"Pope Francis says laws that criminalize homosexuality are ‘unjust’" PBS NewsHour 1/25/2023
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SUMMARY: Pope Francis, in a wide-ranging interview with the Associated Press, spoke at length about his health, his critics and the future of the papacy. Most notably, he called laws criminalizing homosexuality fundamentally unjust and said being homosexual is not a crime. Paul Elie of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs joined Geoff Bennett to discuss the pope's interview.
"Could the Vatican’s decree on same-sex unions turn people away from church?" PBS NewsHour 3/16/2021
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SUMMARY: After Pope Francis initially signaled support for same-sex unions, the Vatican decreed Monday that the Catholic Church cannot support them, saying God “cannot bless sin.” The latest decree has disappointed LGBTQ advocates and cast doubt on the church’s acceptance of gay people. Rev. Bryan Massingale, a professor of theological and social ethics at Fordham University, joins Amna Nawaz to discuss.
SUMMARY: On his first trip abroad, President Trump met this weekend with Arab leaders in an attempt to reset relations between the U.S. and Middle East. How is this president changing U.S. foreign policy? Judy Woodruff speaks with Elliott Abrams, a former administration official under George W. Bush, Robin Wright of the United States Institute of Peace, and Daniel Benjamin of Dartmouth College.
SUMMARY: President Trump is in Israel, where he spent the day talking up peace prospects in the region. John Yang reports on the president's arrival and recaps Mr. Trump's high-profile address in Saudi Arabia over the weekend, then Judy Woodruff gets an update from Tamara Keith of NPR, who's reporting from Jerusalem.
SUMMARY: President Trump met privately with Pope Francis on Wednesday, his first audience with the leader of the Catholic Church, and with whom he has clashed publicly in the past. Last year, the religious leader disavowed Candidate Trump's pledge for a border wall, prompting Mr. Trump to dig back. Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports on their interaction at the Vatican.
SUMMARY: At his first meeting of NATO leaders, President Trump again criticized the allies for falling short on their share of defense spending. Mr. Trump was also the first U.S. President to not explicitly endorse NATO's collective dense clause. Special correspondent Ryan Chilcote, reporting from Brussels, joins Judy Woodruff to discuss the reactions from European leaders and more.
SUMMARY: President Trump spent the final day of his first trip abroad in Sicily at a G-7 Summit, where he met with several world leaders to discuss issues such as climate change and trade. It wrapped up a busy week with stops in Saudi Arabia, Israel and the West Bank, the Vatican and the headquarters of the European Union and NATO. Hari Sreenivasan speaks with Margaret Talev of Bloomberg News.
SUMMARY: Security was on high alert across Cairo as Pope Francis arrived for meetings with President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and the leader of Egypt's Coptic Christians and a peace conference for Christians and Muslims. Just three weeks ago, 45 people died when the Islamic State militant group bombed churches on Palm Sunday. Hari Sreenivasan talks to Tarek Masoud of Harvard University.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): It is the first papal trip to Egypt since Pope John Paul II in 2000. Pope Francis' visit to Cairo today comes at a time when Egypt's Christians are under attack, and the so-called Islamic State is emboldened.
Hari Sreenivasan has our story.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): Pope Francis received a red carpet welcome, but security was on high alert across the Egyptian capital. Still, he insisted on driving to the presidential palace in a simple unarmored blue Fiat.
WOMAN: He is trying to prove to the world that Egypt is still safe, no matter what terrorism is trying to do in our country.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Just three weeks ago, 45 people died when the Islamic State bombed Christian churches in two Egyptian cities on Palm Sunday. And, in December, an ISIS suicide bomber killed 25 people at Cairo's main Coptic Christian cathedral.
In a video message before his arrival, Francis called for unity and tolerance.
POPE FRANCIS, Leader of Catholic Church (through interpreter): I hope that this visit will be an embrace of consolation and of encouragement to all Christians in the Middle East, a message of fraternity and reconciliation to all children of Abraham, particularly in the Islamic world.
