Aleteia’s John Burger was there as the Speaker of the House filled the slot that last year was shared by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump:
Ryan continued to riff on Trump’s legendary lack of humility and propensity to use Twitter. He said that during the presidential inaugural ceremonies in January, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, who presided at the Al Smith dinner, delivered an invocation invoking the “infallible, enlightened Supreme Being.” “And President Trump stood up and took a bow,” Ryan quipped. “Actually, both presidents did.” But Ryan, a Catholic who was Mitt Romney’s running mate in the 2012 race for the White House, got serious as he brought his speech—and the evening—to a close. Harking back to the legacy of Al Smith, the New York governor for whom the dinner is named, Ryan commented, “We can achieve so much to tackle poverty eye to eye, soul to soul, person to person. As Catholics, we call this solidarity and subsidiarity.”
Read more and check out the video of his remarks below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhRsTMlHwiU&t=57s
And today we celebrate...