David, you were in Rome for Benedict's election. How did you interpret that choice and how do you think he's doing?
DAVID GIBSON (Author, THE COMING CATHOLIC CHURCH): Well, it was an amazing event, Bob, but it really followed on another amazing event two weeks earlier, which was the death of Pope John Paul II, and that's really, I think, where Benedict's election was born. That outpouring after the papacy -- the death -- of John Paul was so tremendous. Fully half the people alive on the globe today knew no other pope than John Paul II. And the cardinals, when they went into conclave in the Sistine Chapel, were looking for somebody who could fill that role, who was kind of a known quantity who could sort of be a bridge pope, perhaps. And so they turned to someone who was a safe bet, who could really carry out that job, and that was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.MICHAEL MCGOUGH (Editor-at-Large, THE PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE): You referred to a bridge pope -- did it help that he was as old as he was?
Mr. GIBSON: Certainly. He was the oldest pope in over two centuries, 78 years old, when he was elected. So there's a sense that he's a transitional pope, whatever that might mean in this age of medical advances. But also, he's a lower-key figure. John Paul II was 58 when he was elected, but he was such a vibrant personality. He transformed the papacy, clearly. And now I think the cardinals wanted a little bit of a breather, someone who would [have] a somewhat lower profile, and Benedict, contrary I think to a lot of predictions, has certainly been, you know, a little less active and vigorous than some people might have expected.
KIM LAWTON (Managing Editor, RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY): And I think that the death of John Paul II really was -- I mean, it was the biggest news story for us of the past year. You know, he had been pope for 26 years, and he had such an influence on the Catholic Church and on the world at large. He was such a moral authority on all the big issues of the day, whether you're talking communism or secularism or everything in between. So I think the whole world ...
ABERNETHY: ... and for lots of people in addition to Catholics.
Ms. LAWTON: Exactly. You know, the whole world -- Catholics, but non-Catholics as well -- looked to him and respected him, and to have him gone -- it's still hard to believe that he's not still the pope. I catch a glimpse of Benedict in those white robes and I think, "Wait, wait, wait." And so, I think that's something -- that's the big challenge Benedict has, is following that.
ABERNETHY: I want to move to Iraq and the growing number of voices, especially in the latter part of this past year, calling for withdrawal of American troops, or at least a timetable for withdrawal. Where is the religious community in that campaign?
Ms. LAWTON: Well, this year there was a real ratcheting up of concern and protest for the war coming out of liberal, mainline Protestant denominations, Jewish groups, and others. But also, I think, some religious conservatives had increasing unease. We saw more than 2,000 U.S. soldiers killed over there, and I think that's created a lot of concern among people, even those who would support President Bush in some of his other agenda [items]. I think some religious conservatives were also concerned about the constitution that was passed. Yes, democracy and all of that is, you know, we're told now, flowing as a result of that. But there were some people concerned that that document puts so much emphasis on Islam and perhaps doesn't allow for some religious freedom of minorities, and religious conservatives were concerned about that.
Mr. MCGOUGH: Getting back to the pope. Pope John Paul II was very unenthusiastic about the war in Iraq, and a lot of Christians in Iraq thought that Saddam was relatively benign toward religious minorities, including Christians.ABERNETHY: And maybe we don't appreciate how in Islam -- how Islam is supposed to, and is thought to, need to be a part of everything, constitutions as well as personal life.
Ms. LAWTON: Well, this will be an interesting experiment -- to see the extent to which Iraq can be rooted in Islam but still be democratic and still offer freedom for women, for religious minorities, and moderates as well.
Mr. GIBSON: I would also throw in just the issue of torture, which has really roiled the United States so much, growing out of so much of the Iraq campaign. And that, you know, that's a real moral and ethical issue that is a problem for liberals and conservatives alike. And there's a question of, will we gain Iraq but lose our own soul in the process?
ABERNETHY: Michael, you cover the Supreme Court --
Mr. MCGOUGH: I do.