HARI SREENIVASAN: The pontiff's first stop was a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. The former general came to power after a 2013 coup that ousted Mohammed Morsi and banned the Muslim Brotherhood. Francis also took part in a peace conference to bring Muslims and Christians together.
POPE FRANCIS (through interpreter): To counter effectively the barbarity of those who foment hatred and violence, we need to accompany young people, respond to the incendiary logic of evil by patiently working for the growth of goodness.
SUMMARY: In a landmark manifesto on family life, Pope Francis called for Catholics to put conscience over dogma on critical moral issues. His statement also suggested a possible relaxing of the ban on divorced Catholics taking communion. Judy Woodruff gets reactions from Gloria Purvis of Global Catholic Network, Amanda June Gargus of Georgetown University and Marianne Duddy-Burke of DignityUSA.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Today's pronouncement from the Pope on family life was two years in the making. Pope Francis explicitly called for the church to be less judgmental.
Instead, he said more support is needed for single and unmarried parents, as well as same-sex couples. Divorced or remarried Catholics shouldn't be judged or discriminated against in church life. Priests can be merciful when it comes to delivering communion. But he didn't change doctrine on same-sex marriage or on the role of contraception.
We sample some of the reaction now with Amanda June Gargus. She is the student administrator at campus ministry at Georgetown University's Law Center. Gloria Purvis is the host of a radio show on the EWTN's Catholic Television Network called “Morning Glory.” And Marianne Duddy-Burke is the executive director of Dignity USA, which works on support changes for the LGBT community in the Catholic Church.
And we welcome all three of you to the program.
So, let's begin by — I just want to ask each one of you, what do you think of this latest statement by Pope Francis?
Let me start with you, Ms. Gargus.
AMANDA JUNE GARGUS, Georgetown University: I think it's a great thing.
I think it falls well within what the Pope has been saying all year in this year of mercy of being in love with our neighbors and how we show mercy towards the people around us, so, the saints and the sinners, those that conform with how we see God's love and those who may not necessarily be acting in the way that maybe traditional Catholics tend to think of the church acting.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Gloria Purvis, what about you? What was your reaction?
GLORIA PURVIS, Global Catholic Network: My reaction was, this is quite a merciful message. It had a lot for everyone.
I think it was a challenge for everyone. He clearly speaks within the confines of the church's understanding of marriage, faithful, fruitful, faithful forever, and yet, at the same time, he says we need to be merciful to everyone, walk with them.
And one of favorite lines in the exhortation is where he says love coexists with imperfection. And so I think there is a hopeful message for all of us. We all fall short of perfection. But if we're willing to listen and think with the mind of the church and try to form our consciences properly, the church is there with us.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Marianne Duddy-Burke, what about you? What did you think when you read this?
MARIANNE DUDDY-BURKE, DignityUSA: Yes, I find it to be a very uneven document. There are certainly places where it soars. I love the emphasis on respecting the formed consciences of so many of us and pastoral care, starting from the needs of the person.
I think those are fantastic and really consistent with a lot of what Pope Francis has been about. And then there are areas where it really falls short of what I think people were hoping for, and that's certainly true on the issue of LGBT people, where there really isn't a lot of progress in this piece.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week in politics, including Donald Trump’s war of words with Pope Francis, GOP candidates’ strategies in South Carolina, burgeoning support for Bernie Sanders in Nevada and the controversy over the late Antonin Scalia’s Supreme Court successor.
DAVID BROOKS, New York Times Columnist: Everything sacred in our world is being attacked.
I think it’s an accumulation of things for Trump. It’s — you start the week attacking George Bush and the Iraq War. You call everybody a liar. Then you have the Pope thing. Then you have the Apple thing.
The question is, will fatigue ever set in? And some of the polls suggest no. In some the polls, he’s still doing solidly. But there are another set of polls. There’s a stream of polls, including the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, which suggest it’s beginning to hurt him and that he’s beginning to slide. There is some exhaustion factor.
