Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., told Newsmax on Monday about attending Pope Francis' speech in front of a joint session of Congress in September 2015, just months into Rounds' first year in the upper chamber.
Francis, 88, died Monday of a stroke and irreversible heart failure following more than two months of being in and out of hospitals in Rome because of severe respiratory infections. He was the first pontiff to speak in front of Congress.
"It was aspirational," Rounds told "The Record With Greta Van Susteren." "It was this Pope who leads Catholics throughout the world — and in many cases is seen as really the head of Christians in general — talking about goodwill, talking about what he thought Jesus would say if he were here today with us.
"And so for us it was one of peace, and it was one of really talking about the goals that we should all have. And, you know, we try to measure that with what we have as responsibilities as policymakers.
"But we also recognize that the Pope was there to send a message, but also a sense of love, a sense of humanity. It's something that I think most of us walked away with feeling better about ourselves, better about our country, and better about the world in general," he said.
Rounds said it was admirable that Francis, the first Jesuit pope and first from South America, kept to his humble roots of Argentina, avoiding the posh residences and large entourages afforded most pontiffs.
"That was not lost on the other people that he met with — the fact that he didn't have a great big entourage with him when he was in Rome; the fact that he wasn't living in the big palaces, he was living in a two-bedroom suite apartment; the fact that he never lost his roots.
"And, you know, part of it was he was trying to remember those who were less fortunate than many of the rest of us are. His message about immigration is one that many of us would like to see changed today, which is not so much open borders, but rather regulated borders in which we could invite people in on a more frequent, occasion than what we do today, but do it in an organized fashion," he said.
"That's good not just for them, but for our country as well. Someday, we'll get back to that. But for right now, it's a matter of closing our borders, securing our borders, and then being able to regulate immigration again.
"Same way as he spoke about the death penalty — I think that's aspirational in nature. We should never take that as the first resort. That should always be the last resort," Rounds said.
"I think a great number of the Catholics feel that way. And I think a lot of people around the world feel that way — aspirational in nature, yes, but nonetheless a noble goal to have."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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