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Episode 1207

DEBORAH POTTER, guest anchor:  Coming up — Catholic and Jewish voters both critical voting blocs — the issues that matter to them and how they feel about the presidential candidates.

And a camp for people grieving the loss of a loved one.

DALE MARIE CLARK (Executive Director):  You can give them hope.  You can say, “I felt the same way.”  You know, “I felt the same way and it does get better.”

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DEBORAH POTTER:  Welcome.  I’m Deborah Potter sitting in for Bob Abernethy.  Thank you for joining us.

In Iraq, more violence against Christians.  At least 8,000 Christians have left the northern city of Mosul amid a campaign of targeted bombings and assassinations.  Many refugees said they received anonymous e-mails and leaflets threatening bloodshed if they did not leave.  At least a dozen Christians have been killed in and around Mosul since the beginning of October.  The U.S. State Department has joined religious leaders in demanding that Iraq provide more security to prevent religious persecution.

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DEBORAH POTTER:  In India, church leaders are calling for a stronger federal response to violence against Christians there.  Extremist Hindus in the eastern state of Orissa have attacked Christians and tried to force conversions since August, when a Hindu leader was assassinated.  Officials say dozens have been killed and tens of thousands forced from their homes.  In recent days, more violence was reported in southern India, where a Catholic church was torched and a statue of Jesus was vandalized.  At the Vatican, Pope Benedict prayed for peace and reconciliation in India at a canonization ceremony for four new saints, including an Indian nun.  She’s the first female Indian saint in the Roman Catholic Church.

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DEBORAH POTTER:  Across the globe, the financial crisis is sparking fears that the poorest and most vulnerable will be hardest hit.  In Ireland, at a conference on poverty, experts predicted that wealthy nations will cut back on desperately needed aid.  They warned the number of hungry worldwide will grow next year from 920 million to almost a billion.  And at an AIDS conference in South Africa, researchers cautioned that the search for a vaccine will stall as philanthropic organizations scale back their donations.

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DEBORAH POTTER:  A new survey finds a dramatic shift in support for Barack Obama among a group whose support he has struggled for:  white non-Hispanic Catholics.  According to a recent Pew Research poll, Obama now holds a significant lead over John McCain, 54-to-39 percent.  Two weeks ago, those numbers were reversed.  But Catholic voters are not a monolithic bloc.  A survey by the Knights of Columbus found 65 percent of Catholics who rarely attend church identified themselves as pro-choice, compared to just 36 percent of regular church-goers.

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DEBORAH POTTER:  Winning the Catholic vote could be the key to victory in the swing state of Pennsylvania where Jewish voters are also being courted.  The contest in working-class areas of the state like Scranton is particularly intense, as Lucky Severson reports.

LUCKY SEVERSON:  Mary Kate Culkin is a single, working mother in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and a devout member of one of the largest religious voting blocks in the U.S.

MARY KATE CULKIN:  I’m a Catholic.  I went to Catholic school.  I went to a Jesuit college.  I’m pro-life but I also believe that I should not instill my views on the masses of other people.

SEVERSON:  She is a Democrat, first for Hilary Clinton, now for Barack Obama even though Obama is pro-choice and the Catholic bishop in Scranton wrote a letter saying that voting for a pro-choice candidate amounts to endorsing murder.  But Mary Kate says the Democratic Party best reflects the ideology of Catholic social teaching, such as caring for the poor and working for the common good.  Abortion is not the only important issue for her, although it seems to be the most important issue for many Catholic Church officials.

George W. Bush won the Catholic vote in 2004 even though his opponent John Kerry is a Catholic.  Almost one out of three voters in the Keystone state are Catholics.

Mary Kate thinks the selection of Senator Joe Biden, a native of Scranton, as Obama’s running mate will help the campaign even though a Scranton bishop recently said Biden shouldn’t even ask for Communion because he is pro-choice.

Ms. CULKIN:  I also think that what happens in church on Sunday and while you try and live that message for the rest of the week, the issues that come up on Monday morning are not abortion.  They are feeding your kids or stretching that paycheck, or getting gas in your car, or shipping a kid off to Iraq.  We temper what we hear on Sunday with what we have to do for the other six days of the week.

SEVERSON:  In the Pennsylvania primary here in Scranton, Hilary Clinton trounced Barack Obama three to one.  A lot of those were Catholic working class voters who identified closely with Hilary.  The Obama campaign has been trying to swing those voters over to his column, but it hasn’t come easy.

Obama is not going to give up the Catholic vote this year without a fight.  The Obama campaign office downtown is humming with volunteers, many of them young, handing out pamphlets, manning the phone banks.  It’s a busy place.

The McCain campaign office is not so busy.  We had to wait for workers and voters to show up.  That’s not to say that the McCain campaign is not active and determined to hold Scranton.  Listen to Paul DeFabo, another Catholic, strongly in favor of John McCain.

PAUL DEFABO (Vice Chairman, Luzerne County Republican Party):  He is going to win.  You know, I’m not afraid to make that statement.

SEVERSON:  Paul DeFabo is a real estate agent, and the vice chairman of the Luzerne County Republican Party.  He was recently extolling the virtues of Sarah Palin on public television station WVIA in Scranton.