So I don’t think it’s one thing that’s — but it’s the accumulation of bombast. And there may be this — we may be getting to the moment — and I thought he was completely unhinged in the debate Saturday night — where that begins to have some telling effect.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Do you see some of the magic maybe dissipating from Donald Trump?
MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated columnist: Yes, I agree with David, first of all, on the debate.
My only explanation for it is, he was unnerved by the public booing. And the booing was so sustained. And this is a man who feeds off the adulation of his own rallies. There’s no way in the world you planned going into a national debate for Republicans on national television that you were going to suggest — charge, not suggest — charge that the last Republican President of the United States not only knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction, but took the country into war knowing that.
So, it was just — it was really bizarre, beyond. As far as the pope is concerned, it will come as an enormous surprise to Donald Trump that the Pope has probably no idea who he is. The question was, what about someone who advocates building walls, rather than building bridges, and closes off any access or really compassion to those who are suffering from forced migration and the dispossessed?
And the Pope said, that’s un-Christian, and I think by just about any definition. There is an iron rule in American politics about the clergy, whether it’s the Pope or a rabbi, or a minister. And that is, they should never interfere in politics, unless they — the one exception being when they agree with me and my side.
SUMMARY: In the first meeting between leaders of Christianity’s largest churches since the Great Schism of 1054, Pope Francis met with Patriarch Kirill of the Eastern Orthodox Church Friday afternoon in Havana. Hari Sreenivasan talks to Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop emeritus of Washington, and the Most Blessed Tikhon, primate of the Orthodox Church in America, for more on the historic moment.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): This afternoon in Havana, at Jose Marti Airport, a meeting 1,000 years in the making. Pope Francis met with Patriarch Kirill of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the first meeting between the leaders of Christianity’s two largest churches since 1054, when a schism split the ancient church.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): The meeting on neutral ground was decades in the planning. The leaders met for two hours behind closed doors, and later signed a joint declaration decrying persecution of Christians around the world.
We explore this historic moment, and its impact going forward, with His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon. He is the Orthodox archbishop of Washington, D.C., and the primate of the Orthodox Church in America, its senior-most leader in the U.S. and Canada. And His Eminence Theodore Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the Roman Catholic archbishop emeritus of Washington, D.C.
First, for someone who hasn’t been following the 1,000-year-long rift between these two branches, why is this so important, and why did it happen now?
THE MOST BLESSED TIKHON, Primate of the Orthodox Church in America: There’s been attempts to bridge that gap over the years, none of which have really been successful.
But, in the last, you know, number of years, the last few decades, the groundwork for such a possible discussion has been taking place. So, while this meeting may seem like a somewhat new or surprising event, it has been discussed with both Pope Francis’ predecessors and patriarchals, but somehow the particular meeting that is happening today in Cuba didn’t take place.
But it’s — there have certainly been relations between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches during the past 1,000 years, but there has been a lot of both theological and ecclesiastical differences that need to be worked out, as well as just the simple physical separation that has sort of contributed to sort of a great divide.
So, a great opportunity now in this time of strife in the world to see two great world leaders come together and begin more — perhaps more formally, a dialogue.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including Speaker of the House John Boehner’s resignation and who will take his place, as well as the pope’s visit to Congress.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Capitol Hill was a historic place to be this week, with a papal visit and the surprise resignation of House Speaker Boehner.
Of course, those are the main topics for our turn to Shields and brooks. That’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Welcome, gentlemen.
So, Mark, surprised about Boehner?
MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated columnist: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
MARK SHIELDS: But, as Lisa reported to you from the Hill, the speaker faced what is a vote of no confidence. He would have prevailed. He would have survived, but it would have showed him weakened within his own caucus. This was among the Republican members. So, I think he made the decision to go out on his own terms.
JUDY WOODRUFF: David, a complete shock for you?
