{"id":1130,"date":"2008-09-19T13:41:09","date_gmt":"2008-09-19T17:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/?p=1130"},"modified":"2013-05-29T11:22:23","modified_gmt":"2013-05-29T15:22:23","slug":"episode-no-1203-listen-now-read-the-transcript","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2008\/09\/19\/episode-no-1203-listen-now-read-the-transcript\/1130\/","title":{"rendered":"Listen Now \/ Read the Transcript"},"content":{"rendered":"

Listen to this episode now:<\/strong>
\n[powerpress]
\nTRANSCRIPT
\nEpisode 1203<\/strong><\/p>\n

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor:\u00a0 Coming up \u2014 ethics and the Wall Street crisis.\u00a0 We explore whether anyone was to blame.\u00a0 And if so, who?<\/p>\n

Also, Barefoot College in India where illiterate women learn enough engineering to light up their villages with solar power.<\/p>\n

And Christian and Muslim scholars exploring how the people of their religions can learn to live together without war.<\/p>\n

Professor MIROSLAV VOLF (Director, Center for Faith and Culture, Yale Divinity School):\u00a0 We will either love each other as neighbors, or we won\u2019t be.<\/p>\n

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BOB ABERNETHY:\u00a0 Welcome.\u00a0 I\u2019m Bob Abernethy, it\u2019s good to have you with us.<\/p>\n

Amid a week of economic turmoil, religious voices are rallying for America\u2019s poor and most vulnerable.\u00a0 Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders gathered in Washington to lobby Congress and the presidential candidates to enact protections for families who\u2019ve been hardest hit.\u00a0 They said the combination of rising fuel and food prices and the downturn in the nation\u2019s economy are pushing more and more people into poverty.<\/p>\n

Reverend LARRY SNYDER (Catholic Charities):\u00a0 All those things are combining to show that people are coming to us in greater numbers for just the basic necessities.<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0 We\u2019ll have more on ethics and the Wall Street turmoil later in the program.<\/p>\n

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BOB ABERNETHY:\u00a0 Also this week, faith leaders called for increased attention to the suffering caused by Hurricane Ike.\u00a0 More than 50 people died and millions remain without power and with only limited access to food.\u00a0 A hundred and eight prominent religious voices signed an interfaith statement calling for the government to provide both short and long-term recovery on the Gulf Coast.\u00a0 Faith-based groups have also been active in the relief effort.\u00a0 One Baptist minister said religious groups have been essential in helping people cope with their losses.
\nPastor Robert Blakes leads congregations in New Orleans and Houston and has now seen both of them devastated by hurricanes.<\/p>\n

Pastor ROBERT BLAKES (New Home Ministries):\u00a0 We have had experiences in the congregation where we\u2019ve had to kind of deal with people and talk them out, you know, just severe bouts of depression and anxiety, a lot of that.<\/p>\n

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\nBOB ABERNETHY:\u00a0 Episcopal Bishops have ousted an influential conservative bishop, escalating tensions within the U.S. Episcopal Church.\u00a0 The vote was 88-to-35 to remove Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan from ministry.\u00a0 Duncan had previously announced plans to have his diocese secede from the U.S. church because of disagreements with its stance on homosexuality and scriptural interpretations.<\/p>\n

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BOB ABERNETHY:\u00a0 Now, the financial crisis:\u00a0 more failures, fears, realignment, layoffs on Wall Street, with consequences around the world.\u00a0 Is anyone to blame?\u00a0 We explore the ethical issues underlying the financial meltdown with Rebecca Blank, an economist, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-author of the book, \u201cIs the Market Moral?\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Blank, welcome.<\/p>\n

REBECCA BLANK (Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution and Co-author, \u201cIs the Market Moral\u201d?):\u00a0 Thank you.<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0 So, in the movie \u201cWall Street,\u201d we were told that \u201cgreed is good.\u201d\u00a0 If that\u2019s true to what extent was greed responsible for all that\u2019s happened?<\/p>\n

Dr. BLANK:\u00a0 Greed is clearly partially responsible for where we are right now.\u00a0 But greed is good to most economists.\u00a0 It\u2019s greed that makes people work harder, be more productive and helps the economy grow.<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0 Greed is good even though it\u2019s a sin?<\/p>\n