Mr. DEFABO (in an interview on WVIA-TV):  She’s a real talent, this woman.  She’s a real talent.  She’s a quick learner.  She will handle this job.  She knows what she’s talking about. And for them to compare Senator Obama with her lack of experience, I don’t even know where their argument comes from.

SEVERSON:  DeFabo says, as a Catholic, his biggest concern is abortion.  He’s also upset at illegal immigration.  Choosing a president who will appoint the next Supreme Court justice to overturn Roe v. Wade is important to him.  He has attended eight Republican conventions and says this last one was extraordinary because of — you guessed it — Sarah Palin.

Mr. DEFABO:  When she came on and I listened to her that first night, I mean it was like, you couldn’t believe the enthusiasm.  I mean, there were women crying.  I mean there were literally tears running down their eyes.

SEVERSON:  DeFabo’s enthusiasm for McCain and Palin is matched by his disdain for Obama. And he can’t understand why Catholics could support him, especially nuns.

Mr. DEFABO:  There are a group of nuns that are pushing for Obama.  I don’t understand that at all.

SEVERSON:  It drives you crazy?

DEFABO:  Drives me nuts!

SEVERSON:  DeFabo says he’s not happy about it, but he thinks race will play a role in the outcome of the election in Pennsylvania and in other states.

Mr. DEFABO:  Yes I do.  I’m being honest.  I think it does.  I’m not saying it’s going to happen.  I’m just saying it’s a good possibility it can happen.  Is it fair?  Absolutely not.  Should it be an issue?  Absolutely not.  But are people human beings?  You know, our frailties and mistakes and whatever reason they think, yeah, it’s true.

SEVERSON:  Mary Kate Culkin says she is certain that after Scranonites get to know Obama, race won’t be an issue.

Ms. CULKIN:  I think he’s got more in common with the working people here in Scranton than initially they believed.  And I think they are starting to come around and see that it doesn’t matter what color you are.  We’re all pretty much the same.

SEVERSON:  Although Jews make up only two percent of the U.S. population, they do get out and vote, especially when it comes to issues like the security of Israel.  That’s why so many of them, including Lori Lowenthal Marcus, were here at the United Nations protesting the visit of the president of Iran.

This is Elie Wiesel.

Professor ELIE WIESEL (during UN Speech in New York):  President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran is a threat to world peace.  He should not be here in New York.  His place is not here, but in Europe, in Holland in a UN prison cell.

SEVERSON:  Lori is a mom, a lawyer, a writer and always was a pro-choice Democrat until September 11 when terrorism became her defining issue.

LORI LOWENTHAL MARCUS:  I am a registered Democrat and the reason why is that I believe in a lot of ideals of the Democratic Party.  But since 2001, I have begun to focus on foreign policy. McCain and Palin are much better on national security and foreign policy, more in line with mine.  And I don’t trust Obama in those areas.

SEVERSON:  Jewish votes have almost always heavily favored Democratic presidential candidates.  In 2000, Al Gore got nearly 80 percent of the Jewish vote.  Four years later, John Kerry received 75 percent.  But Obama has been struggling and Lori thinks it’s because, among other things, he said that after lower level negotiations, he would be willing, as president, to sit down with leaders of countries like Iran without pre-conditions.

Ms. LOWENTHAL MARCUS:  We’re all in great danger from Islamic fundamentalist extremism and terrorism.  So it’s not just Israel.  Israel happens to be, I hate this expression, the canary in the mine.  They’re first.  Ahmadinejad has said repeatedly, “We’re going to wipe Israel off the face of the map.”

SEVERSON:  It didn’t change her mind when Obama spoke to the influential Jewish Public Affairs Committee AIPAC two days after John McCain.

Senator BARACK OBAMA (D-IL, speaking to American Israel Public Affairs Committee):  As president, I will never compromise when it comes to Israel’s security.

SEVERSON:  She says she’s not worried about Sarah Palin assuming the presidency because she would inherit John McCain’s advisors.

Ms. LOWENTHAL MARCUS:  So many of my friends and almost everyone in my family is terrified of Sarah Palin.  I find Obama’s pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, far more frightening, far more frightening than anything Sarah Palin has said and done.

SEVERSON:  Unlike Sarah Palin, Lori is pro-choice and in favor of gun control.  She’s very worried about the economy, but again, the threat of terrorism trumps all.

Ms. LOWENTHAL MARCUS:  I know people who have lost their jobs.  It’s terrifying. But the idea of an entire nation being wiped off the face of the earth — if we are not alive, doesn’t matter how much money we make or what kind of job we have.

SEVERSON:  Not far from Lori’s house, David Broida, a writer who also runs a tennis center for kids, is a devoted Jew for Obama.  He was there at the convention.  Broida supports Obama for the same reason that Lori opposes him.

DAVID BROIDA:  I am just as concerned about Israel, Israel’s security, but in my judgment, Barack Obama is the better candidate on Israel for American voters.

SEVERSON:  Why is that?

Mr. BROIDA:  We’re interested in negotiations.  Israel is in a very precarious position with Iran being armed with nuclear weapons probably or going to be.  So we need to be thinking in terms of diplomacy and we need the best diplomatic team out there.