DAVID BROOKS, New York Times: No, saw it coming months and months and months ago.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID BROOKS: No, obviously, since the day he walked in the door, he’s had this challenge, and it’s grown more, but I don’t think anybody saw it coming in this way.
Obviously, I think the papal visit had — on the timing, had an effect. There is a beautiful piece by Robert Costa of The Washington Post talking about how, the night before, Costa, a reporter, was with him on the balcony, and Boehner was saying the pope stood right here, right here, and he asked me to pray for him. And he was so moved.
And so there’s an element of uplift, and might as well do the right thing. And this specific act was the right thing. Paul Ryan called it a selfless act. And I think it really is a selfless act. It spares us from a potential government shutdown. It helps the institution. It helps his party from the fallout from a government shutdown.
And so I think it’s a beautiful act. Now, over the long term, the downside of Boehner was that he wasn’t that imaginative and the Republicans weren’t that aggressive in putting together a lot of policies, an alternative to Obamacare, a health care, a tax plan, whatever.
But he did know reality. He could see reality around him. He knew the craft of politics and how you craft a deal, especially these budget deals. Some of his critics don’t seem to see that reality, that they don’t control the White House or the supermajority in the Senate. And they don’t seem to respect the craft of politics. And if they ever get in actual power, they are going to be introduced it to rudely.
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DAVID BROOKS: I think both parties are ideologically polarized. The Republican — some of the Republican Party doesn’t believe in politics. I think most of the Democratic Party does believe in politics. They’re the party of government. They believe in government.
And, so, in some sense, the Republican Party can get a little more extreme over tactics, but I think it will be hard for speakers in the future to control people, just because, if you have got a super PAC, if you got some independent expenditures, it’s hard to impose discipline anymore on the body.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Mark, does more get done, does less get done? How do you see it?
MARK SHIELDS: Less gets done, Judy, I believe.
And could I be rude and just say that there are probably four dozen members of the House Republican Caucus who do not believe in government? And they are not — they have never accepted the responsibility of the governing party.
I mean, John Boehner accepted the fact that the Republicans are the majority party in the House and the Senate. Therefore, we have a responsibility to keep government operating, not to close it down, to fund it, to compromise, to get the votes necessary to pass the legislation required. And there are four dozen who say, hell no, if it does close down, great, that’s good, that’s what we’re here about.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the week’s news, including how the second Republican debate helped or hurt the candidates, why Donald Trump didn’t contradict bigoted remarks at a campaign rally and the significance of Pope Francis’ upcoming visit to the U.S.
MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated columnist: To me, this is — Barack Obama is a Christian who was born in Hawaii. Barack Obama is a Christian who was born in Hawaii. I mean, what we have is feeding paranoia. Right now, 43 percent of Republicans, according to CNN’s latest poll, believe Barack Obama is a Muslim; 54 percent of Trump supporters in the same survey believe he is.
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MARK SHIELDS: Well, the pope, Pope Francis, is coming to Washington. He’s never been to Washington, never been to the United States before. We know we’re the center of the universe (toung-in-cheek). Somehow, it has escaped him in his entire life.
But several things. One is, he’s the antithesis to big-money politics. I mean, this is somebody who spends his time with — he listens to the voiceless. He remembers the forgotten. He sees the overlooked, whether it’s the immigrant, or the refugee, as we saw, or the day worker, or the sick, the handicapped, or the lonely.
I mean, he really does — he does embody — I fear he’s going to make both parties — I know he’s going to make both parties very uncomfortable, because his message is not trimmed for politics. He’s going to make the Republicans quite uncomfortable on the question of poverty and the obligation that we have to act collectively. He’s very pro-politics. He believes in politics.
He’s very strong on the environment and on climate change, contrary to many Republicans, including Marco Rubio. But, at the same time, he speaks fondly and well and consistently about protecting the unborn and those in the late stages of life who face death. He is — really, it’s going to be remarkable to watch Joe Biden and John Boehner, both Catholics, the Vice President and The Speaker, sitting behind him, and applauding different passengers and kind of pretending they didn’t hear others.