Dr. BLANK:\u00a0 Yeah, well greed has certain economic advantages.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard for an economist not to say that.\u00a0 But, there\u2019s a level by one in which greed can go too far.\u00a0\u00a0 And I being greedy for more goods and to make another buck can stop paying attention to the effects of my action on you.\u00a0 And that is when greed clearly becomes sinful, even I think in the economic books and can lead to the sort of situation that we\u2019re in right now.<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0 And that\u2019s what happened in these cases.\u00a0 People were, traders were encouraged to take big risks and not pay attention to all the costs that there would be for people down the line if those risks didn\u2019t pay off.<\/p>\n

Dr. BLANK:\u00a0 That\u2019s certainly true in part, but I will also say that there was also culture where what those traders were doing was what everyone in all the cubicles next to them were doing. And, you know, there\u2019s always the question of, \u201cto what extent is that an excuse \u2014 and a justifiable excuse?\u201d\u00a0 There were also a lot of people at the very beginning of this \u2014 the whole sub-prime crisis that started this off \u2014 who saw themselves as providing more funds for low-income families.\u00a0 They were doing a good thing.\u00a0 So, motives here are very mixed.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s hard to say this is all about greed.<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0 What about justice?\u00a0 Was there injustice involved?<\/p>\n

Dr. BLANK:\u00a0 So, you know, we love a world in which the people in the white hats get rewarded and the people in the black hats pay the price.\u00a0 And that I have to say doesn\u2019t happen very often, particularly in a very complex economy.\u00a0 We\u2019re in a time of panic right now where people have lost trust in what the banks are doing, what the investment firms are doing \u2014 lost trust beyond a level of reasonableness, to be honest.\u00a0 And, it\u2019s got to be stopped.\u00a0 And, you know, taking in account that fear and panic in many ways is more important than assigning blame one way or the other.<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0\u00a0 We all do want to assign blame though.<\/p>\n

Dr. BLANK:\u00a0 Yes, we sure do.<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0\u00a0 We look for villains.\u00a0 Are there no villains in this?<\/p>\n

Dr. BLANK:\u00a0 Yes, I do think there are a few villains, but it\u2019s probably too strong a word.\u00a0 There is you say, there are leadership particularly in some of these banks that were not open at all about what they were doing and how they were bundling . . .<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0\u00a0 Did they understand what they were doing?\u00a0 Is there a question of competence here?<\/p>\n

Dr. BLANK:\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s an open question.\u00a0 I think that is part of a question.\u00a0 There\u2019s also a real question on the part of regulation.\u00a0 You know, there were no requirements here for greater openness and greater transparency and of course that\u2019s now what\u2019s being called for.\u00a0 But that should have been called for long ago.\u00a0 And it is the role of government to create, if you will, responsible greed to keep boundaries around what people do.<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0 Government perhaps?\u00a0 And how about the boards of directors and the people who are running some of these companies?<\/p>\n

Dr. BLANK:\u00a0 No, I think there is certainly leadership questions here about competence and understanding and not paying attention to the risks that they were taking.<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0\u00a0 And trying to put some limit on the greed?<\/p>\n

Dr. BLANK:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 And of course if you ask these people three and four years ago, \u201cHow do you justify multimillion dollar salaries and huge bonuses?,\u201d their answer would have been, \u201cWe are in a high-risk industry, so we deserve this.\u201d\u00a0 Under those circumstances you then can\u2019t feel very sorry when they lose at the other side of the risk.\u00a0 But of course, there are a lot of people who weren\u2019t in a high-risk industry who are also losing the clerical people, the maintenance folks.<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0\u00a0 Rebecca Blank of the Brookings Institution, many thanks.<\/p>\n

Dr. BLANK:\u00a0 Thank you.<\/p>\n

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *<\/p>\n

BOB ABERNETHY:\u00a0 We have a story today about a remarkable project in India that teaches rural, usually illiterate women enough engineering so they can construct, install and maintain solar power in their villages.\u00a0 But, a warning:\u00a0 there is material here that may be disturbing to men, who are said to be un-trainable and interested only in moving to the big city.
\nFred de Sam Lazaro reports from Barefoot College in the Indian state of Rajasthan.<\/p>\n

