like the global moral conscience . he is calling us to think through the consequences of our actions. when he is talking about climate change, it is not because he is concerned about -- he's concerned about the human person. it is true that in a lot of those countries poor people suffered because of the there isrned because of the people. i think that is something that speaks to everyone across the aisle and that is what i would hope from our representatives that they listen in that vein and hear the pope's message. host: chicago, illinois. on for democrats. -- on the line for democrats. caller: i believe a lot of what the pope has to say. i was watching c-span and saw some of the visit in cuba.

herenk the pope coming should be mostly -- unfortunately with this world, there is a lot of hatred and racism. i think that should be brought out and that should be discussed. in thearing candidates field talking about muslims and of hatred for the president the united states. i'm thinking if someone to come to this united states of america and talk to the people about this hatred and it should not be tolerated, i think that should be the biggest focus. you know, that's one of the biggest problems -- all this hatred and injustice. i know people have the right to think what they want to thank and feel what they want to feel, but hatred and racism is what is destroying this world. as far as climate change goes, climate change is real and i believe we are destroying this world. we need people to help fix this world. that is the fundamental issue.

if the pope can just discuss these issues that are tearing us down, that is what we need to feel. muslim, hope if you are if you're gay, if you're italian, if your mexican. we are tired of these politicians hating people of different races. guest: i think the pope would agree with what you are saying. i think part of that is because this is a pope of love, of mercy. he is going to be speaking that message. he is not in the business of condemning in the sense that i think he is not going to be singling people out or singling out particular parties or people. but he is going to challenge us. he is going to challenge every politician and every person who is listening. what i really encourage people to do is not look at the headlines and terms of what the media says the pope is saying, but rather to say, what did the pope actually say?

there is a message therefore each of us and i think that is really important that we look and listen and really examine our hearts. where hatred and intolerance begins. it begins inside each of us. c-span will be covering all the pope's public statements including that address to the joint meeting of congress. the pope will be speaking in english and that joint address will alsos and he have mass at the basilica of the national shrine on wednesday at four clock p.m. with the joint address on thursday at 10:00 a.m.. check your c-span webpage as well for a further schedule of the pope's biggest events in washington. he will continue to show you the various preparations around washington, d.c. for the pope's visit -- some of these security preparations and some of the logistics already underway on capitol hill and the national mall and around washington, d.c. bringing up muslims

and some of the statements by candidates and radical islam and about by muslim being president. what is the pope's message to muslims? guest: it is one of love, of mercy, of acceptance. we are brothers. we are sisters. we are creatures of a common god and creative. the pope is about reaching out to everyone and he is going to be speaking at an interfaith gathering in new york. that is why he is addressing the u.n.. he is speaking to everyone. encyclical,onmental it was addressed to the world. he is not about dividing. he is about challenging everyone of us, saying we have equal dignity. we have to reach across and solve these things and make common confections -- connections with human dignity.

we have to take that to heart whether in one particular faith tradition or another. the challenge is can we hear what he is saying to each one of us. host: samantha is on the line. the 1970's, in ran across a wonderful lady who happened to be catholic and was part of a movement called the charismatic catholics. they had bible study and i went to several of the bible studies. we just really got into the gospel. it was just an environment of love and hope. is that still going on? guest: i am sure -- is what still going on? host: what is the name of the group? caller: there was a group of women who had bible study's to help us understand the gospel. guest: sure, there are a lot of interfaith efforts going on, particularly in what are called movements within the church, like catholic charismatic

renewal. there are a lot of things that bring us together and that is one of the messages of the pope. and that is a good thing. we are all trying to work together. that is the pope's message. let us come together and solve some of these problems in the world. i would like to just desk even as we are talking about bringing people together, i think it is important to look honestly at president obama's decision to greet the pope with symbols of division. the people that he chose to be part of his welcoming committee. i think that is problematic. host: explain that. hast: apparently he still these invitations outstanding, but he has made it known that the welcoming committee at the white house is going to include ktransgendered individual, a piscopo priest, a nun who rejects the churches teaching on and theia and abortion, vatican's objection to this was not that the pope was going to have a problem deal with those people. he is going to treat them with

one and with love. that's not it. thisis a manipulation of event and trying to turn it into a photo up. -- a photo op. this is kind of the think that pope francis talks about and does not like. he talks repeatedly about how service has to take priority over ideology. what we are seeing from the white house is that primacy of ideology. we are going to shove it in your face the things that we do not like about catholicism. they are choosing -- the white house is choosing which people within the catholic faith they are going to elevate as real catholics and the dissenters. that is rather disrespectful and at the very least bad manners. i think there is something more than that. host: has the pope encountered these kinds of situations before and other state visits? guest: he has not been here before. host: in other countries? guest: not in this way. it plays into one of the pope's major themes where he calls it