So — but I hope it doesn’t become political, because this truly is a remarkable spiritual moment in a very secular city.
HARI SREENIVASAN: David?
DAVID BROOKS, New York Times: Yes, I just want to underline that last comment. I hope we don’t overpoliticize this visit.
The first thing we’re going to see is our countrymen, thousands, millions of them moved by faith, their eyes looking to heaven, their heart warmed by God’s love. And we’re going to see that in public. And we’re going to see that in tens of millions of people. And that will be a moment of seeing faith in a way we rarely see it in this country in public.
And, secondly, we will see the example of the man. The message is the person. It’s the way he conducts himself. His love for the poor is not out of any self-congratulatory. He — whether you’re Jewish, Muslim, atheist, whatever, he is the embodiment of the Christian virtues that I think we all admire, the — seeing the meekest, seeing the poorest, seeing the lowest, and lifting them up, and seeing the brokenness in people, and then lifting them up with joy.
And so, to me, it will be a theater of spiritual — a spiritual theater more than a political theater. And I suspect tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people’s lives will be changed, in the way that politics can never change them, from within. Their lives will be transformed because they will be at this visit. And they will be moved by something they had never felt or only have felt weakly before.
And to me, that’s just a seismic event, whatever happens to our political culture.
HARI SREENIVASAN: David, so what about — how does that translate when that spiritual theater is finished? Does that translate into any sort of policy action or rethinking something that might be in the works in Congress that’s stalled?
DAVID BROOKS: Well, I hope it transforms hearts. And I hope it transforms hearts in the ways Mark just suggested.
The pope is not going to visit the homeless or the prisoners once in his visit. He’s doing it six, seven, eight times in the visit. So, the constant focus will be there on those who are hurting the most. And I think that enlivened attention will carry over into people’s eyes, both in their private lives and their private giving, but also in their public lives.
Mark has said this many times over the years. We have a political culture focused on the middle class. We have lost some of the contact with the poor, some of the contact with the needy, and not only — and not from high to low, and, frankly, some of the compassionate conservatism and some of progressivism has been from high to low, but treating the poor as those closest to God and worthy of respect maybe even more than everybody else.
And that’s an attention that has been absent from our political culture or in short supply, and maybe it will be in slightly bigger supply.
MARK SHIELDS: I think David said it very, very well, just that wherever he goes, he brings the cameras with him, and an incredible number of cameras, as we know.
But as soon as he finishes Congress — and it’s the hottest ticket in the history of Capitol Hill. I mean, people are fighting to get in. Former members and senators can’t even get into the gallery to hear him. They have set up a JumboTron outside.
He’s going to have lunch with the poorest of the poor in the Center City in Washington sponsored by Catholic Charities. I mean, these are the addicted. These are people with alcohol problems, with psychological problems, the homeless. And he doesn’t allow us to look away. He forces us to examine those who are living on the outskirts of hope.
SUMMARY: Pope Francis has bluntly criticized global capitalism for causing environmental destruction and tragic consequences for world's poorest citizens. Ahead of the pontiff's first visit to the United States, economics correspondent Paul Solman takes a closer look at his economic beliefs.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): Pope Francis’ upcoming visit to the U.S. next week is generating huge interest and expectation.
Part of that excitement is rooted in the different tone the pope has taken on a number of issues, from marriage to the role of women in the church. But he has also issued a tough critique of capitalism and called for more action on climate change.
We kick off our coverage of the Pope’s trip, which will continue all next week, with a look at those issues from our economics correspondent Paul Solman.
It’s part of our weekly series Making Sen$e, which airs every Thursday on the NewsHour.
PAUL SOLMAN (NewsHour): Are you excited that the pope is coming here?
CHILDREN: Yay!
WOMAN: It’s a blessing that the Pope is coming to visit us, especially the poor people that need a little bit more.
PAUL SOLMAN: A senior center in East Harlem, the poorest part of Manhattan and the one with the closest ties to Latin America, home to Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Argentinean Jesuit priest now known as Pope Francis.