FRED DE SAM LAZARO:\u00a0 The students are mostly women.\u00a0 Some are grandmothers.\u00a0 Hundreds have come through here from villages across India and a dozen other countries to learn how to install and maintain solar energy in rural areas.<\/p>\n

Even though it\u2019s sophisticated coursework, the only pre-requisite for admission to the Barefoot College is that there are no pre-requisites, not even to speak the language.<\/p>\n

Until we arrived with a translator, these Mauritanian women \u2014 who\u2019d been here four months \u2014hadn\u2019t spoken to anyone else in Arabic, the only language they know.\u00a0 But language is not a barrier to learning, says the College\u2019s founder.<\/p>\n

BUNKER ROY (Founder, Barefoot College):\u00a0 Our job is to show how it is possible to take an illiterate woman and make her into an engineer in six months and show that she can solar-electrify a village.<\/p>\n

DE SAM LAZARO:\u00a0 Bunker Roy, a social activist influenced by Gandhi, founded the Barefoot College in 1972.\u00a0 He wanted to use traditional knowledge and sustainable technology to help this impoverished desert region.\u00a0 It began with basics, like finding safe drinking water, then several years later, solar energy.<\/p>\n

Mr. ROY:\u00a0 In 1986, no one ever thought of solar electrification.\u00a0 It was far too expensive.\u00a0 But today we have 50 kilowatts of panels on our roofs.\u00a0 All our 20, 30 computers, electronic machines, telephone exchange \u2014 all work off solar.<\/p>\n

DE SAM LAZARO:\u00a0 Today solar energy drives not just the equipment.\u00a0 This is a larger social experiment to improve the lives of some of the world\u2019s poorest people.\u00a0 It begins in the classroom run by instructors who themselves have little or no formal education.\u00a0 Instruction is delivered with a mix of body language, a few essential terms in English, and lots of hands-on practice.<\/p>\n

The students create an illustrated manual they\u2019ll take home.\u00a0 It\u2019s the closest thing to a diploma certifying their training as solar technicians.\u00a0 But just coming here is an unlikely achievement for students like 56 year-old Sarka Mussara, a widowed grandmother.\u00a0 She\u2019d never attended school or even left her village in the West African nation of Mauritania.<\/p>\n

SARKA MUSSARA (Student, through translator):\u00a0 At first we did not even have a passport.\u00a0 We started little-by-little learning the solar energy system.\u00a0 Day-by-day and little-by-little we were able to put things together.<\/p>\n

Mr. ROY (talking with students): I have been to two villages in Mauritania\u2026<\/p>\n

DE SAM LAZARO:\u00a0 Roy was educated at elite Indian schools, on a path to medicine or diplomatic service, before he founded the Barefoot College.\u00a0 The idea of self reliant learning was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi; also by a legendary American.<\/p>\n

Mr. ROY:\u00a0 Well, it\u2019s Mark Twain who said, \u201cNever let school interfere with your education.\u201d School is something that you learn reading and writing.\u00a0 Education is what you learn from the family, from the environment, from the community.<\/p>\n

DE SAM LAZARO:\u00a0 Using grants from the U.N. and private foundations, Roy travels extensively in developing countries, seeking potential students.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t want city dwellers or \u2014 unless they are physically handicapped \u2014 men.<\/p>\n

Mr. ROY:\u00a0 We\u2019ve come to the sad conclusion men are un-trainable.\u00a0 They expect too much.\u00a0 They are restless.\u00a0 If they\u2019re young, they\u2019re impatient.\u00a0 The first thing they ask even before the training starts is, \u201cDo I get a certificate?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 They will use that certificate to get the worst job possible in a city.\u00a0 Whereas, if we take middle-aged grandmothers to be trained I don\u2019t have that problem of migration.<\/p>\n

DE SAM LAZARO:\u00a0 Their new skills and income should improve these women\u2019s standing at home and in the community \u2014 communities that, like much of the developing world are not electrified.<\/p>\n

Mr. ROY (to students, through translator): How many houses are in the town?<\/p>\n

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN STUDENT #1: About 500 people.<\/p>\n

Mr. ROY:\u00a0 500.<\/p>\n

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN STUDENT #2 (speaking to Mr. Roy, through translator):\u00a0 May God reward you for what you have done because those people did not have any light and now they will have light.<\/p>\n