ABERNETHY: -- among many other things. What did this past year tell us, if anything, about where the line now is, the line of separation between church and state?
Mr. MCGOUGH: Well, the line of separation between church and state is still somewhat fuzzy. But this year the Supreme Court upheld a display of the Ten Commandments in Texas, struck down a display of the Ten Commandments in Kentucky -- which means we'll have lots of other cases like this. But in that -- in the Kentucky case, the court reaffirmed that the First Amendment means that the government has to be neutral not just between religions, but between religion and nonreligion, and that's a very significant ruling.
ABERNETHY: And so where do we come out now? If you're thinking about putting up the Ten Commandments in a public place, what do you need to have in mind?
Mr. MCGOUGH: What you need to have in mind is something secular around the religious display. In Kentucky they started with a clearly religious display of the Ten Commandments and later put up some secular documents. It was too late to help them, from the court's standpoint. And in Texas, Texas got by because their Ten Commandments monument was in a park with a lot of other monuments, and you could argue it was like a museum.
ABERNETHY: And let me ask you about the religious Right and the nomination and confirmation of Chief Justice Roberts and the nomination of Judge Alito.
Mr. MCGOUGH: Well, the religious conservatives were in the loop when President Bush chose John Roberts and Sam Alito and claimed to be very enthusiastic. They were not very enthusiastic about Harriet Miers, even though she was an evangelical Christian, and they were quite happy when she withdrew.
Ms. LAWTON: And that's so interesting, because John Roberts and Alito are Catholics, and so if Alito is confirmed, we're going to have a Catholic majority on the Supreme Court.
ABERNETHY: And David, does anybody care about that?
Mr. GIBSON: That's a really good question: Does it matter, in a sense? It's fascinating that you've got these evangelicals and conservative Catholics sort of joining forces on this, as Mike pointed out. But it was also, I think, perhaps under-covered with Judge Roberts's statements during his confirmation hearing, taking the John F. Kennedy line from 1960, that his faith would have no impact on his rulings from the bench. You know, what's up with that, and what is going to be the reaction if, in fact, he and -- if Sam Alito is confirmed -- don't necessarily rule on issues like abortion and related moral questions the way the religious Right wants?
Mr. MCGOUGH: Yeah, and it's interesting he answered that question with a John F. Kennedy answer clearly in the context of Roe v. Wade and abortion.
ABERNETHY: David, I want to ask you about the Vatican and its statement toward the end of the year about homosexuality in seminaries, ruling that people with deep-seated homosexual tendencies should not be admitted to seminaries, should not be allowed to become priests. Talk about that a little bit.Mr. GIBSON: Well, that document was a long time in incubation. In fact, it was begun, initiated, by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, many years ago. And it -- but it really gained momentum after the sexual abuse scandals broke in 2002, because some people, contrary to the opinion of all experts, wanted to link the homosexual priests to the sexual abuse scandal. So there was an effort to try and address this issue, this document. However, it had a lot of vague language. It talked about barring men with deep-seated homosexual tendencies, which has caused a lot of debate as to what that means. And so it's being interpreted.
Ms. LAWTON: Well, I was going to bring that up and say, you know, it's not just the Catholic Church. But we saw mainline denominations here in the U.S. really struggling over the issue of homosexuality as well. Divisions within the Episcopal Church got deeper, harder. We saw, this past year, more realignments between conservatives here in the U.S. and conservatives in places like Africa, which have huge numbers in the worldwide Anglican Communion. And they're banding together up against the rest of the worldwide Anglican Communion. And so it's setting the stage, I think, for a really interesting and divisive situation. But we also saw United Methodists this past year struggling over this issue, and a court ruling in that church saying that local churches can deny church membership to people who are gay. And that was very controversial.
ABERNETHY: Our time is almost up, but very quickly, let me ask you -- Mike, maybe beginning with you -- what did we leave out? What did we miss?