MELISSA MARK-VIVERITO, Speaker , New York City Council: And just south of this district, we have the most wealthy district in the city of New York in the Upper East Side.
PAUL SOLMAN: Melissa Mark-Viverito is the first Puerto Rico-born speaker of the New York City Council, where she also represents El Barrio.
MELISSA MARK-VIVERITO: There is a real contrast, which speaks to really the vision and, I think, the philosophy of what the Pope is all about.
PAUL SOLMAN: The Pope put that vision and philosophy bluntly in June, with his controversial encyclical on climate change and poverty, blaming what he calls unbridled capitalism for ruining the Earth, with tragic effects on those he cares most about, the world’s poorest.
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PAUL SOLMAN: The pope, however, is more than hinting. He writes that — quote — “Whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, a market that doesn’t take into account fundamental rights of the poor and underprivileged.”
The Pope being unavailable to respond to economist Richard Sylla’s defense of markets, I asked his radical bedfellow, Naomi Klein, for a reply.
NAOMI KLEIN, Author: Yes, this is a system that has pulled many people out of poverty, but it has also thrown many people into destitution. Now, my goal here is not to say capitalism has never done anything good. It’s to say we need a better system, because now the fate of our species hangs in the balance.
PAUL SOLMAN: Or, as Reverend Wallis puts it....
REV. JIM WALLIS, Founder, Sojourners: Is our economy today good news for the poor? The economy is for, more and more, the very top, the very few, and the middle are all very insecure. And half of God’s children, half the world’s people are left behind by the economy. God’s economy is very simple. There is enough, if we share it. It’s really as simple as that.
SUMMARY: From a racial hate crime that rocked the nation, to the Pope’s call for action on climate change, there has been no shortage of issues to spark national debate and discussion this week. Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks discuss these topics and more.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): So, another terrible race-related story to talk about, this horrible shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, David, where a young white man killed nine black churchgoers.
How — what are we left with? I mean, is this an isolated — should we think of this as an isolated incident, a racist young man, or do we — or does the whole country need to do some soul-searching?
DAVID BROOKS, New York Times: Yes.
First, we should mention that the uplifting part of this story, of this terrible story is what happened today in the courtroom, the families forgiving the young man in such a heartfelt and heartrending way. Mark and I were talking before that is living the faith, that is walking the walk.
And we have a society and certainly a politics filled with people who aren’t forgiving each other, filled with vengeance. Well, that speech should be seared in our minds. And so that was an uplifting moment today…
JUDY WOODRUFF: It was.
DAVID BROOKS: … which wasn’t all negative.
The horror is the horror. I confess, I’m a little confused about how much to generalize. We have a race problem in this country. That is so obvious. But we also have an angry solitary young man problem. And I’m not sure a lot of the angry solitary young men are directly connected.
They are obviously loosely connected to the history of race in this country. But they are angry solitary young men looking for hateful and vicious ideologies. Some of them turn into neo-Nazi skinheads. I don’t think we have a Nazi problem in this country. They are solitary and they’re hate-mongers. And the guy sits with the Bible study group for an hour and then starts shooting them. That’s beyond — beyond imagination.
And so I — it’s obviously connected, but I’m a little wary of the too pat causations that are linked between our general race problem and this specific, completely bizarre, and completely evil incident.
JUDY WOODRUFF: How are you seeing this?
MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated columnist: I just want to underscore what David said about those people in the courtroom today and them saying, may God have mercy on you, and I forgive you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: It was extraordinary.
MARK SHIELDS: It is. These are people of faith. These are people who do practice their faith. And it’s a lot more than preaching.
What hit me, Judy, was President Obama, who some of his greatest and most eloquent moments have been at times of crisis and tragedy and sort of putting things in perspective, how yesterday almost seemed — making the announcement, dispirited and a sense of resignation.
