Those who wrote off Donald Trump as a buffoon failed to see that he has shrewdly read the Republican zeitgeist, and that he knows precisely where to stick the knife into competitors. His depiction of former Florida governor Jeb Bush as a man of low energy has done real damage to a candidate whom many had assumed even before he formally entered the race would be the favorite.

The potential candidates have already sought to stake out their positions on key foreign policy issues, with early Republican frontrunner Jeb Bush, for example, delivering a speech devoted entirely to the topic. As for the Democrats, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's likely nomination (despite recent revelations that she used her personal email account to conduct government business) reinforces foreign policy's centrality to the election.

Francis will undoubtedly discuss the subject in his address to Congress, 30 of whose members including House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican are Catholic. Given that several of the leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination including Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Bobby Jindal also are Catholic, Francis s strong stance on climate change may create a serious political dilemma for some.

But America has not provided it a point recently made by Jeb Bush, a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. In our country today, Bush said in a speech to fellow conservatives, if you re born poor, if your parents didn t go to college, if you don t know your father, if English isn t spoken at home, then the odds are stacked against you.