SEVERSON:  He worries that Sarah Palin would inject religion into government, violating one of the more important Jewish concerns — the separation of church and state. Broida is worried about the sorry condition of the economy but says it should not be the only issue that drives Jews to the polls.

Mr. BROIDA:  From a Jewish point of view, it’s more about the environment than it is about the economy.  We shouldn’t go into the voting booth and vote our own economic interest.  We should listen to the Torah and we should listen to Jewish values. We will all get along with the economy, more or less.  I know the Great Depression was devastating and I know the current economic crisis is serious.  But I know that global warming and the environmental damage that it can cause is more serious.

SEVERSON:  We were surprised to hear voters themselves raise the race issue.  Broida worries that it will also be an issue among Jewish voters.

Mr. BROIDA:  In most incidences, Jews are not bigoted in a way that would get them to vote one way or another.   In this case, Jews are just like other Americans, white Americans in general.  There’s going to be a certain percentage of those Americans who will not vote for a candidate on the basis of race.

SEVERSON:  If history repeats itself, whoever wins Pennsylvania will have a very good chance of winning the election.  And winning the Catholic and Jewish vote will be crucial to winning Pennsylvania.

For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I’m Lucky Severson in Scranton.

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DEBORAH POTTER:  The Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal from a death row inmate in Georgia, clearing the way for his execution.  Troy Davis was convicted for killing an off-duty police officer but claims he’s innocent, and key prosecution witnesses have recanted their testimony.  Pope Benedict, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and others have called his conviction unfair.

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DEBORAH POTTER:  A new documentary says the late Pope John Paul II was wounded in a second assassination attempt, but the Vatican kept his injury a secret.  According to a top aide, the pope was stabbed by the Spanish priest who lunged at him with a dagger a year after he was shot in Rome.  The attack had been reported, but the pope’s injury was not disclosed until now.

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DEBORAH POTTER:  The Dalai Lama left a hospital in New Delhi this week after undergoing surgery to remove gallstones.  The exiled spiritual leader of Tibet says he’s doing fine.

DALAI LAMA:  The treatment very successful.

POTTER:  The Dalai Lama is 73, and doctors have advised him to get more rest and avoid long trips.
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DEBORAH POTTER:  The old saying “time heals all wounds” doesn’t always apply, especially when it comes to grief.  Grieving is a normal human reaction to loss.  It’s painful.  And it’s hard work.  For some people, the best way to do the hard work of grieving is in the company of others.  Bob Faw found a place in Maine where that work has been going on for more than a dozen years.

BOB FAW:  This is a camp like no other, filled with laughter and beauty — and pain.   A camp named “Ray of Hope” for people grieving the death of a spouse, a child or a friend where they learn how to accept that death and go on.

Michelle Ouellette, for example. Several months ago cancer claimed her favorite aunt Theresa Frost who virtually raised Michelle.

MICHELLE OUELLETTE:  She was my mentor and my best buddy.  She was a one-in-a- million lady and I’ll never have another one like her ever.  I miss her dearly.  I always will.

FAW:  Tammi Hooper knows what that’s like.  Four months ago her singer, songwriting husband James died suddenly at the age of 31.

TAMMI HOOPER:  It is always there — every waking moment.  And for me this is just getting to know other people who feel like I feel.

FAW:  Tammi and Michelle and 35 families, many whose loved ones died unexpectedly, were hurting when they came here, where they were embraced by others who had been hurting.  Dale Marie Clark lost both her husband and her son in the space of just 10 weeks.

DALE MARIE CLARK (Founder, Camp Ray of Hope):  I was shaken to the very core and not sure if I could survive that.

FAW:  What Dale Clark learned, what helped her survive, is what she has been imparting to others since she founded the camp in 1995 as part of the Hospice Volunteers of Waterville, Maine.

Ms. CLARK:  You can give them hope.  You can say I felt the same way, you know I felt the same way.  And it does get better. You know, you do get better. You do get through it.

FAW:  To help them get through it the camp holds support groups and workshops.  In this one, Tammi Hooper fit photographs inside a so-called “memory pillow.”

Ms. HOOPER:  At least I’ll have this to hold on to remember, you know.  But it just gives me something physical to touch.

FAW:  Ten-year-old Julie McConnell thought her mother, who died this year in a motorcycle accident, would have liked the fabric which Julie chose for her memory pillow

JULIE MCCONNELL:  I think it will help a little bit.  Just having her picture inside here, I think that will help.

FAW:  Sometimes the exercises are painful.  In this one, those who are grieving break a clay pot — a pot, shattered, just as their lives have been.

Ms. OUELLETTE:  It tends to signify that, that feeling of just how it feels like somebody is just smashing your whole life apart.  All of a sudden your life is just smashed and you don’t know if you’ll ever be able to put it back together again.

FAW:  Carefully, lovingly, from the broken shards they re-assemble the pot just as they are trying to do with their own lives.

Ms. OUELLETTE:  You’re trying to put your life back together again in as best a fashion as you can.  And you know it will never be the same.

Ms. CLARK:  It’s work.  It’s hard work.  Grief is hard work.  It really is.  It is exhausting and you know, it takes really to be able to be willing and able to share whatever those feelings are or whatever those words are that you need to share.  If you work through those intense, intense feelings in the beginning, then you’re letting go of a little piece of that intense pain.

