinals University will begin a conclave in Rome a few days later and select a successor to Francis. It’s a political process. It’s different to what happens in Congress, when there are vacant seats in the lecture. When white smoke wafts from the duct above the Sistine Chapel, we see that there is a new Pope.
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The Catholic Church Cards attended the election conclave of the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican in Vatican City on April 18, 2005 (Arturomali, Vatican pool)
It was a crucial day when Pope Francis spoke to the 2015 Congress Joint Meeting. But in the pure words of the Congress, the days that followed were earthquakes due to the nature of the facility. Boehner’s sudden resignation marked an unstable period about the people who control the house. The visit by Pope Francis and Boehner’s departure blended the two in the Capitol Hill chronicle.
And as a result, whenever there is an interregnum of the House Speaker, in the future, political observers will always look for political “white smoke” to see if lawmakers have settled on their new leader.
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