ideological colonization. he really does not like it when the west tries to impose its moral values upon cultures and religions. this is a prime example of president obama doing exactly that, where he is saying we think one particular thing and we are just going to not be respectful of you and where you're coming from. he could've had immigrants there. he could've had people working on climate change. all the things that he has got on the ground, but instead he elevates people who are symbols of division. that is offensive. host: charles is in richmond, virginia on the line for republicans. caller: how are you doing and good morning to you. pope,ally happy for this which i'm not that religious anyway. christian.stant

i think about catholicism and how it has really developed in the 20th century. when you think about before fathers who came here, they were leaving religious oppression in europe and they came here. lady named's with a roosevelt who do not want catholics or jews in the white house, but i still have a gripe with them. i have a real gripe with them --ause i would like to know the catholic bishops had this thing against women actually teaching christianity. before you say anything, jesus christ is what we base our religion on. he had women with him. he had an entourage and he had two basic women in his life. he had married magdalene and he had his mother.

-- mary magdalene and he had his mother. those are the women when he was preaching his cross the pope -- his gospel. when he was crucified, the men were scared and they ran back. these two women stayed and spoke. why is it that we have to deal with this thing where women should not have a place? please answer my question. goodbye. host: mary rice hasson is the director of the catholic women's forum at the ethics and public policy center. go ahead. guest: it is not about excluding women. it is very difficult what the catholic church is practice is. the lord jesus chose the apostles. jesus was a revolutionary in one sense and that he was not bound by convention. he certainly could have chosen women to be his apostles and he did not. those apostles within the

catholic tradition are what we see as the forbearers of the priesthood. so the church has kept that as a male institution. however, just as the lord brought in women, and they were his followers, women have done a tremendous job within the church. where would the church be without the women and sisters who have run hospitals, who had run schools? what pope francis is doing is that that is wonderful. we want to bring women in other areas, those consultative areas, and the places where we need women's judgment and experience to figure out how to address these practical problems. it really is not the case that the catholic church is not following in jesus's footsteps. it is following closely in what jesus did. host: if you want to check out mary rice hasson's work it is epp c.org. give us a call for the next 20 minutes or so. margaret called in from florida

independents.r caller: i'm so glad i got to get through. you are a wonderful representative and i'm happy to hear from you. i just want to go back to the pew research poll. me with thetches catholic poles. i'm a 53-year-old roman catholic. i was less and raced to the top well. -- blessed and raised to be taught well. the problem with the poll in the catholic church is that catholics are not learning what our religion actually is. i know. i have a lot of contemporaries who do not understand what the magisterium is. who do not understand what doctrine is and the difference. i know catholics who literally think that when the pope says something that it represents dogma. there is a lot of education missing, which my parents and your parents got. my mother knew backwards and forwards our religion.

the other thing i would like to address because you hit it on the head because as soon as i heard the list that president obama gathered, i think he's going to be sorely surprised at how our holy father handles this. not understanding anything about our religion or the catholic church, he somehow thinks he is going to trip up our pope. when he does not understand our religion accepts understand -- understanding left. we do not change on a limb. we are a church handed down from jesus christ. we do not make decisions based on two polls in the prevailing culture. thank god for the church, of course. there are so many people now -- this pope is so great and he wants to help people. i think it is amazing how no one understands what the previous popes represented. i just want to hear your

comments and i appreciate your good work. thank you. guest: i think you bring up important things. 1 -- people tend to think any word or phrase that the pope says as a pronouncement on catholic teaching. that is not how it works. the pope is free to have an opinion on the washington nationals or his favorite soccer team or even about matters of public policy and things like that. these are not going to be new pronouncements of new teaching. the church's teaching comes to us from jesus. it is the truth. truth does not change. what this pope is doing is opening people's ears to help cure things differently. you are right that so many people over the past 20-30 years really did not get a sense of what exactly did church teaches. -- the church teaches. if they heard the right line of what is right or wrong, they did not understand why, so many people rejected it out of hand. that is what you are seeing in