DE SAM LAZARO:\u00a0 And these women will have an income installing and maintaining solar systems.\u00a0 They are a common sight in villages near the Barefoot campus where people have replaced lanterns that use dirtier and more expensive fuels.<\/p>\n

Mr. ROY:\u00a0 We said they should pay as much as you pay today for kerosene, for wood, for batteries, for torches, for candles \u2014 comes to about $5 a month.\u00a0 They\u2019re willing to pay $5 a month for the use of a solar light.<\/p>\n

DE SAM LAZARO:\u00a0 Solar has opened new opportunities for work and study, especially for girls. In both the majority Hindu and minority Muslim communities here, girls have traditionally been restricted to household chores.<\/p>\n

Mr. ROY:\u00a0 It is the girls who go and graze the cattle and graze the goats and the sheep. There is a feeling in the family that the boys should be getting better education \u2014 better education, whatever that means.\u00a0 So we started the night schools of Tilonia in 1975, purely from the point of view of attracting more girls who graze cattle in the morning to come to school at night.<\/p>\n

DE SAM LAZARO:\u00a0 Today some 7,000 children attend night school, here and across rural north India.\u00a0 In song, these girls plead to their parents to allow them to study, to delay marriage until they turn the legal age of 18.\u00a0 That law is frequently ignored in rural society<\/p>\n

PUPPETEER (during performance speaking with kids, through translator): OK, eight and five make how much.<\/p>\n

KIDS (through translator): 13.<\/p>\n

PUPPETEER:\u00a0 And 10 plus three?<\/p>\n

KIDS (through translator): 13.<\/p>\n

DE SAM LAZARO:\u00a0 Entertainment programs promote the Barefoot College and encourage children to attend school.\u00a0 There have also been various other campaigns to promote public health and citizen demands for government transparency.\u00a0 The new economic activity seems to be eroding social barriers.\u00a0 For example, several women work to create solar stoves, a Barefoot College enterprise.\u00a0 The solar cookers made at the Barefoot College are a simple but precisely engineered contraption.\u00a0 These mirrors track and capture the sun\u2019s energy and direct it to a cooker, which really cooks!<\/p>\n

For these technicians, most with little or no formal education, working here means they can hope for better things for their children.<\/p>\n

SITA DEVI (Solar Technician, trough translator):\u00a0 My daughter must be educated.\u00a0 She will be able to do things, to progress so much faster than I can because of going to school more.\u00a0 For me, for example, it takes so much more time to measure out three centimeters when I\u2019m welding here.\u00a0\u00a0 Whereas someone who is educated could do it in no time.<\/p>\n

SHAHNAZ BANU (Solar Technician, through translator): In our village, in our community, women were not allowed outside the house.\u00a0 My husband was reluctant.\u00a0 But I said, \u201cIf we stay behind the veil we won\u2019t have anything to eat.\u201d\u00a0 Some people object to women working but if we can add income to the household that\u2019s a good thing, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

DE SAM LAZARO:\u00a0 Roy says a key to sustaining rural jobs and development is to use technology that can be managed by the local community, like solar lanterns and technology that\u2019s more familiar like rainwater collectors.<\/p>\n

Mr. ROY:\u00a0 All the roofs of this whole campus are connected underground to a 400,000 liter tank. We collect every drop of rain that walks, that falls on the campus.<\/p>\n

DE SAM LAZARO:\u00a0 For Roy, decentralization is the key. It\u2019s a departure from the typical approach of aid agencies, which he says want to bring big infrastructure and big ideas created by outside experts.<\/p>\n

Mr. ROY: If you ask an engineer what they think is the solution, they’ll have one power plant of five kilowatts that you saw on the roofs of the campus and then have transmission lines going to the houses, centralized.\u00a0 We say \u201cno.\u201d\u00a0 The solution is decentralized right down to the household level, where the house actually maintains and looks after the solar unit.\u00a0 It shouldn’t be centralized.\u00a0 Any technology that brings in dependency on anybody on the outside is not a technology that will work.<\/p>\n

DE SAM LAZARO:\u00a0 So far, Barefoot College has solar electrified some 350 villages across India and dozens more in Sub-Saharan Africa and even war-torn Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, this is Fred De Sam Lazaro in Rajasthan, India.<\/p>\n

