POPE FRANCIS ADDRESS TO CONGRESS
ADDRESS TO JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS United States Capitol, Washington, D.C. Thursday, 24 September 2015 MISSION Pope Francis is clearly addressing each and every person in our nation, just as Bishop Malesic in his pastoral letter addressed each person in this diocese. Both focus upon the spiritual reality that each person has a mission in life, a set of unique personal and social responsibilities to exercise. Each person's gifts and talents are related to other persons and social institutions but not derived from them. God created each unique person. Subsidiarity, a core principle of Catholic social teaching, recognizes that institutions and larger organizations exist to subsidize, i.e. support, smaller organizations (households, families, work groups) and persons exercising their unique responsibilities. Most of human life is shaped by each person's interpersonal network consisting of concentric circles containing about 150 persons: about f...