FAW:  At this Methodist church camp, they are taught to mend what death has broken.  And what they learn is that there is no right or wrong way to grieve — that young or old, male or female, there is no time-table for dealing with death — that everyone handles death differently.

TERRI WARREN:  The books tell you time, time, the whole thing. That everything takes time. They just don’t say how much.

FAW:  This camp has also helped Terri Warren who lost her 17-year-old daughter Savannah six years ago in a car accident, by putting her thoughts into words — what Camp Ray of Hope calls “journaling.”  It has helped her daughter Becca.

BECCA WARREN:  It’s like me speaking to someone.  It’s all the stuff that I can’t say.  I can actually say to the notebooks.

FAW:  And it’s part of healing?

BECCA:  Exactly, that’s what I find it to be.  So, just kind of like a safe harbor.

FAW:  It is different for young children, who often do not understand what “forever” means and think their parent or sibling is going to come back.  Children process death differently, than adults.

DEB CROCKER (Youth Services Coordinator):  They’re not like adults who can just sit in a circle and talk about their loss. So you need to give them things to do and in that midst of talking, of doing an activity, they’ll talk.  They’ll talk about their grief.  They’ll talk about their loss, the person that they lost.

FAW:  So, as they play, they grieve?

Ms. CROCKER:   They do.

FAW:  So here, whether it’s Paige Lilly working on an ornament to celebrate her mother Tara who died from cancer, or during the chaos of an egg-toss, children don’t just release pent-up frustrations, they also acknowledge the loss they are feeling.

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL:  If the person who died was here right now, I would like to get on his lap and have him read me a book.

FAW:  And in this “clown workshop” where Tammi Hooper brings her daughter Emily, children learn that in laughter too there is healing.

MARLENE MYERS (Merry Giggles):   I just believe there is an inside part of you that needs to laugh. And it overcomes sorrow many times.

FAW:  So when you’re sad, it’s OK to laugh? You want them to laugh?

Ms. MYERS:  Yes.  Exactly, yes

FAW:  What all these activities have in common, whether in the quiet moments or in being pampered, is the belief in empathy.

Ms. CLARK:  Most of the time the best thing, the most powerful thing and therapeutic thing that you can do for someone who is in emotional pain is just to listen and witness and validate and not judge.  And through that they’re empowered.

FAW:  A role for empathy and for faith, tested for Dale when tragedy struck and ultimately, affirmed.

Ms. CLARK:  I always believed that there was a god.  But I never really felt the depth of what that faith was until I experienced the death of my husband and son.  And there were times when you didn’t want to live.  You didn’t want to go on, you know.  I would sometimes pray to go to bed at night and not wake up in the morning because those deaths were so painful for me.  But what I did learn through that time, and thank God for it, is that God is always there no matter.

(speaking at worship service):  Divine spirit, on this day I ask for new life.

FAW: A belief which helps explain why this weekend includes a service in the chapel in the pines where prayers are offered as the name of each dead loved one is spoken.

CONGREGATION (praying):  For this, dear God, we pray.

FAW:  Later in a private ceremony, each family releases one monarch butterfly — a symbol that dealing with death is a journey and that they too can be set free.

FAW:  Does the journey ever really end?

SCOTT WARREN:  I don’t believe it does.  This was a tragic event in our life that has changed us all as people.  We’ve had to relearn who we are and where we fit in the world today.

FAW:  But at least at Camp Ray of Hope they too, just like those clay pots, can be put back together again.

TERRI WARREN:  You know, there is part of me that will always be missing.  But the lows that I have are shorter now than they used to be.  The highs are longer.  I find enjoyment in things.

FAW:  So the pain is still there?  You learn to live with it?

TERRI WARREN:  You do. You find, I think, a place for it.

FAW:  You go on?

TERRI WARREN:  You go on.  You do what you have to do.

FAW:  Learning to do so at a camp where the shattered pieces of their lives can be restored and where they emerge stronger in places that were broken.

For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, this is Bob Faw in Winthrop, Maine.

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DEBORAH POTTER:  On our calendar, Monday Baha’is celebrate the birth of the Bab, the first spiritual leader of the faith.  The Bab was born in 1819 in what is now Iran.

And the end of the week-long Jewish observance of Sukkot is followed Tuesday evening by Simchat Torah, which marks the end of the annual Torah-reading cycle, as well as the beginning of a new reading cycle.  Jews often observe the occasion by processing through the streets with the Torah.

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DEBORAH POTTER:  Finally, a judge in Nebraska has thrown out a lawsuit against God.  A state legislator asked for a permanent injunction against God for inspiring fear and causing death and destruction.  But the judge said the case could not go forward, because the defendant could not be served with papers since God has no fixed address.

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DEBORAH POTTER:  That’s our program for now.  I’m Deborah Potter.  There’s much more on our Web site, including additional political coverage on our “One Nation” page.  Audio and video podcasts are also available.  Join us at pbs.org.

And now as we leave you, music from a benefit concert this summer for Covenant House, a New York organization that helps and houses homeless children.  The concert gave some of the young residents a chance to sing with Broadway stars.

