Dasha Burns’ Ceasefire episode highlights bipartisan cooperation among guests like Rep. Peters, Rob, and Kevin Stitt, who reconciled after 2006 election clashes and stressed shared American values. Pope Francis’ 2015 address urged Congress to reject polarization, citing Lincoln and MLK’s legacies while warning of poverty, environmental harm, and threats to families—calling for dialogue over ideological reductionism. His death in 2025, alongside Rep. Raul Grijalva (who served 20 years before his daughter Adelita succeeded him), underscores how even divisive eras demand unity to address systemic challenges. [Automatically generated summary]
This Friday, on a special edition of Ceasefire, host Dasha Burns features key moments from Ceasefire's inaugural season, highlighting moments of friendship and humor, respectful disagreement.
The thing that I appreciate about Rob is while we differed, particularly after he led the charge for the Democrats to defeat the Republican majority in 2006.
This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom.
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Another notable death to happen in 2025 was the death of Pope Francis.
Born in Argentina in the year 1936, he eventually rose to be the first pope from the South American nation and the first non-European pope for more than a millennia.
In 2015, Pope Francis delivered remarks before a joint meeting of Congress in which he addresses issues like immigration and climate change.
Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, honorable members of the Congress, dear friends.
I am most grateful for your invitation to address this joint session of Congress in the land of the free at the home of the brave.
I would like to think that the reason for this is that I too am a son of this great continent from which we have all received so much and toward which we share a common responsibility.
Each son or daughter of a given country has a mission, a personal and social responsibility.
Your one responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this country by your legislative activity to grow as a nation.
You are the face of its people.
They are representatives.
You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good.
For this is the chief aim of all politics.
A political society endures when it seeks as a vocation to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk.
Legislative activity is always based on the care of the people.
To this, you have been invited, called, accompanied by those who elect you.
Yours is a work which makes me reflect in two ways on the figure of Moses.
On the one hand, the patriarch and lawgiver of the people of Israel symbolizes the need of people to keep alive their sense of unity by means of just legislation.
On the other, the figure of Moses leads us directly to God and thus to the transcendent dignity of the human being.
Moses provides us with a good synthesis of a walk.
You are asked to protect by means of the law the image and likeness fashioned by God on every human life.
Today, I would like not only to address you, but through you, the entire people of the United States.
Here, together with the representatives, I would like to take this opportunity to dialogue with the many thousands of men and women who Strive each day to do a honest day's work,
to bring home the daily bread, to save money and one step at a time to build a better life for their families.
These are men and women who are not concerned simply with paying their taxes, but in their own quiet way sustain the life of society.
They generate solidarity by their actions and they create organizations with offer a helping heart to those most in need.
I would also like to enter into dialogue with the many elderly persons who are a storehouse of wisdom forged by experience and who seek in many ways, especially through voluntary work, to share their stories and insights.
I know that many of them are retired, but still active.
They keep working to build up this land.
I also want to dialogue with all those young people who are working to realize their great and noble aspirations,
who are not led astray by facile proposals and who face difficult, difficult situations, often as a result of immaturity on the part of many adults.
I wish to dialogue with all of you and I would like to do so through the historical memory of your people.
My visit takes place at a time when men and women of goodwill are marking the anniversaries of several great Americans.
The complexities of history and the reality of human weakness notwithstanding, these men and women, for all their many differences and limitations,
were able by hard work and self-sacrifice, some at the cost of their lives, to build a better future.
They shaped fundamental values which endure forever in the spirit of the American people.
A people with this spirit can live through many crises, tensions, and conflicts while always finding the resources to move forward and to do so with dignity.
These men and women offer us a way of seeing and interpreting reality.
In honoring their memory, we are inspired even amid conflicts and in the here and now of each day to draw upon our deepest cultural reserves.
I would like to mention four of these Americans: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton.
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
the guardian of liberty who labored tirelessly that this nation under God might have a new birth of freedom.
Building a future of freedom requires love of the common good and cooperation in a spirit of subsidiarity and solidarity.
All of us are quite aware of and deeply worried by the disturbing social and political situation of the world today.
Our world is increasingly a place of violent conflict, hatred, and brutal atrocities committed even in the name of God and of religion.
We know that no religion is immune from forms of individual delusion or ideological extremism.
This means that we must be specially attentive to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind.
A delicate balance is required to combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology, or an economic system, while also safeguarding religious freedom, intellectual freedom, and individual freedoms.
But there is another temptation which we must especially guard against.
The simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil or, if you will, the righteous and sinners.
The contemporary world, with its open wounds which affect so many of our brothers and sisters, demands that we confront every form of polarization which would divide it into these two camps.
We know that in the attempt to be fit of enemy without, we can be tempted to feed the enemy within.
To imitate the hate and violence of tyrants and murderers is the best way to take their place.
