2 key takeaways from Pope Francis’ speech to Congress

Pope Francis’ first-ever papal address to Congress provides an artful example of two key elements of speech content: audience adaptation and speech structure.

Let’s look at these two vital components:

1. Audience adaption

Many leaders have stock speeches to which they add a few local references in the introduction as well as an anecdote or two that will resonate with listeners and support main ideas in the speech body.

In contrast to that superficial type of audience adaptation, the pope’s address clearly was crafted with Congress and the American people in mind. It was not a stump speech.