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Pope To Visit Heights Of Capitol Hill, With Sights Set On D.C.'s Poor

Pope Francis, in the Vatican's St. Peter's Square on Wednesday. The pope will begin his visit to the U.S. on Sept. 22 in Washington, D.C., where he will stay for several days before moving on to New York City.
Giuseppe Ciccia
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Barcroft Media/Landov
Pope Francis, in the Vatican's St. Peter's Square on Wednesday. The pope will begin his visit to the U.S. on Sept. 22 in Washington, D.C., where he will stay for several days before moving on to New York City.

When Pope Francis visits the U.S., he won't just be meeting with President Obama and politicians on Capitol Hill. Right after his address to a joint meeting of Congress, he'll be traveling across town to St. Patrick's Catholic Church, where he'll be meeting with some of the country's poor residents.

Office workers regularly attend noontime Mass at the church — but when the pope arrives, the place will be filled with several hundred homeless, poor and immigrant clients of the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington.

Angalene Brown and her 2-year-old daughter, Alayyah, read together in her apartment in Washington, D.C., which she recently obtained with the help of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington.
/ Pam Fessler
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Pam Fessler
Angalene Brown and her 2-year-old daughter, Alayyah, read together in her apartment in Washington, D.C., which she recently obtained with the help of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington.

Among those invited to attend is 26-year-old Angalene Brown, a single mother with a 2-year-old. Brown has been homeless on and off for 10 years, ever since the grandmother who raised her died. She hopes the papal visit will make others more understanding of what she and hundreds of thousands of other Americans are going through.

"Because, really, nobody knows what it's like to be homeless until they're homeless," Brown says. "So I have to say, don't judge a book by its cover, because we're trying the best."

Brown says she isn't lazy, as many people seem to think. Like many homeless adults, she has a job — part-time at a women's clothing store — but it doesn't pay enough for her to afford a place to live in Washington, D.C., where even a modest one-bedroom apartment can run $900 or more a month.

Brown says she's excited to meet Pope Francis, who has been an outspoken advocate for the poor, and has called on those in power to fight income inequality.

"Can't wait to tell her," she says looking down at her daughter, sitting on her lap. "I'm going to take a lot of pictures and then tell her when she [is] older about it."

But Brown almost didn't get a chance to see the pope. She is about to start a second job and was hesitant to ask for time off so soon. She did ask, though, and they said yes.

It's one of the everyday realities of trying to make ends meet in America — where about 45 million people live in poverty — that many people hope the Pope will address.

The St. Maria's Meals food truck stops every Friday morning at a parking lot in Langley Park, Md. There, volunteers hand out breakfast to day laborers waiting in the parking lot for work.
/ Pam Fessler
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Pam Fessler
The St. Maria's Meals food truck stops every Friday morning at a parking lot in Langley Park, Md. There, volunteers hand out breakfast to day laborers waiting in the parking lot for work.

New Energies For Those Often Ignored

Every Friday, before the sun comes up, volunteers gather in the parking lot of a small strip mall in suburban Maryland, where they hand out hot meals to mostly Spanish-speaking day laborers waiting for work.

The program is called St. Maria's Meals, which the Pope also plans to visit — although he's scheduled to see the food truck when it operates at lunchtime, around the corner from St. Patrick's Church.

The fact that the pope has chosen to visit their program has these volunteers excited. They say serving the poor is something they do anyway, but that the Pope's message has given them a boost.

"It just makes you more heartfelt. You know, it just makes you feel like — it makes you want to get up even earlier in the morning," says volunteer Chris Thomas. He says the pope has also inspired him to get others to do more.

It just makes you more heartfelt. You know, it just makes you feel like — it makes you want to get up even earlier in the morning.

"Because all you ever hear people say is, 'Oh, that's a good job you're doing every week, that's a good job.' But you never see them come out," he says. "Now its easy for me to say, 'Did you not hear the pope say?' "

And indeed there are new people showing up to volunteer at programs such as this one, says the Rev. Mike Johnson, pastor of nearby St. Camillus Church. He says the pope has energized people with both his words and actions, like going into prisons and out on the streets to meet people living at the margins.

"He leads by example. And I think that's what we're seeing," says Johnson. "Service, especially to the poor, is constituent of our Catholic faith. It's not a nice add-on."

And that has Johnson and others here curious what Pope Francis will say when he addresses Congress, where debate has been intense over funding programs for the poor — like health care, housing and food stamps.

Volunteer Karen Simon says the pope speaks truth to power, which gives her hope.

"I think his message is sometimes countercultural, and I don't think he's afraid to speak it," she says. "And I think he will."

She's not sure what the long-term impact will be. But she's happy that the pope has so many more people paying attention to those who are often ignored.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Pam Fessler is a correspondent on NPR's National Desk, where she covers poverty, philanthropy, and voting issues.

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