It was speaker John Boehner, a practicing Conservative Catholic, who invited Pope Francis to visit U.S and address the Congress.

Boehner has been asking pontiffs to visit America for the last two decades, but all his requests were rejected. Yesterday he could not control his emotions. He wept after shaking hands with the Pope in a private meeting captured on live by several television channels.

The Pope commented on Boehner's green tie that it's "the color of hope," prompting the Republican from Ohio to reply, "We'll need a lot of hope today."

40 minutes later Pope Francis stood in front of Speaker Boehner asking him the permission to speak in the Congress, because speaker is the highest authority in the Congress. Boehner somehow managed to hold his emotions together while introducing the pontiff with "distinct honor."

When Pope Francis addressed the Congress, Boehner wiped his eyes and nose, finally he had to use a handkerchief to control his overflowing eyes.

Meeting the Pope was a "humbling moment," he said later, after calling the visit a "great blessing."

"When you grow up Catholic, you learn about the Pope as a distant figure, closer to God than any of us," Boehner wrote in his post.

"To have him here, at our Capitol, among our people, is once-in-a-lifetime moment. A glimpse of grace."

"For a Catholic boy like me, this is big stuff," Boehner told CNN a couple weeks ago.