Christie will attend papal joint session of Congress

By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog

When Pope Francis addresses a Joint Session of Congress on Thursday at 10:00 a.m., Save Jersey, New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie will be in attendance as a guest of Rep. Tom MacArthur (R, NJ-03).

Capitol Hill BuildingThe speech is expected to make at least a few headlines given that the notoriously political pontiff is already wading into issues ranging from abortion and climate change to Cuba in his first 24 hours, though he told reporters on the plane ride to Washington, D.C., that the Cuban embargo won’t factor into his remarks to Congress despite the restoration of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and its Caribbean communist neighbor having been one of his early initiatives.

Christie hasn’t been 100% deferential in the run-up to Francis’s visit.

“I just think the pope was wrong,” the Governor, a Catholic, told CNN on Sunday during the Cuba visit. “And so the fact is that his infallibility is on religious matters, not on political ones. And the fact is that, for me, I just believe that, when you have a government that is harboring fugitives, murdering fugitives, like Joanne Chesimard, who murdered a state policeman in New Jersey in cold blood, was broken out of prison, and has been harbored for the last 40-plus years by a Cuban government that has paid her and held up her as a hero, that this president could extend diplomatic relations with that country without getting her returned so she can serve the prison sentence that she was sentenced to by a jury of her peers in New Jersey, is outrageous.  And so I just happen to disagree with the pope on this one.”

We’ll wait and see what the Governor says if, for example, Pope Francis make a provocative statement regarding immigration or some other hot button issue…

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Matt Rooney
About Matt Rooney 8403 Articles
MATT ROONEY is SaveJersey.com's founder and editor-in-chief, a practicing New Jersey attorney, and the host of 'The Matt Rooney Show' on 1210 WPHT every Sunday evening from 7-10PM EST.

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