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• The Desmond Tutu Peace Centre
• Q & A with Archbishop Tutu
• Bio on Archbishop Tutu
• God Has A Dream

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Tavis: I'm honored to welcome Archbishop Desmond Tutu to this program. The tireless anti-apartheid crusader received the Nobel Peace Prize back in 1984. And two years later he was elected archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa. He continues his role as one of the great moral and peace-loving voices in our world today through countless speeches, lectures, and books. His latest book is called "God Has a Dream: A Vision for Hope in Our Time," now out in paperback. Archbishop, nice to have you on the television program.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu: Thank you very much.

Tavis: Never get enough of talking to you. We talked on the radio program last year when the book came out in hardback, but it's nice to have you on the television program.

Tutu: You're very kind.

Tavis: Let me start by telling you I thought about you some weeks ago around the passing of Pope John Paul II and the elevation of the new pope, Benedict XVI. I thought about you for a couple of reasons. Number one: because not unlike Pope John Paul II, you have been battling publicly with prostrate cancer. We thought we had beaten this once. It's come back again. But you've been very open, very expressive about dealing with this publicly. Tell me why for you.

Tutu: Well, thank you very much. It has been that we tend to think of something like this. I mean, "Oh, he's got a cancer," that this must be a death sentence, and it is important that people know that, for instance, if they get your prostrate cancer early, it is curable. They can deal with it. But there is life after cancer. And second, and perhaps more importantly, is seeing this as not as something negative, but that it was a good, a gracious messenger, reminding me that I had been taking so many things for granted. I mean, it concentrates the mind very, very much, making you realize actually, that, yes, obviously you are mortal, but that there are so many wonderful things in our world that one has usually taken very lightly, a beautiful Beethoven symphony, a glorious sunset, the love of your wife, the laughter of your grandchildren. One realizes that these things are so precious.

Tavis: Mm-hmm. The other thing that made me think about you during that period of transition inside the Catholic Church, which won't surprise you, is that there was great conversation about who the new pope would be, and Archbishop Arinze of Nigeria, in your part of the world, was on the short list. We were all told, at least. Obviously that did not happen, but there was great conversation about the fact that, if the Catholic Church is going to be true to the regions of the world where it is growing, places like South Africa--I mean, the continent of Africa and South America, that someone of color might have been good as the new pope. Again, it didn't happen, but what were your thoughts during that time period about Mr. Arinze or who the new pope might be?

Tutu: Very much along the lines you have just indicated: that it would have been such a wonderful--as a great gesture, a sign, to the so-called Third World--Latin America, Africa, and other parts where the Roman Catholic Church is growing wonderfully, whereas in other parts, especially in the Northern Hemisphere, it's either shrinking or perhaps at best remaining more or less on a plateau. It would have been wonderful, as perhaps wonderful for people behind the Iron Curtain that someone from a former Communist country was elevated to this high position. And that would not just be symbolic. One would hope that it would make such a candidate more aware, more sensitive to the burning issues in his part of the world--issues such as poverty, disease, etc. And therefore making the church a great deal--perhaps more relevant, more open to the concerns of people in those areas.

Tavis: Speaking of disease, you well know that HIV AIDS is a pandemic on the continent of Africa. No one these days more outspoken, more on the case than Archbishop Desmond Tutu. And yet this new pope, at the moment at least, does not support condom usage to quell the spread of HIV AIDS in your continent. What are your thoughts about that?

Tutu: It is important to point out that many within the Roman Catholic Church such as, for instance, the bishops in Spain... You will recall that they indicated that the church ought to begin to have a rethink on its teaching about things such as condoms. And even in South Africa, the bishops there have said that if, in a marriage situation, the husband was to be infected, then a very good case would be made for the use of condoms in that situation. And I hope, even now, I hope that they will look to the fact that, if they consider the use of condoms an evil, that they will use the same thinking--casuistry--where you say war is bad, but there can be situations where it is the lesser evil. And if you have the use of condoms regarded as being an evil, which I don't, and you have a disease devastating people on the other side, and you are saying here are two evils, then you have to say which is the lesser evil. I myself would say that our Lord, in my understanding, would say we ought to be thinking about rules and regulations that are life-affirming. You know, Jesus made no bones about breaking even what was considered to be called the law if he believed that in doing so, he was enhancing human life. He was prepared to heal people on the Sabbath, in the face of very, very strong opposition from the religious leaders of his day. And I think that, when we project, as it were, to our day, that I think our Lord would say, "Yes, there is this rule. But is it a rule that was made for people or were people made for the rules?"