###

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Prepared by Burrelle’s Information Services, which takes sole responsibility for accuracy of transcription.  No license is granted to the user of this material other than for research.  User may not reproduce any copy of the material except for user’s personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be reproduced, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any manner that may infringe upon WNET-TV’s copyright or proprietary interests in the material.

Listen to this episode now:
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TRANSCRIPT
Episode 1206

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor:  Coming up, the candidates’ religious beliefs and how they affect their politics.  And, religion and the media — what’s fair to report about a candidate and
What’s not?

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BOB ABERNETHY:  Welcome.  I’m Bob Abernethy.  It’s good to have you with us.

As the financial crisis spread around the world, religious leaders warned of its looming impact on charitable giving and on the growing number of the poor.  Pope Benedict saw in the crisis a reminder that what’s most real and trustworthy is not the material, but the spiritual.

The plight of the world’s economies, and what to do about it, dominated the second debate between Senators Obama and McCain.

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BOB ABERNETHY:  Religion’s role in the campaign is at the center of our program today, beginning with a special report from Kim Lawton on the religious beliefs of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates, back-to-back.

KIM LAWTON:  All four candidates describe themselves as Christians, but they talk about their faith — and apply it to their politics — in very different ways.

Barack Obama has been the most outspoken about matters of faith, even though a survey last month found that 46 percent of Americans were still unable to correctly identify him as a Christian.

Obama says he was not raised in a religious household.  But when he arrived in Chicago as a young community organizer, he says he realized something was missing from his life.  He visited Trinity United Church of Christ and went forward during an altar call given by its controversial pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

Senator BARACK OBAMA (D-IL):  The skeptical bent of my mind didn’t suddenly vanish. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt I heard God’s spirit beckoning me.  I submitted myself to His will  and dedicated myself to discovering His truths and carrying out His works.

LAWTON:  Obama easily offers testimony about what that means to him.

Sen. OBAMA (at Saddleback Church):  I believe in, that Jesus Christ died for my sins and that I am redeemed through him.  That is a source of strength and sustenance on a daily basis. I know that I don’t walk alone.

LAWTON:  Obama believes that his personal spiritual journey has public consequences and he often talks about the importance of putting faith into action.

Sen. OBAMA:  That I could sit in church and pray all I want, I wouldn’t be fulfilling God’s will unless I went out and did the Lord’s work.

LAWTON:  Reverend Adam Hamilton is author of a book about religion and politics called “Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White.”  He says Obama embodies several streams of Protestantism.

Reverend ADAM HAMILTON (Author, “Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White”):  He’s a picture of what mainline Protestantism, I think, should strive to be.  And that is somebody who does have an evangelical experience of Christ, a personal walk with Christ, and a compelling desire to work for justice.

LAWTON:  Obama often cites Scripture in outlining his agenda.

Sen. OBAMA:  We need to heed the biblical call to care for “the least of these” and lift the poor out of despair.

LAWTON:  He says that’s something he learned from Jeremiah Wright during his more than 20 years of membership at Trinity UCC.  But earlier this year, after months of controversy surrounding Wright, Obama formally cut ties with the church.  An aide says Obama and his family have been visiting a variety of congregations on the campaign trail and will select a new home church after the election.

Faith may cause divisions, but Obama says it can also play a key role in bringing Americans together.

Sen. OBAMA:  What is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand:  that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.  Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us.  Let us be our sister’s keeper.  Let us find that common stake we all have in one another.

LAWTON:  John McCain has said faith was important to his family when he was growing up, but they didn’t talk much about it.  He still doesn’t.  Nancy Pfotenhauer is one of McCain’s senior advisors.

NANCY PFOTENHAUER (Senior Advisor, McCain Campaign):   I think it is sometimes a challenge to get Senator McCain to open up about his journey and in part because he, I think he considers those acts to be, if you will, quiet acts of courage and faith.

LAWTON:  McCain was raised in the Episcopal Church and attended an Episcopal school in Virginia.  He learned the Anglican liturgy and memorized the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, two of the oldest statements of traditional Christian doctrine.  McCain says he drew heavily on those for spiritual strength during his captivity in North Vietnam.

Senator JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ):  I had to have faith in something greater than myself, not only to survive, but to survive with my self-respect intact.

LAWTON:  For nearly 20 years, the McCain family has attended the North Phoenix Baptist Church in Arizona, although McCain spends much of his time in Washington.  McCain has never officially joined the North Phoenix congregation because he has not been baptized as an adult, something Baptists require.

During a candidates’ forum at Saddleback Church in California in August, Pastor Rick Warren asked McCain what his relationship with Jesus means to him.

Sen. MCCAIN (during Candidates Forum at Saddleback Church):  It means I’m saved and forgiven, and we’re talking about the world, our faith encompasses not just the United States of America, but the world.

LAWTON:  McCain has spoken with several high-profile religious leaders, but it’s not clear whether he gets personal spiritual counsel from them.  At a pro-Israel event in 2007, the senator suggested he did receive such advice from evangelical megachurch leader John Hagee.

Sen. MCCAIN:  And I thank you for your spiritual guidance to politicians like me who need it fairly often.  It’s hard trying to do the Lord’s work in the city of Satan.