And there was a little feeling, I think. For example, after the Birmingham church in 1963, when the four little girls were blown up in Sunday school, there was a moment in the country. You could feel it, an inflection moment, where we moved on civil rights. The passage of the 1964 act was almost assured by that terrible, terrible, inhuman act.
But that was — so there was a sense that we were moving in a direction. After Newtown and after the slaughter of the innocents there and the teachers, where 90 percent of Americans endorsed a background check, three-quarters of NRA members, according to polls, endorsed universal background checks, and nothing happened.
JUDY WOODRUFF: On guns.
MARK SHIELDS: On guns. And nothing happened.
There’s a sense of, how many more, the enormity of it, what’s it going to take? And so I just think there was a — there was really just sort of a sadness that permeated everything. And for him to sit — for this alleged killer to sit there for an hour while these people welcome him into their church and the Bible study, and then to do it, I mean, it’s beyond comprehension.
SUMMARY: Today the Pope released an encyclical calling for action to combat climate change. Judy Woodruff speaks to Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, D.C., about what the encyclical means to Catholic doctrine, and how it could influence international policy.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Pope Francis made an unprecedented call to action to tackle climate change today. He issued the first encyclical dedicated solely to the environment, calling it one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day.
It was the kickoff of an effort to spread the message to the faithful and others in months to come.
Pope Francis issued a nearly 200-page document casting climate change as a moral issue, not simply a political or economic debate.
Lead climate researchers joined in the formal release at the Vatican.
JOHN SCHELLNHUBER, Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research: I think the encyclical, by listening to the science and to reflecting to the science, is bringing together two big messages. One message comes from reasoning, from ingenuity, from technological progress. The other comes from faith, moral, ethical values, Christianity, but they combine into one message.
JUDY WOODRUFF: That message, to the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, is: Global warming is mostly manmade. It comes heavily from burning fossil fuel. And it disproportionally harms the poor.
In the encyclical, the pontiff warns: “The pace of consumption, waste and environmental change has so stretched the planet’s capacity that our contemporary lifestyle, unsustainable as it is, can only precipitate catastrophes.”
Rich countries must act immediately, Francis says, to cut consumption of fossil fuels and help poor nations create sustainable development.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): Pope Francis took church leaders and Catholics around the world by surprise today when he used an annual Christmas event in Rome to sharply rebuke and audience of top church officials for their shortcomings.
The cardinals, bishops and priests of the Curia, who run the Holy See, sat mostly silent and unsmiling as the Pope delivered a scalding review of their behavior.
POPE FRANCIS, Leader of Catholic Church (through interpreter): Let’s start with the sickness of feeling immortal, immune or, even more, indispensable and therefore of neglecting the necessary routine checkups.
GWEN IFILL: Francis said the Vatican officials have a spiritual Alzheimer’s that makes them forget their real purpose, and he listed 15 illnesses, or sins, from vanity to gossip-mongering to materialism.
POPE FRANCIS (through interpreter): There is also the sickness of the stony mind and spirit, of those who along the way lose their inner serenity, their vivacity and their audacity and end up hiding behind papers, becoming machines for practices, and not men of God.
GWEN IFILL: The first non-European pope in 1,300 years has increasingly confronted the Italian-dominated Curia. Internal power struggles were widely blamed for Pope Benedict’s decision last year to resign.
For some insight on what led to the pope’s remarks today, I am joined by Kevin Eckstrom, editor in chief at Religion News Service.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): Vatican officials announced today that the pope will replace top management of what’s often referred to as the Vatican Bank. It’s more formally known as the Institute for the Works of Religion and is reported to manage nearly $8 billion in assets.
It’s been plagued for years by several scandals that include charges of corruption, money laundering and mismanagement. That change was one of several announced today that impact the Vatican’s financial and property units. It came two days after Pope Francis met in Vatican City with six victims of sexual abuse by clergy. He apologized and asked for forgiveness from them during a homily and private mass.
The pope’s response to the sexual abuse scandals has been criticized by a number of victims.
John Allen covers the Vatican and global Catholicism for The Boston Globe. He joins me from Denver.
