>> rose: welcome to the program. tonight, cardinal jaime ortega of cuba. he and pope francis worked hard to bring the united states and ba closer. in the real life and the real story of the relationship tween cuba and the vatican, the three popes have played a role. at the moment -- the moment has come for this last pontificate of pope francis with his own quality to play in this role at this moment because the histories like that, the moment and the pope for the present

time. >> rose: we conclude with james taylor, his new album is called "before this world." >> there is a period of song writing where ideas emerge and sometimes, if you're lucky that will be an entire song in one initial event but usually you end up with bits and pieces and fits and starts and you need to get alone with them, spend empty time working on them, court the muse, whatever that means, and finish them up. >> rose: cardinal ortega and james taylor next. >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: >> rose: additional funding provided by:

>> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: cardinal jaime lucas ortega y alamino is here. he is the latin rite archbishop of the archdiocese of havana and cardinal to have the catholic church. he is the second cuban elevated to this post. he participated in the conclave that selected pope benedict xvi and pope francis. last week president alan awarded his emnines the allegiance of honor for his role in normalizing u.s.-cuban relations. i am pleased to welcome him to

the table for the first time. welcome. >> thank you. >> rose: tell me why you're here in the united states. >> i have become invited by ford fordham university for a doctorate i will receive. >> rose: an honorary doctorate. >> an honorary doctorate i will receive tomorrow in the morning. then it was i was invited almost three years for this honorary doctorate. many other problems and difficulties in my condition as archbishop of havana et cetera have been difficult for me to come to new york.

but i am very very glad to be able to respond to this invitation of the fordham university. that is for me a very great honor. >> rose: well, you're a great man. two things you and i share among them the doctorate at fordham. i had the great fortune to speak at their commencement three or four years ago so it will be a glorious day for you and for them, as they honor you. >> yes sure. i have been honored many times, but seems it seems to me that it's not

a personal recognition but a recognition of the role of the catholic church in our country in improving the life of the church in my country and also now in this location, many are looking for the intervention of the holy father in this new relation between cuba and the united states taking place after the words of the two presidents of both countries in december about a new diplomatic relation and the possibility to take off

the embargo by the united states the efforts president obama will make about it, and it was important the holy father, the key role the holy father has played in this dialogue. i'm sure i have known the holy father himself his interest create a new relation between countries and peoples in order to have a word who can lend that

conflict could be resolved by dialogue. >> rose: we are now looking at most recently a visit by rauúl castro to the vatican where he said maybe he's coming back to the church, rauúl castro? he in panama, met with the president obama. the pope is coming to cuba. how did it start? you played a role. >> there are some previous contacts that have created the possibility of the dialogue between the holy father and president obama. >> rose: that's where it

started? >> in may of last year, '14 -- >> rose: yes. -- because it was a good dialogue with obama. the holy father has told me it was a very good moment. they were very conscious of each other, of the role of the holy father as pastor of the church and president obama the president of the most important country in the world and the holy father has mentioned cuba. >> rose: to the president.

to the president. the president, he has mentioned the embargo. >> rose: yes. and the president obama told him something like she has said recent -- like he has said recently also this kind of laws were taken before my -- >> rose: my presidency. -- yes before my presidency, no. before i was born. >> rose: exactly. yeah exactly. and the the holy father said it seems to me the moment to change. and he said, we have some problems. there is a law of the congress. it's difficult for me. but the holy father insists, in the role of cuba in in latin

america, he said to president obama, the politics of your government and of the future government in the united states must build a relationship with cuba. >> rose: that cuba is important to this country's relationship to the rest of latin america. >> to the rest of latin america not only on account of the sufferings of the cuban people, said the holy father, but because all latin america now is united in a kind of association of all countries of the caribbean and latin america and now, they've rejected this --

these measures against a country of this subcontinent. then the pope told me, it he was very impressed by these words he said. and afterwards, it was a process in which the holy father and the secretary of the state of the vatican. >> rose: yes. you know rauúl castro. tell me how h he views this new relationship. >> for him, it is a political

decision. when we have some meetings for the liberation of prisoners at the beginning of this period of the government, he told me he was deciding to look for a new relation with the united states and he said to me, this is a political decision -- we can live together with difference, but in a civilized style.