LAWTON:  Nonetheless, earlier this year, McCain rejected Hagee’s endorsement because of controversy surrounding past statements the pastor made about Catholics and about the Holocaust.

McCain hasn’t spoken much about how his faith affects his policy positions, except when it comes to abortion.

Sen. MCCAIN: The consistent message of the Gospels calls us to recognize that all life is sacred because all human beings are created in the image of God.

LAWTON:  He does frequently link his faith with his patriotism.

Sen. MCCAIN:  Faith in my comrades, faith in my country and faith in my God.   That faith helped me not only to endure, but to understand and respect the values it encompassed.

LAWTON:  McCain frequently tells a story from his days in the North Vietnamese prison camp.

Sen. MCCAIN:  I was standing outside of my cell, and who comes walking up and stood next to me but the gun guard. And then with his sandal, in the dirt, he reached down and he drew a cross.  And he stood there for about a minute and then he reached down and rubbed it out of the dirt and walked away. For a minute there, there was just two Christians worshipping together.  I’ll never forget that moment.

Senator JOE BIDEN (D-DE):  John held a press conference saying we’re in an economic crisis.  We Catholics call that an epiphany.

LAWTON:  On the campaign trail, Joe Biden frequently identifies himself as a Roman Catholic, but he rarely speaks in-depth about religious issues.

TOM BROKAW (Moderator, “Meet the Press”):  You’ve talked often about your faith and the strength of your feelings about your faith.

Sen. BIDEN:  Actually, I haven’t talked often about my faith.  I seldom talk about my faith.

Sister SIMONE CAMPBELL (National Coordinator, NETWORK Lobby):  We Catholics don’t talk a lot about it.  It’s been hard for us to learn how to talk about our faith in a public forum because we believe that it’s the living of our faith is the key issue.  But what I’ve seen in Senator Biden has been quite touching.

LAWTON:  Sister Simone Campbell is national coordinator for NETWORK, a Catholic social justice lobby group.  She works on Capitol Hill and has known Biden for several years.

Sr. CAMPBELL:  His faith, I think, has done a couple of things.  One is it has sustained him in hard times; but it’s also given him a sense of caring for those who live at the margins of our society, and trying to make our nation a nation of peace-making.

LAWTON:  Biden spent his early childhood in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where St. Paul’s Catholic Church was a central part of his family’s life.  He went to Catholic schools and even briefly considered becoming a priest.

In his book “Promises to Keep,” he wrote: “My idea of self, of family, of community, of the wider world comes straight from my religion.”  He attends mass nearly every Sunday and says he carries a rosary.

But Biden has been in conflict with the Catholic Church over the issue of abortion.  Earlier this year, the U.S. Catholic bishops took him to task for what they called his “flawed moral reasoning” in saying he’s personally opposed to abortion but supports a woman’s right to choose.

Sen. BIDEN:  I’m prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception.  But that is my judgment.  For me to impose that judgment on everyone else who is equally and maybe even more devout than I am, seems to me is inappropriate in a pluralistic society.

LAWTON:  Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput and several other bishops said because of those views, Biden should not seek Communion.

Archbishop CHARLES CHAPUT (Archdiocese of Denver):  He really should change his mind if he says he’s a Catholic. He should believe what the Catholic Church believes.

LAWTON:  Sister Simone Campbell says Biden has been a leader is promoting the Catholic concept of seeking the common good.  And she says he has applied other elements of Catholic social teaching, such as pursing peace and helping the poor.

Sr. CAMPBELL:  He wants things solved and done. And I think his faith helps create an urgency in him for responding to the needs of those — especially those who live at the economic margins of our society.

Sen. BIDEN:  The 92nd Psalm we use as a Communion hymn in our church:  “And may he lift you up on eagles’ wings and bear you on the breadth of dawn and make the light the shine upon you.”  Folks, as corny as it sounds, it’s within our capacity to lift us up, to let the light shine on corners of the country where people have been left behind.

LAWTON:  Church has played an important role in Sarah Palin’s life, although she too has been very private about her personal faith.  As an infant, Palin was baptized a Roman Catholic, but then her parents began attending the Wasilla Assembly of God Church.  That local congregation is part of the Assemblies of God, an international Pentecostal denomination, which has a conservative evangelical theology and emphasizes manifestations of the Holy Spirit.

KAYLENE JOHNSON (Biographer):  It was really the fabric of their social life and their faith life really informed who they were and how they lived their lives.

LAWTON:  Fellow Wasilla resident Kaylene Johnson wrote a biography of Palin.  She says
Palin’s beliefs were reinforced from a young age through Christian clubs and Bible camp where Palin asked to be re-baptized.

Ms. JOHNSON:  Sarah Palin was baptized when she was 12 years old in the little Beaver Lake outside of Wasilla here.  And she took that commitment of her baptism very seriously from the time she was a girl.

LAWTON:  Palin and her family continued attending Wasilla Assembly of God until 2002.  Since then, they’ve attended several other evangelical churches, most frequently, Wasilla Bible Church, a nondenominational congregation.

McCain campaign officials say Palin does not consider herself a Pentecostal.  And they are angered by questions about whether she has ever had the Pentecostal experience of speaking in tongues.