the pew polls. you see this lack of understanding about why the church teaches what it teaches. it pope francis can get people back and listen and engage in a dialogue, i think we will be ahead of the game here. that is what he is about. he's about changing people's lives. host: you are saying that teaching isn't changing. here is a lead from a recent "usa today" story about that poll we have been talking about. pope's evolving issues have surprised observers since his rise to the vatican 2.5 years ago. two of the things that they go through in that story is issuing a call this summer for the church to embrace divorce and remarried catholics and just recently weighing in on the issue of abortion and whether priest can forgive that as a sin. guest: this article reflects a bit of a misunderstanding. in both situations, the pope has

not changed teaching. he is highlighting something most people do not know. worst of all, if you are divorced and remarried, you are not excommunicated. you cannot receive communion because that is a spiritual thing to do in order to be worthy to receive communion. there are all sorts of catholics who cannot receive communion on a given day because we are not spiritually prepared. so he is saying something about that. sure saying let's make people know that. i think most catholics know other catholics weapon divorced who somehow feel like they are no longer welcome and that is just wrong and not what the church has taught. that is not a change. what it is is the pope breaking through all the noise and the preconceptions that people have gotten, perhaps through media mischaracterization or simply a lack of understanding. he is sitting -- saying, let's wait a minute and get this

right. come back. we are all sinners. that is true with divorce. the issue with abortion is that the pope is not saying abortion is good. in fact, he has been reiterated that this is a harmful injustice to the unborn child and it wins too.aounds a woman, it is that the bishops allow the priest to give absolution to bring the woman back into the church. it is a matter of publicizing again the grace that is available that people do not realize is there for them that they are not out of the church. the pope is saying come on in. there is so much good for you. host: it should be noted that pope francis reiterated from a catholic prohibition against pregnancy termination. another interesting tweet is that i am proud that the pope is going to be addressed congress.

manipulating the visit of the pope is disrespectful of the president. john in pennsylvania has a question for you. go ahead. caller: hello. i have a question for you. first off, i will let you define what you call sin. second, i would like you to your stance on homosexuality when leviticus say one 26-28.n romans i would like you to please thatin how on your list you said homosexuality was not a sin when the bible clearly defines it as a sin. guest: thank you for that question because i think you raised something and i want to be absolutely clear here. godis an offense against because god's truth. the laws that god has set down in the ways of living that he has given us in order to make us happy and have good strong relationships to love one

another -- those archers that do not change. truths that do not change. a person who has same-sex attraction -- that state of being is not a sin. what the bible does condemn his people who are acting on that, people engaging in homosexual behavior. why? that is not the way our sexuality is to be lived. that is something off there. that's an offense against god who created our bodies, male and female, to be intimate with male and female in order to not just bond in love, but to procreate. so homosexuality did upon -- acted upon, homosexual sex, is an offense against god in the church is not backing off of that. what i want to be clear is that i am talking about a person who experiences an attraction to someone of the same sex. that is not a sin. that is a fact. that is just something about

them. we all have sinful tendencies or things within us that can lead us to be sinful. maybe you are type of person attached to material things. those are things within us, but we are not condemned because we have those tendencies. the question is how do we act? how do we behave? host: pensacola, florida is up next where rick is waiting period goo. good morning. caller: i think you made a good presentation. i'm a protestant raised presbyterian. if i'm issue -- and wrong, i will let you correctly -- apparently the pope was quoted as being critical of western capitalism. i believe that stems from his background as a south american. they are mostly socialistic. if i were to meet the pope, i would hand him reagan's diaries,

because he clearly does not have an understanding of what capitalism really is and the free market. --is without dispute capitalism as a system has raised more people from poverty than any other economic system that has been experienced. communism, or socialism. i would remind that after world war ii, the marshall plan rebuilt europe and occupation of japan resulted in the second strongest economy in the world through most of the world war ii period. if i'm wrong, i will let her correctly. guest: here is the things -- i think you pick up on something very important. abuse of capitalism are very much formed by his experience. -- views of capitalism are very erience.med by his expansiv

it is something different. i do not think he has seen a capitalism that has functioned as well as it does here. that is one of the good things about the pope coming here. yes, we have people in poverty and that is a terrible thing, but it is not the same as this complete deprivation and some of these slums in the south american countries. even our experience of poverty is in a country that is what the. -- wealthy. the pope does not have that expanse. i think that is one of the things that the pope will take away from his visit here. at the same time, and i'm a conservative, but those of us who are pretty strongly pro-market need to acknowledge that within each of us, we can have a tendency toward greed and selfishness. sometimes the market allows that to run free. here ishe challenges that even within our capitalistic system, how do we still prioritize people over things, people over money, and

