Two years ago, the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University launched with a panel discussion on “The Francis Factor.” The panel of journalists and lay Catholic leaders analyzed the worldwide popularity of Pope Francis in his first months of leading the Church, and what impact he could have on U.S. Catholics.

On the eve of Pope Francis’s first visit to the United States later this month, the initiative’s director, John Carr, was interviewed about “the Francis factor.”

Carr said those first panelists, and succeeding speakers, came to a consensus on what it is about Pope Francis that has captivated people of all faiths around the world.

“He walks and talks and acts like Jesus,” Carr said. “He is a walking, talking parable of God’s love. In a time of great fear, he talks about hope. In a time of great challenge, he talks about joy, and we need more of both.”

Beginning on Sept. 22 when the pope’s plane lands at Joint Base Andrews, the “Francis factor” will come to Washington, as the pope will meet with President Obama at the White House on Sept. 23 and address a joint meeting of Congress on Sept. 24. Also during his visit to Washington, Pope Francis will meet with clients of Catholic Charities, and he will celebrate a canonization Mass for Blessed Junípero Serra – the famous 18th century Spanish Franciscan missionary of California – at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

“This is the ultimate Washington outsider,” said Carr. “He’s coming to a city that thinks it’s the center of the world, and it’s not. He would rather be in the slums of Buenos Aires than in the corridors of power. He looks at the world from the bottom up and from the outside in, and that’s not the way Washington looks at the world.”

Carr cautions people not to put Pope Francis or his message in political or ideological boxes, or “we’ll miss what he is, and what we can learn from him.”

The initiative’s director said it is significant that on Sept. 24, Pope Francis will go from addressing leaders on Capitol Hill, to greeting the homeless served by Catholic Charities. “He’s teaching us about what’s really important,” said Carr, who is also the Washington correspondent for America magazine. Carr earlier served for more than 20 years as the director of the Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

An important lesson from the pope’s encounter with Washington’s poor will be that “power comes from service,” Carr said. “I hope he points politicians toward listening carefully to the pain of their people and not just polls or focus groups… He says we ought to put the poor and vulnerable first. Those are not the priorities of official Washington. He gives us a moral framework which offers a different way of looking at politics, the economy, the environment and the Church.”

Carr added, “That bottom up perspective – care for the weak and vulnerable – will be a profound challenge to business as usual in Washington. At a time when politicians are dehumanizing immigrants and ignoring the humanity of the unborn, Pope Francis brings an entirely different vision of respect for human life and dignity which crosses the ideological and political divide in Washington.”

Members of Congress reacted with a rare spirit of unanimity in their bipartisan support for Pope Francis’s address, Carr noted. “The only thing Democrats and Republicans agree on is they need advice from this pope,” he said, and then added jokingly, “Be careful what you wish for!”

“I think he’ll make all of them proud and affirmed on some points, and deeply challenged as well,” Carr said, adding that politicians aren’t the only ones who occasionally might feel uneasy because of the pope’s words. “I love Pope Francis, and he makes me profoundly uncomfortable. When he talks about ‘couch potato Catholics’ and ‘good enough Catholics,’ he’s talking about me!”

During his visit to the United States, Pope Francis will garner many headlines for his visit to the White House and his address to Congress and the United Nations, but each stop will include papal encounters with the poor and forgotten – with the homeless helped by Catholic Charities in Washington, with children at an East Harlem school during his New York visit, and with inmates at a Philadelphia correctional facility.

“He says we have to encounter the poor personally, and he accepts no excuses,” Carr said. “In some ways, Pope Francis’s most powerful message will not be what he says, but what he does.”

In reaching out to the poor and sick at his papal audiences, and in talking about going out to the margins to bring Christ’s love to the forgotten and alienated, “what he’s saying is God’s love and mercy is available to all of us. Don’t judge each other. Help each other,” Carr said.

The Catholic initiative’s director said that while many might think Pope Francis is somehow trendy, he is actually underscoring traditional Catholic teaching, about the joy of the Gospel, God’s mercy, and the importance of caring for “the least of these.”

“The environmental encyclical didn’t begin with Earth Day. It began with Genesis,” Carr said.

Pope Francis’s visit will not only give Catholics in the United States an opportunity to see the pope, but it will give him the chance to see the nation’s Catholics, Carr added.

“I hope he’ll see the vitality, the diversity and the fidelity of the Church in the United States, with all our challenges and achievements,” Carr said. “We will see him, and he will meet us. Both of us will fall in love, we with him, and him with us.”

(The Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University will sponsor a Sept. 28 talk on “The ‘Francis Factor’ Revisited: Assessing Pope Francis’s visit to the U.S.” For information, go online to catholicsocialthought.georgetown.edu .)