WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 (UPI) — Pope Francis, who arrives in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, will be the third pope to visit the White House.
Francis, who is also scheduled to visit New York City and Philadelphia, will address Congress and the United Nations.
His predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, was the second Bishop of Rome to tour the Executive Mansion in 2008, and Pope John Paul II became the first pontiff to visit the White House in October 1979.
In 2008, during his first and only visit to the United States, Pope Benedict XVI held mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and at Yankee Stadium, and spent time at Ground Zero and the United Nations in New York.
Benedict was greeted by adoring fans while in the Big Apple following his tour of the U.S. capital where he met with President George W. Bush and held an outdoor mass at Nationals Park.
Pope John Paul II, who journeyed to the United States a total of seven times, completed his last tour in January of 1999. During the trip, a two-day stop in St. Louis on his way back from Mexico City, John Paul II met with then-President Bill Clinton, first lady Hillary Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, as well as the cardinal and archbishop of St. Louis.
During a prayer service at the Cathedral Basilica, Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan told the pope he would commute the death sentence of Missouri inmate Darrell Mease.
At the time of his second trip in 1987, the pope visited the West Coast, where he said mass at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park and visited the Golden Gate Bridge and met actor Clint Eastwood.
John Paul II first came to the United States in 1979. He met with then-PresidentJimmy Carter and held a mass at the National Mall.
Pope Paul VI in 1965 became the first reigning pontiff ever to visit the Americas. He visited New York to address to the United Nations.