that allow greed or the ideology , which he calls the love of money, to just take over and make it easy for us to be indifferent to the suffering of others? i think that if this challenge. i think he is going to learn things and if we open our hearts in years, it does not mean all the sudden that we are going to sour on capitalism, but we can examine where we fall into greed or where we can be more sensitive to the needs of others. host: chester, pennsylvania. karen is waiting on the line for democrats. caller: thank you for your comments this morning. i wanted to point out something that seems to have been overlooked. i think it is unique to this country. taken orountry we are leave it lujan. most every country around the world, religion and daily activities are intertwined. in this country, it is take it or leave it. church going person will

wait a week and then go back next sunday and go to church again. it happens in every religion. and i do not think it is going to be overlooked by the pope. -- thereat i'm hoping is some much attention here on the pope's visit and i think catholics, even marginal catholics or christians, people who may have no faith at all, they cannot help but be inspired by this man who walks the walk. he does not just talk the talk. person in a crowd who can see the individual and not afraid to call out people in power who are overlooking or harming the vulnerable. i think this pope really has something to say to all of us, whether we are faithful churchgoers are not. we certainly have that freedom to hear what he says and disregarded, but that is human freedom.

host: in massachusetts, kurt is on the line for independents. caller: thank you for taking my call. a wonderful conversation this morning. i have some specific points. diluted by the things you addressed. schoolout from a cap at and have that education. recovering a catholic because when i look at the scripture, which i have done seriously, when i listen to this lady, i find it a bit disingenuous that the pope was the center and not the sin. -- loves the center and not be sin. it is a bit hypocritical to me. the woman says she draws most of didcatholicism from jesus most of it was written by paul, who never met jesus and rested the church from jesus's teachings. thank you very much for everything and have a good day.

host: i will let you respond. guest: a couple of things. the vatican's objection to those people who are part of president obama's welcoming committee is not because there is something wrong with the pope associating with those people. vaticane fact that the says this is a situation ripe for political manipulative. that is a sense for political endorsement. that is a position that you should not be putting a world leader in that position. you are really manipulating the situation to try to take sides. it is not at all -- we have photos of the pope hugging a transgendered men. he reaches out to everybody. there is no animus in this pope. one thing he cannot abide is the primacy of ideology of the people and manipulation and that is what is going on here. host: your safety pope would

reach out, but he does not want it to be manufactured. guest: if you met the people on the streets, he had no problem giving them a hug. the point is that president obama as a world leader has rust for these people -- the rest rust for these people who had dissented from catholic teaching and have an agenda. these are people who are speaking out. they are directly opposed to all the pope stands for. it is that manipulation and creation of a photo op. it is very unseemly and frankly should not be what happens in a white house. host: let us see if we can get michael from alabama on the line for independents. caller: yes, i just want to tell this woman what a great job she has done. people call in and judge. i'm from a baptist church.

i take a line from the pope -- who am i to judge? i think she is right about president obama. he does this every time. anything he can make political to score points, he does it. people calling in and giving her a hard time, they need to look at themselves before they start judging other people. i just want to say that. thank you, ma'am. host: michael in alabama. i want to ask you about one other funding from that q3's center pole. catholic church will definitely probably, according to catholics, allow birth control. say the of catholics catholic church will definitely or probably allow birth control by 2050. 86% say it will definitely a probably allow cohabitating catholics to receive communion. 2050half believe that by that the catholic church will allow divorced catholics who

have remarried without an annulment to receive communion. what are your thoughts about those expectations from american catholics? guest: i think those expectations are wishful thinking and unfortunately reflect the fact that many catholics do not understand the actual teachings and the reasoning behind it. if you understand the church's teaching on sexuality and you see it as rooted in the understanding of the human person and how our sexuality is oriented in a particular direction and it belongs in marriage because of procreation, i think those comments and those expectations really all right reflection -- are a reflection to be the greek in which catholics have become, in many respects, like everyone else. again, this pope challenges us -- be who you are called to be. take those teachings seriously. examine yourself instead of saying that cannot be true. have you looked at it? have you discussed it? have you asked your questions?

it is interesting how like the teaching on divorce and contraception -- the more we get social science research, the more we realize the body is something that god has created to work in a certain way. contraception has problems. there was a conference about a month ago in georgetown called a contraception conundrum where people with no religious affiliation came to talk about the difficulties of contraception and how bad it is for women's health. that is just on a secular level that we ought to be questioning some these things we take as given. same thing with divorce. remember 20 or 30 years ago when they say kids are resilient? split,parents are they be happy in the research says that's not true. there is wisdom to the church's teachings. we have to open our years and try to discover that even if we have hesitancy and doubts. that is what