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BOB ABERNETHY:\u00a0 Europeans have an increasingly negative view of both Jews and Muslims, according to the Global Attitudes survey by the Pew Research Center.\u00a0 The new analysis found that Spain showed the largest jump in anti-Semitism.\u00a0 Forty-six percent rated Jews unfavorably, up from about 21 percent three years ago.\u00a0 In Russia and Poland, anti-Semitic attitudes grew from about a quarter three years ago to more than a third today.<\/p>\n

Negative attitudes toward Muslims were even more prevalent.\u00a0 Half the respondents in Spain and many rated Muslims unfavorably.\u00a0 More than a third did so in France.<\/p>\n

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BOB ABERNETHY:\u00a0 Especially since 9-11, major Christian and Muslim scholars and religious officials have been working together to find ways believers in each religion can live side by side in peace.<\/p>\n

Next month at the Vatican, the Pope is due to meet leading Muslims.\u00a0 This past summer, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia sponsored an interfaith conference in Spain.\u00a0 More such conferences are scheduled in Britain, Jordan and Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

And at Yale University recently there was a major week-long gathering of top Muslim and primarily Protestant leaders.<\/p>\n

Nearly 150 Muslim and Christian scholars from 37 countries were invited to the Yale conference by its co-organizers, Professor Miroslav Volf of the Yale Divinity School and Prince Ghazi of Jordan, religious adviser to Jordan\u2019s king.<\/p>\n

What they called the \u201cCommon Word\u201d that united them was love of God and love of neighbor.\u00a0 They also acknowledged their common fear of the catastrophe that could occur if Christians and Muslims \u2014 half the world\u2019s population \u2014 became enemies.<\/p>\n

Professor MIROSLAV VOLF (Director, Center for Faith and Culture, Yale Divinity School):\u00a0 If we don\u2019t learn to live with one another we will not live.\u00a0 We will either love each other as neighbors or we won\u2019t be.\u00a0 I believe that it is an insult to me as a Christian to say that I cannot love as neighbor somebody who thinks differently than I do.\u00a0 Where did we ever get that idea?<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0 The Christian and Muslim scholars spoke openly not only about the ideas they share but about their big, sometimes clashing differences, practical and theological.\u00a0 For instance, over the nature of God, Muslims disagree strongly with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity \u2014 God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n

Dr. SAYYED HOSSEIN NASR (University Professor of Islamic Studies, George Washington University):\u00a0 For Muslims, only God can be divine \u2014 God in his oneness and his absoluteness and his not having anything like it.\u00a0 And that means that Islam opposes or even cannot understand the idea of certain Christians concerning the Trinity, in which really you have three divines.<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0 For Christians, terrorism is a major concern.\u00a0 But Volf notes that violent Islamic extremism is backed by only a very small minority of Muslims, and that Christianity
\nalso has practiced violence.<\/p>\n

Prof. VOLF:\u00a0\u00a0 Incredible violence has been perpetrated in the name of Christian faith, even though love of God, love of neighbor, are at the heart of that faith.\u00a0 I think something similar may be said of Islam as well.<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0 A big issue for Muslims is when Christian evangelizing \u2014 telling people about the faith \u2014 becomes proselytizing, actively trying to convert.\u00a0 Some Muslims say Christian evangelizing seems like colonialism.<\/p>\n

Dr. NASR:\u00a0 That\u2019s a very, very major problem that cannot be overlooked and cannot be put in the closet.\u00a0 I think the evangelicals have to rethink this issue.<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0 Leith Anderson, President of the National Association of Evangelicals, insists that evangelical Christians must share their faith.\u00a0 But he says they can do that respectfully.<\/p>\n

LEITH ANDERSON (President, National Association of Evangelicals):\u00a0 We proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ and we welcome the opportunity for people to believe.\u00a0 There\u2019s a difference between that and proselytizing.\u00a0 And in my definition, proselytizing can be coercive.\u00a0 It can be manipulative.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think there is ever an excuse to be disrespectful to other people.<\/p>\n

Prof. VOLF:\u00a0\u00a0 If evangelism isn\u2019t an expression of love of neighbor, it isn\u2019t Christian evangelizing.\u00a0 And love of neighbor includes not only what I say to the neighbor but how I say that.\u00a0 I\u2019m very hopeful, though it\u2019s a thorny, and certainly, an issue right now that tears the communities apart.<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0 Many Muslim believers want to convert Christians to Islam.<\/p>\n