Palin’s specific beliefs are unclear.  During a June 2008 visit to the Wasilla Assembly of God, Palin asked the audience to pray for her son and other men and women in the military.

Governor SARAH PALIN:  (from YouTube video):  We’re sending them on a task that is from God.  That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for — that there is a plan and that plan is God’s plan.

LAWTON:  ABC’s Charlie Gibson asked her what she meant by that.

Gov. PALIN (during ABC News interview:  The reference there is a repeat of Abraham Lincoln’s words when he said, first he suggested, never presume to know what God’s will is.  And I would never presume to know God’s will or to speak God’s words.  But what Abraham Lincoln had said, and that’s a repeat in my comments, was “Let us not pray that God is on our side in a war or any other time, but let us pray that we are on God’s side.”

LAWTON:  Johnson says Palin incorporates that kind of prayer in her own life.

Ms. JOHNSON:  She really commits her decisions, and the decisions she makes, to God.

Gov.  PALIN:  We are expected to govern with integrity and good will and clear convictions and a servant’s heart.

LAWTON:  During her political career in Alaska, and on the campaign trail now, she has made few overt statements about religion.  Like her running mate, she does express the belief that America was created for a special purpose.

Gov.  PALIN:  That world view that says that America is a nation of exceptionalism, and we are to be that shining city on a hill.

LAWTON:  Does it matter what a candidate believes?  According to an August survey from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, nearly half of all Americans say they get uncomfortable when politicians talk about how religious they are.  But at the same time, more than 70 percent of Americans say they do want a president with strong religious beliefs.

I’m Kim Lawton in Washington.

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BOB ABERNETHY:  We examine now how the media should cover candidates. Should religious beliefs — or anything else — be off limits:  a candidate’s family, personal life, pastor?

Michael Getler is a longtime correspondent and editor at The Washington Post.  He’s now the ombudsman for PBS.  Tom Rosenstiel directs the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism in Washington.  He’s co-author of the widely used textbook, “The Elements of Journalism.”  And Kelly McBride heads the ethics department at the Poynter Institute in Florida, which trains journalists.  She joins us from Tampa.

Welcome to you all.  Kelly, some candidates say, or used to say, that their religious beliefs are their private business.  You say it’s important to report what those beliefs are.  Why?

KELLY MCBRIDE (Ethics Department, The Poynter Institute):  Well, I think religion is important in American life.  We’re a very religious country.  Everybody has some form of belief system.  And I think to examine that belief system and how it informs a political candidate and how he or she might make decisions is information that voters deserve to know.

ABERNETHY:  How a person in office might be guided by religious beliefs in decision making?

Ms. MCBRIDE:  Yes, or not guided.  I don’t think we should presume that a certain theology dictates that a candidate who belongs to that church would act in a certain way.  But I think it’s entirely appropriate to ask the question.

ABERNETHY:  Tom Rosenstiel, how are we doing this year?

TOM ROSENSTIEL (Director, Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism and Co-Author, “The Elements of Journalism”):  Well there is no systematic coverage or examination of the belief systems of these candidates . . .

ABERNETHY:  Why not?

Mr. ROSENSTIEL:  . . . when it comes to their religion.  What we’re seeing is episodic coverage that — Mitt Romney will give a speech about his religion, or tapes will come out of Obama’s pastor or from Palin’s church.  And often the coverage of that relates to the political impact of how they deal with these tempests.  The reason for that is, I think, twofold: one is that we have political writers covering these candidates, not people who understand the nuance of religion; it’s not, however, because the candidates don’t want to talk about this stuff.  Barack Obama’s made a special effort I think this year to talk about faith in his life because he thought that this was a failing of Democrats that was limiting their appeal.

ABERNETHY: Michael?

MICHAEL GETLER (PBS Ombudsman):  I’m sorry, I was going to say I think it’s also —while it’s very important to focus on this as Kelly pointed out originally — it’s also good to keep in mind that there are millions of people who are not terribly religious in this country and other religions that are not mainstream.   And, too much of a focus on it, it seems to me, works against people who may be very good at what they do.  They may be very good politicians.  They may be very good at governance.  And yet, for somehow the religious issue becomes almost too prominent.  So that bothers me a little bit.

ABERNETHY:  And is anything off limits in terms of religion and everything else but a personal life?  Is anything off limits anymore?  What about . . .

Mr. GETLER:  Yes, there are things that are off limits.  But it’s less than it use to be.  I mean, I think part of the understanding that is that the press is no longer the way it used to be.  It used to be just a couple of major newspapers and magazines and wire services and whatnot.  Now it’s an enormous world including the internet, which is just vast, and cable television and everything else.  So where they used to be gatekeepers, which was The New York Times and The Washington Post and AP and others, those newspapers try to stick to their same standards but it’s very hard to do that now because information comes out all over the place and it’s very, very —so there are things that should be off limits — but it’s very hard to keep them off limits.

Mr. ROSENSTEIL:   I would say in presidential politics there really is no zone of privacy anymore.  The one exception to this that is sort of holding is children.  Politicians will use their kids and their families as visual images.  We see that all the time.  But the press proactively examining the backgrounds and experiences of children is still the one area.  But in terms of anything else about a public figure and his or her life, I think there is no zone of privacy.  There is less of an appetite among these mainstream outlets that Mike’s talking about to get into it.  But they will now be pushed into it.

