know what? i ll drive! and i have no feet. i really didn t think this through. trust the midas touch. for brakes, tires, oil, everything. (whistling) seven deaths now confirmed after that gas explosion collapsed two buildings here in new york city. that on top of dozens injured, and today the ongoing search for people who are still missile. president obama making a big announcement this afternoon that could mean more money in the pockets of millions of americans. another way he s focused on helping the middle class. and the pope at one. he s changing the conversation in washington and the world about caring for the poor, reinvigorating catholics, making the papacy cool. is this a modern miracle? before we go to washington, we have to get you caught up on what s happening with that missing plane. good morning.
statements he made which some thought were insensitive or didn t go far enough. as you look to 2014, what are you looking for from this pope? i think that is the biggest thing, but i think catholics across the world, how do you deal with the sex abuse crisis all over the world? he s promised to establish a commission to study this, and we have written him and asked him to make victims of clergy sexual abuse are put on the committee, because the u.s. conference had promised the same thing? so we re asking him to put clergy sex abuse victims on the commission he s establishing. if he does that and meets with victims, that will go a long wade. he s also made zero-tolerance the policy for the universal church and encouraged the gregorian university to continue their work there.
conversation about economic justice. looking towards 2014, i m excited about the october meeting of bishops. you know, pope francis has decried trickle down economics. what we need is a little bit of trickle down transformation. here in the u.s. bishops are still firing church workers and catholic schoolteachers for being gay or being pregnant. they re still wasting political capital, to go to e.j. s point on abortion and contraception, anti-gay advocacy. they re still living kind of these extraordinarily lavish lifestyles as we saw in newark recently. so there s a lot of change still to come. so i think young catholics are still waiting patiently and eagerly for that change. criticism as well, father, about priest sex abuse in the
it s been a long time. all the way back to pope john xxiii when i was a kid. i think one of the things he s made cool is simplicity. the name francis, he s gotten rid of a lot of the regalacy. there were jokes that the lacy tunics are not on sale on steep discounts on ebay, because he has set a simple tone. i think that s important, but i also think the shift in priorities are important. he has pulled the church back from culture war issues. head said for the church to was wrong, and he has clearly shifted the focus of the papacy, and i think the attention of a lot of catholics to issues of social and economic justice, particularly care for the needy. let me just interrupt you, because i thought it was notable that today he began his second year the way he started his
he s pouring water on the seeds of transformation. catholics in the pews have been planting for years. before this pope we were going through a bit of a drought. it s an exciting time. to respond to cardinal dolan, tone is really important here, and we re seeing the tonal shift impact policies, maybe not church policy, but political and other policies across the world. well, e.j., you wrote about this, and your description was he has not altered church doctrine, but shift in emphasis has been breathtaking. really, you think it s been breathtaking? i do think it is. first of all, did you ever expect to begin this show as you did today by saying one was making the papacy cool? cool is not a term you usually associate with the papacy. not maybe since pope john paul went hiking in the rockies.