Tavis: This new book now out in paperback, "God Has a Dream," is a wonderful collection of your thoughts. For those of you've not had a chance to see the book or read the book, tell me why-- You've written so many of them. Tell me why this one, "God Has a Dream."

Tutu: I believe that frequently you and I, perhaps naturally, feel a little despondent when we, say, watch television and we watch the news bulletins and we hear of a disaster--a tsunami here, the suicide bomber there. And you read and say, "Oh, dear! What is the world coming to?" And frequently we are overwhelmed by that sense of despondency. And I felt a strong urge to remind us that is not the only or even the most important truth about our world. That, yes, there is a great deal of evil, but, hey, there is also so much that is beautiful, I mean, where you get people being compassionate and caring, people willing to sacrifice themselves on behalf of others. You see wonderful examples of magnanimity as we experienced with the victims of apartheid who came before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. You think of someone like a Mother Teresa, you think of the Dalai Lama, you think of a Nelson Mandela, and you realize, hey, this world is a world, actually, that says human beings are fundamentally good. And I wanted to say, "Remember that, remember that," and then calling on all of us to help God realize God's dream that, hey, you know something, we are actually, all of us, members of one family. And that is not being sentimental. It has very profound consequences on how we do our economics, how we do our politics. Do we spend as much money on defense, on bombs, if we accept that we are family, when we know that a very small fraction of the money we spend, the billions, would ensure that people everywhere, our sisters and brothers, had enough to eat, had clean water to drink? And I was saying, hey, please let us wake up to this incredible fact. I mean, Martin Luther King Jr., didn't he say, "Unless we learn to live as brothers," and we today would have added--and he would have added, lived today as ‘brothers and sisters,' "we are all going to perish together as fools." And that is part of what one was trying to communicate.

Tavis: I think, though, that so much of what grips us in the world today, though, is fear. My sense is that people are more fearful now than they are hopeful. There's a Bible verse you know well that says, "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, of power and of a sound mind," and yet, that Biblical admonition not withstanding, my sense is that people are afraid of so many things in the world that we do live in. As one who's navigated a lifetime living in a country where fear was the order of the day, what do you say to folk about how to navigate a world that is full of fear?

Tutu: Well, one very fundamental thing is reminding people, you know, that in fact this is a moral universe. You know, fear stems in part from our anxiety about what is different or what we do not know. What does the future hold? We don't know a great deal about that. But when you accept that, you know, the way this universe is structured, there is no way in which evil, injustice, lying are going to prevail ultimately, but that it is goodness, it is laughter, it is right. It is all the things that we aspire to that will ultimately prevail. And this is not just living in a cuckoo-land, you know. It has been proven. Look at all the dictators who strutted this universe as if they were totally, totally invincible. Where are they? They have bitten the dust, and they've bitten the dust ignominiously, as we are aware. I mean, the guys who were running the show in South Africa thought they were going to be there forever. And where are they today? You could go on. The Nazis. Amin in Uganda. Mobutu. And you could--the catalog that shows that ultimately, ultimately--Sometimes in the short run it looks as if evil is rampant and is going to carry the day, but in the end, in the long run, goodness prevails. That is precisely the reason why we revere people like Mother Teresa, Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela. We revere them not because they are macho, not because they are powerful. We revere them because they are good.

Tavis: Archbishop, I am delighted to have you on. I can't get enough of having these conversations. Thank you for coming on, and have a safe trip back to South Africa when you head back that way.

Tutu: God bless you. Well, I'm here until the beginning of June.

Tavis: Oh, well, good. Have a good time in the States. We're glad to have you here.

Tutu: God bless you.

Tavis: All the best to you. The new book, "God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time," by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Thanks for watching the program. We'll see you back here next time. Until then, keep the faith.