ABERNETHY:  Kelly, what have you seen in this campaign about the way in which things relating to religion or privacy were reported?   I’m thinking about the way everybody was fascinated by Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Obama’s relationship to him — about . . .

Ms. MCBRIDE:  Yeah, I think . . .

ABERNETHY:  Go ahead.

Ms. MCBRIDE:  I think most of the reporting on religious issues has had a distorting effect.  Most of the time in a political campaign when the media does focus on a religious issue, it’s as a distortion, or something that’s exotic or weird.  So, Reverend Wright was outside of the mainstream belief system.  And there was a lot of focus on him and what the implication might be for Barack Obama when, in fact, Obama had spent weeks and months describing how his personal belief system and his faith guided him and influenced him.  And Wright’s behavior and his theology, his belief system, was really not much of a part of that.  But because of the focus on that, it ended up distorting in the public’s mind Obama’s belief system.  And I think you can say that almost every time.

ABERNETHY:  And Mormons — Mitt Romney and Mormons, Tom, wasn’t that . . .?

Ms. MCBRIDE:  Mormons, yeah, Mormons and Mitt Romney; in Sarah Palin’s case, her previous life as a Pentecostal — all of that, extremely distorting.

Mr. ROSENSTEIL:  And a lot of this is because politics is about comfort: am I comfortable with this person; are they like me; will they understand me — particularly as we get to the general election phase when people who are not political junkies begin to check in and make decisions.

Mr. GETLER:  Also Bob, in the past again, you would hear about this on your evening news broadcast, or you would read about it in your morning paper.  Now you can see it a hundred times a day and it adds to that sense of tension over it.

ABERNETHY:  And what about the coverage of John Edwards’ affair?  What did you make of that?  Was it fair?

Mr. GETLER:  Well, it was certainly fair once he acknowledged it on television.  As you know, The National Enquirer pursued and broke the story, and eventually.  But the main newspapers and magazines really did not cover it.  And they didn’t actually even pursue it much, which I think was wrong.  I think Edwards is a major national figure and there was some reporting, as the Charlotte Observer showed, that you could do on public records that would at least move this story forward.

Mr. ROSENSTEIL:  What the press needs to do is in this environment, the mainstream reportorial press, is to be actually more aggressive about these things.  Otherwise the agenda will be set by outlets and forces that don’t have the kind of professional standards that I think we would hope for.

ABERNETHY:  More aggressive about what — about personal behavior?

Mr. ROSENSTEIL:  About reporting allegations about personal behavior and then coming to a judgment — a professional journalistic judgment — about whether this is relevant or not.  If they don’t report these things then others will and they’ll be reacting and writing about stuff that they might otherwise have said, “No.  We’ve looked into it and this isn’t relevant.”  The traditional press still has the power to take things off the table.  This has happened numerous times.  The Washington Post and Bob Dole said, “We’ve looked into it.  It’s not relevant.”  And that was the end of that.  The rest of the press followed that lead.

Mr. GETLER:  Yeah, that’s the difference between reporting and publishing.  And right now the resources are diminished in a lot of papers, so that, I think, is a factor as well.

ABERNETHY:  Michael Getler, Tom Rosenstiel, Kelly McBride, thanks to you all.

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BOB ABERNETHY:  In other news this week, Connecticut’s Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have the right to marry.  The court said the state’s marriage law discriminated against gays.  Until now, same-sex marriage has been legal only in Massachusetts and California.

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BOB ABERNETHY:  The Dalai Lama is recovering from gallstone surgery.  The spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism and the winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize underwent the surgery Friday at a hospital in New Delhi.  It’s the second time in recent weeks that the 73-year-old has been hospitalized.

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BOB ABERNETHY:  There has been a dramatic apology from the Episcopal Church for its role in slavery.  During a solemn service of repentance, Episcopal leaders asked forgiveness for the denomination’s participation in slavery, segregation, and discrimination.  Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told the crowd of hundreds at the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in Philadelphia that church members had, quote, “ignored the image of Christ in our neighbors.
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BOB ABERNETHY:  In London, the Catholic Church has had to abandon plans to move the remains of a revered 19th century cardinal from a humble graveyard to a marble sarcophagus.  When officials tried to exhume the body of Cardinal John Henry Newman, all they found in his grave were red tassels from the cardinal’s hat and a brass plaque.  Experts said that because Newman was buried in a wooden coffin in 1890, his remains likely disintegrated.  Meanwhile, church officials said the discovery will not affect efforts to name Newman a saint.

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BOB ABERNETHY:  On our calendar Sukkot.  The seven-day Jewish observance begins at sundown Monday.  Jews honor their ancestors’ 40 years of wandering in the desert by
building a fragile structure called a sukkah, which they use for prayers and meals.

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BOB ABERNETHY:  That’s our program for now.  I’m Bob Abernethy.

There’s much more on our Web site.  On our “One Nation” page there’s additional political coverage and analysis of the economic crisis.  Audio and video podcasts are also available.  Join us at pbs.org.

As we leave you, music from the Episcopal service of repentance last weekend in Philadelphia.

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