President Donald Trump | Wikimedia Commons/Gage Skidmore/https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

President Donald Trump will speak virtually on Sept. 23 at the 16th annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast. He is the second president to speak at the event since President George Bush, who spoke four times from 2004 through 2008. 

The National Catholic Prayer Breakfast will be held online this year due to the pandemic and will begin at 11 a.m. EST. 

While guests will not gather as they have in the past in Washington, D.C., the virtual event will include remarks by the Most Reverend Robert Barron, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries; and a greeting from Pope Francis. 

Attorney General William Barr, who will be presented with the Christifideles Laici Award, will also deliver remarks, according to a media release. The Award is for "good works and those who serve the church so well," according to the NCPB. The award reads, “In honor and gratitude for fidelity to the church, exemplary selfless and steadfast service in the Lord’s vineyard.”

“We are delighted and grateful that this year the president will provide remarks at our virtual event. He and his administration have consistently promoted policies that protect our religious freedom and recognize the rights of the most vulnerable among us, the unborn," NCPB event Chairman Mark Randall said in the prepared remarks. 

Randall also pointed out that it is a long-standing policy of the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast to invite the sitting president to deliver remarks at the event as long as he governs in accordance with the "foundational Church teaching on the dignity of human life."

Past speakers besides Bush have included Justice Antonin Scalia, Sr. Constance Veit of Little Sisters of the Poor, Carl Anderson of the Knights of Columbus, and Cardinal Robert Sara. Vice President Michael Pence also delivered remarks in 2017, and former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan delivered remarks in 2016 and 2018.