Prof. VOLF:\u00a0\u00a0 They believe that Islam contains the truth about God.\u00a0 Islam is not just an option.\u00a0 Islam is not like one of the many dishes: you like Thai chicken and I like pizza and that\u2019s fine.\u00a0 They believe Islam to be a matter of truth and not simply a matter of taste.<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0 And so do Christians?<\/p>\n

Prof. VOLF:\u00a0\u00a0 And so do Christians, exactly.<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0 Many Muslim countries are closed to missionaries, a policy Christians see as a denial of religious liberty.<\/p>\n

Prof. VOLF:\u00a0\u00a0 Does a person have a right to change his or her own religion? This is a fundamental human right, just like a right to freedom of speech.<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0 Volf says dialogue can help resolve many differences, and that even when it can\u2019t, Christians and Muslims can still get along.\u00a0 On issues such as global warming and helping the poor, Volf believes Christians and Muslims can and should work together.\u00a0 Meanwhile, he says his personal encounter with Islam has strengthened his Christianity.<\/p>\n

Prof. VOLF:\u00a0\u00a0 I will tell you very, quite honestly after my engagement with Muslim friends, I pray more than I used to pray.\u00a0 My prayer life has been enriched by my encounter with some Muslims, encouraged by their devotion and also enriched by the ways in which they pray.\u00a0 Have I compromised in this way at all?\u00a0 No, to the contrary, I\u2019ve gone deeper in my faith and I think my love for God has been deepened and made more intelligent in a sense, more rich by that very encounter.<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0 As he helped close the conference, Volf returned to his view of what\u2019s at stake.<\/p>\n

Prof. VOLF (speaking to conference participants):\u00a0\u00a0 Either love or death \u2014 when you think about it, this is the challenge that we face today.\u00a0 Let us learn to love all our neighbors and let us do that in the name of our common future and in the name of our one God.<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0 Prince Ghazi read the final conference document, affirming, among other points, that God is absolute, his love infinite; and that everyone has a right to the preservation of life, dignity and religion.<\/p>\n

Prince GHAZI (Special Advisor to H.M. King Abdullah II, Jordan, speaking to conference participants):\u00a0 Have we anybody who will not sign his name to this of the participants?<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0 No one spoke.<\/p>\n

Prince GHAZI:\u00a0 Thank you.<\/p>\n

ABERNETHY:\u00a0 None of the participants claimed resolution of their differences.\u00a0 But, in Prince Ghazi\u2019s words, they hoped their joint commitment to loving God and neighbor will help all religions heal, not wound.<\/p>\n

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BOB ABERNETHY:\u00a0 As Muslims around the world observe the holy month of Ramadan, President Bush hosted his annual Iftar dinner at the White House.\u00a0 More than 100 Muslim leaders joined the president to break their daytime fast.<\/p>\n

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BOB ABERNETHY:\u00a0 That\u2019s our program for now.\u00a0 I\u2019m Bob Abernethy.\u00a0 There\u2019s much more on our Web site, including political coverage and analysis on our \u201cOne Nation\u201d page.\u00a0 Audio and video podcasts of our program are also available.\u00a0 Join us at pbs.org.<\/p>\n

As we leave you, scenes from Pope Benedict\u2019s trip to Lourdes, France, last week.\u00a0 Benedict celebrated the 150th anniversary of the appearance of the Virgin Mary to a young peasant girl.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2008 WNET-TV.\u00a0 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
\nPrepared by Burrelle’s Information Services, which takes sole responsibility for accuracy of transcription.\u00a0 No license is granted to the user of this material other than for research.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Listen to this episode now: [powerpress] TRANSCRIPT Episode 1203 BOB ABERNETHY, anchor:\u00a0 Coming up \u2014 ethics and the Wall Street crisis.\u00a0 We explore whether anyone was to blame.\u00a0 And if so, who? Also, Barefoot College in India where illiterate women … More →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[532],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-podcast"],"yoast_head":"\nListen Now \/ Read the Transcript | September 19, 2008 | Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly | PBS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Listen to this episode online, download the MP3 and read the transcript.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2008\/09\/19\/episode-no-1203-listen-now-read-the-transcript\/1130\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" 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