Valdosta State University’s Philosophy and Religious Studies Club will host A Response to Pope Francis: On Poverty, Environmental Crisis, and Immigration from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 24, in the University Center Theater. Admission to the panel discussion is free of charge and open to the public.
 
Throughout the evening, a four-member panel — Father Brian LaBurt, pastor at St. John’s Catholic Church; Sister Nuala Mulleady, director of Catholic Social Services at St. John’s Catholic Church; Dr. Carol Stiles, vice president of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Valdosta; and Father Stan White, pastor at Christ the King Episcopal Church — will share their thoughts on the Argentinian-born Pope Francis’s first visit to the United States Sept. 22-27.
 
During his three-city trip through Washington, D.C., New York, N.Y., and Philadelphia, Pa., Pope Francis will hold the first-ever canonization Mass on American soil, make the first-ever address to Congress, reach out to the poor and the homeless, visit a prison and deliver his message about making a new start from a chair built by inmates studying carpentry, and more.