So, let’s talk a little bit about the shuffle at the bank. Why is this particular bank so significant?
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): Nicholas Casey, is the Middle East correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and covered the pope’s trip. He joins us now from Jerusalem.
Nick, let me ask you first about the pope’s invitation to Mahmoud Abbas and Shimon Peres to come to Rome. How much of a surprise was that, and how is it being seen by people that you’re talking to there?
NICHOLAS CASEY, The Wall Street Journal: Well, it was a surprise to us, the reporters. Sources I have in both governments said that this was an idea that was floated beforehand.
Now, what’s happened diplomatically on the two sides is that they have both walked away from the table. This happened really acrimoniously last month. Neither side has been talking to each other since. So the pope realized this was the situation here and tried to get an olive branch circulating between both sides, which means that, some time next month, the presidents of the two countries are going to be meeting. It’s not clear what they’re going to be talking about, how much politics will be on the table.
Officially, this is a meeting of talking, reflection and prayer. But, hopefully, it will lead to some sort of revival of peace talks here eventually.
SUMMARY: In charged acts of political symbolism, Pope Francis stopped at some of the holiest sites for Jews and Muslims during a trip to the Middle East. Pope Francis called for renewed peace talks, and became the first pontiff to refer to the “state of Palestine.” The visit came just weeks after U.S.-led talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators collapsed. Jeffrey Brown reports.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): President Obama’s meeting with the pope today focused international attention on two of the most well-known leaders on the planet, what they share in common, and how they differ.
The president’s first ever visit with Pope Francis began with pomp and ceremonial tradition, as he proceeded through the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Wonderful to meet you.
GWEN IFILL: Their private meeting lasted nearly an hour, almost twice as long as expected. It came as Francis enjoys tremendous popularity in the second year of his pontificate.
Going in, the President told the pope he’s a great admirer.
Later, at a news conference with Italy’s prime minister, he underscored that sentiment.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I was extremely moved by his insights about the importance of us all having a moral perspective on world problems, and not simply thinking in terms of our own narrow self-interests.
GWEN IFILL: But the two sides offered strikingly different accounts of the papal audience. Mr. Obama said they focused largely on areas where they have similar views.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: The largest bulk of the time was discussing two central concerns of his. One is the issues of the poor, the marginalized, those without opportunity, and growing inequality. And then we spent a lot of time talking about the challenges of conflict and how elusive peace is around the world.
GWEN IFILL: By contrast, Vatican officials emphasized differences with the president’s policies. High atop that list is the Affordable Care Act mandate that requires employers to include birth control coverage. Another is abortion. President Obama supports abortion rights, while the pope defends the Roman Catholic Church’s anti-abortion stance.
A Vatican statement said: “There was a discussion the exercise of the rights to religious freedom, life and conscientious objection, as well as the issue of immigration reform.”
The president acknowledged addressing those subjects, but with the Vatican’s secretary of state, not the pope.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We actually didn’t talk a whole lot about social schisms in my conversations with His Holiness. In fact, that really wasn’t a topic of conversation. I think His Holiness and the Vatican have been clear about their position on a range of issues. Some of them, I differ with.
GWEN IFILL: Whatever their differences, the two men were all smiles as they parted. The pope may travel to the U.S. in September of next year for a world gathering on families in Philadelphia.
SUMMARY: With public opinion ratings “the envy of every politician in Washington,” Pope Francis received President Obama at the Vatican for an hour-long visit. Gwen Ifill talks to Rev. Thomas Reese of the National Catholic Reporter and Stephen Schneck of the Catholic University of America to make sense of the meeting and assess what unites the pontiff and the president.
STEPHEN SCHNECK, Catholic University of America: You know, I think probably the most important thing to realize is that, at one level, they both share kind of an interesting vision.
That is, both gentlemen, I think, take the measure of civilization to be the quality of life for the poorest and the most vulnerable in the world. And so that’s something that they both share.