That is something which you, as people, reject.
Our response must instead be one of hope and healing, of peace and justice.
We are asked to assume the courage and the intelligence to resolve today's many geopolitical and economic crises.
Even in the developed world, the effects of unjust structures and actions are all too apparent.
Our efforts must aim at restoring hope, righting wrongs, maintaining commitments, and thus promoting the well-being of individuals amongst peoples.
We must move forward already as one in a renewed spirit of fraternity and solidarity, cooperating generously for the common good.
The challenges facing us today call for a renewal of that spirit of cooperation which has accomplished so much good throughout the history of the United States.
The complexity, the gravity, and the urgency of these challenges demand that we pool our resources and talents and resolve to support one another with respect for our differences and our convictions of conscience.
In this land, the various religious denominations have greatly contributed to building an threatening society.
It is important that today, as in the past, the voice of faith continues to be heard, for it is a voice of fraternity and love, which tries to bring out the best in each person and in each society.
Such cooperation is a powerful resource in the battle to eliminate new global forms of slavery born of great injustices, which can be overcome only through new policies and new forms of social consensus.
Politics is instead an expression of our compelling need to live as one in order to build as one the greatest common good,
that of a community which sacrifices particular interest in order to share injustice and peace, its goods, its interests, its social life.
I do not underestimate the difficulty that this involves, but I encourage you in this effort.
Here too, I think of the march which Martin Luther King led from Selma to Montgomery 50 years ago as part of the campaign to fulfill his dream of full civil and political rights for African Americans.
That dream continues to inspire us all And I am happy that America continues to be, for many,
Dreams which awaken what is deepest and truest in the life of the populace.
In recent centuries, millions of people came to this land to pursue the dream of building a future in freedom.
We, the people of this continent, are not fearful of foreigners because most of us because most of us were once foreigners.
I say this to you as the son of immigrants, knowing that so many of you are also descendants of immigrants.
Tragically, the rights of those who were here belong before us were not always respected.
For those peoples and their nations from the heart of American democracy, I wish to reaffirm my highest esteem and appreciation.
Those first contacts were often turbulent and violent, but we know that it is very difficult to judge the past by the criteria of the present.
Nonetheless, when the stranger in our midst appeals to us, we must not repeat the sins and the errors of the past.
We must resolve now to live as nobly and as justly as possible as we educate new generations not to turn their back on our neighbors and everything around us.
Building a nation calls us to recognize that we must constantly relate to others, Projecting a mindset of hostility in order to adopt one of reciprocal subsidiarity in a constant effort to do our best.
I'm confident that we can do this.
Our world is facing a refugee crisis of a magnitude not seen since the Second World War.
This presents us with great challenges and many hard decisions.
On this continent, two thousand of persons are led to travel north in search of a better life for themselves and for their loved ones in search of greater opportunity.
It is not what we want for our own children.
We must not be taken aback by the numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening with their stories.
trying to respond as best we can to the situation, to respond in a way which is always human, just and fraternal.
We need to avoid a common temptation in our weights to discard whatever proves troublesome.
Let us remember the golden rule, do and others as you do and others as you will.
have them do unto you.
This rule points us in a clear direction.
Let us treat others with the same passion and compassion with which we want to be treated.
Let us seek for others the same possibilities which we seek for ourselves.
Let us help others to grow as we would like to behave ourselves.
In a word, if we want security, let us give security.
If we want life, let us give life.
If we want opportunities, let us provide opportunities.
The yardstick we use for others Will be the yardstick which time uses for us.
The Golden Rule also reminds us of our responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development.
This conviction has led me from the beginning of my ministry to advocate at different levels the global abolition of the death penalty.
I am convinced that this way is the best, since every life is second.
Every human person is endowed with an alienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes.
Recently, my brother bishops here in the United States renewed their call for the abolition of death penalty.
Not only do I support them, but I also offer encouragement to all those who are convinced that a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation.
In these times when social concerns are so important, I cannot fail to mention the servant of God, Dorothy Day.
who founded the Catholic Worker Movement.
Her social activism, her passion for justice and for the cause of the oppressed, were inspired by the gospel, her faith, and the example of the saints.
How much progress has been made in this area in so many parts of the world?
How much has been done in these first years of the 12th millennium to raise people out of extreme poverty?
I know that you share my conviction that much more still needs to be done and in times of crisis and economic hardship, a spirit of global solidarity must not be lost.
At the same time, I would encourage you to keep in mind all those people around us who are trapped in a cycle of poverty.
They too need to be given hope.
The fight against poverty and hunger must be fought constantly and on many fronts, especially in its cause.
I know that many Americans today, as in the past, are working to deal with this problem.
It goes without saying that part of this great effort is the creation and distribution of wealth.
The right use of natural resources, the proper application of technology, and the harnessing of the spirit of enterprise are essential elements of an economy which seeks to be modern,
inclusive and sustainable business is a noble vocation directed to producing wealth wealth and improving the world
It can be a fruitful source of prosperity from the area in which it operates, especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good.
This common good also includes the earth, a central theme of the encyclical, which I recently wrote in order to enter into the dialogue with all people about our common home.
We need a conversation which includes everyone since the environmental challenge we are undergoing and its human roots concern and affect us all.
In Laudato Si, I call for a courageous and responsible effort to redirect our steps and to avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity.
I'm convinced that we can make a difference, I'm sure.
And I have no doubt that the United States
and this Congress have an important role to play.
Now is the time for courageous action and strategies at implementing a culture of care and an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded and, at the same time, protecting nature.
We have the freedom needed to limit and direct technology, to devise intelligent ways of developing and limiting our power.
and to put technology at the service of another type of progress, one which is here more human, more social, more integral.
In this regard, I am confident that America's outstanding academic and research institutions can make a vital contribution in the years ahead.
A century ago, at the beginning of the Great War, which Pope Benedict XV termed Appointed Slaughter, another notable American was born, the Cistercian monk Thomas Merton.
He remains a source of spiritual inspiration and guide for many people.
In his autobiography, Merton wrote, I came into the world free by nature in the image of God.
I was, nevertheless, the precious of my own violence and my own selfishness in the image of the world into which I was born.
That word was the picture of hell, full of men like myself, loving God and yet hating him, born to love him, living instead in fear of hopeless self-contradictory hungers.
Merton was above all a man of prayer, a thinker who challenged the certitudes of this time and opened new horizons for souls and for the church.
He was also a man of dialogue, a promoter of peace between peoples and religions.
From this perspective of dialogue, I would like to recognize the efforts made in recent months to help overcome historic differences linked to painful episodes of the past.
It is my duty to build bridges and to help all men and women in any way possible to do the same.
When countries which have been at odds resume the path of the dialogue, a dialogue which may have been interrupted for the most legitimate of reasons,
new opportunities open up for all this that required and requires courage and daring which is not the same as irresponsibility
A good political leader is one who, with the interest of all in mind, seizes the moment in a spirit of openness and pragmatism.
A good political leader always opts to initiate processes rather than possessing space.
Being at the service of dialogue and peace also means being truly determined to minimize and in the long term to end the many armed conflicts throughout our world.
Here we have to ask ourselves why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society.
Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money.
Money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood.
In the face of the shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the armed stride.
Three songs and one daughter of this land.
Four individuals of four dreams.
Lincoln, Liberty.
Martin Luther King, Liberty in Plurality and Non-Exclusion.
Dorothy Day, Social Justice and the Rights of Persons.
And Thomas Melton, the capacity for dialogue and openness to God.
Four representatives of American people.
I will end my visit to your country in Philadelphia, where I will take part in the world meeting of families.
It is my wish that throughout the visit, the family should be a recurrent theme.
How essential the family has been to the building of this country.
What it remains for our support and encouragement.
Yet I cannot hide my concern for the family, which is threatened, perhaps as never before, from within and without.
Fundamental relations have been called into question, as is the very basis of marriage and the family.
I can only reiterate the importance and above all the richness and the beauty of family life.
In particular, I would like to call attention to those family members who are the most vulnerable, the young.
For many of them, a future filled with countless possibilities beckons.
Yet so many others seem disoriented and aimless, trapped in a hopeless maze of violence, abuse, and despair.
Their problems are our problems.
We cannot avoid them.
We need to face them together, to talk about them and to seek effective solutions rather than getting bogged down in discussion at the risk of oversimplifying.
We might say that we live in a culture with precious young people not to start a family because they lack possibilities for the future.
Yet, the same culture presents others with so many options that they too are dissuaded from starting a family.
A nation can be considered great when it defends liberty, as Lynn Coleman did, when it fosters a culture which enables people to dream of full rights for all brothers and sisters, as Martin Luther King sought to do.
When it strives for justice and the cause of the oppressed, as Dorothy Day did by her tireless work, the fruit of a faith which becomes dialogue and sooths peace in the contemplative style of Thomas Merton.
In this remark, I have sought to present some of the richness of your cultural heritage, of the spirit of the American people.
It is my desire that this spirit continue to develop and grow so that as many young people as possible can inherit and dwell in a land which has inspired so many people to dream.
bless america
unidentified
several serving and former lawmakers also passed away in 2025 including some members of the house of representatives In March of this year, Arizona Democratic Congressman Raul Grijalva passed away at the age of 77.
Representative Grijalva served in the House of Representatives for more than two decades, representing the state's 7th district, a seat which was then filled by his daughter, Adelita Grijalva.
In 2016, Representative Grijalva joined C-SPAN to discuss that year's presidential primary elections.