and he has repeated to me that after the summit of panama, he has a very good discourse -- >> rose: with president obama. with president obama. he was a very kind, very polite with the president. and even in the press conference, they had after both sitting together, it was very interesting the kind of

conversation of answers they have. it was from both parts a real dialogue. i have congratulated the president after -- >> rose: president castro? -- president castro after this meeting and he answered me, yes, i would continue in this way. it's a political decision. we want to establish a new relation with the united states, and we can live in a civilized world with a civilized style. it was interesting to hear.

that is the same politics he has expressed at the beginning of his period in the government. >> rose: rauúl castro visited the pope in the vatican sunday and praised the pope for helping to broker this breakthrough between us. i want to know as much as you can tell me about that because the holy father, in dialogue seems to want to do what he can to create dialogue, to play a role, to use the moral authority of the church as a force for good as he sees it. yes? >> yes. i can speak about this meeting between the pope and the president obama.

but afterwards, through the secretary of the state the vatican, because his mission was not finished in this meeting with obama it has continued. even to do some proposals about the liberation of prisoners in the united states and about the liberation of alan grosse which is taking place. at the end, it was a very well-prepared diplomatic packet this day because i cannot think

about a declaration of both presidents of opening embassies creating a way of a relationship between cuba and the united states, the liberation of prisoners and alan grosse and the other prisoners at the same time and they were in their countries at the moment of the declaration and this possibility to speak to the congress about -- from president obama to speak to the congress about the embargo. it was very interesting to see all that together. >> rose: all right but rauúl castro at the vatican said the

following -- this is a country in which they have restricted religious worship and has promoted atheism, as you know, in an earlier time. he said the following: i read all the speeches of the pope, his commentaries, and if the pope continues this way, i will go back to praying and go back to the church. i'm not joking. >> i'm not joking... yes, he has said that, and he said it seriously. on account of the relation of journalists, perhaps he has added to his words "i am

speaking seriously." >> rose: this would not have happened without the pope at the time. >> i believe this pope has a special charism to create not only by his words or his declarations but about the kind of relation he is able to establish with all persons that come to him. he is something. he has very human treatment of

the persons even presidents kings, he's very simple. he's very -- he creates a good fashion in encounters with the people not only with the big encounters of thousands of people, but also a person-to-person encounter, he's able to create a good ciement. >>climate. >> rose: how is he able to push this along? he's encouraging this. he wants it to go forward this relationship. >> he told me he was thinking of coming to cuba. he told me in february, and the last conference we had in rome and he told me i'm thinking

about going to cuba. i told him, holy father, now you're going to bolivia and ecuador in july in. in this trip? he said to me, no, it will be very lonely, perhaps in september. and the day after before beginning the session of the morning, he called me, the holy father, and he told me, i am thinking to go to cuba, but in my trip to the united states -- >> rose: symbolic.

not only for the flight of the plane et cetera but also to create a symbol of this relation between cuba and the united states. at this moment i didn't know at what moment he was going to come to cuba. i was thinking always after the visit to the united states he will go to havana and he will fly to -- he could fly directly to rome. but he has decided to arrive to havana to visit two days, to go to another diocese and then to the shrine of the virgin of

charity in cuba and to return to the united states from santiago de cuba. and for us it was a very great thing for our church and for the relation between cuba and the united states. >> rose: it's an important visit. this pope seems to have a certain not only mission, i do log, but urgency. he's very pastoral. he clearly is the most popular man on the planet. he clearly wants to get things done, and he's pushing and he's speaking out. he's a presence. he also seems to have a certain

urgency. he's your age he's 77 -- >> 78. >> rose: 78. he said, this year, there is an example, a new way that has begun between cuba and the united states for normalized relations. it is an example for all the world. we can resolve the problems of the world with dialogue, by diplomatic ways. he has said that, diplomatic ways. he has said that this moment. and when he was visiting, he said in his visit the journalist has asked him about his trips because he has gone to

france, he has gone to spain he has gone to germany and other countries. he said, i prefer -- i have preferred to go to the little countries, to the little countries who have resolved problems and conflicts, all who are fighting for dialogue, a new way for resolve conflict, and that's why i will stay in sri lanka. i go to the philippines where

the guerilla have taken aim before, and he will go to sarajevo, now. >> rose: sarajevo, right. and next week, in 50 days, in and albania because it is an example he said how catholics and muslims are working to rebuild the nation. >> rose: together. together. the first words we say about dialogue here.

he's very interested, it seems to me, to the new vision of the world. >> rose: he announced in the last couple of days about an initiative respect to palestine as well. >> yes, sure. >> rose: here's what we's doing that's interesting to me, and you know all about this -- the president credited pope francis as helping to jump start the diplomacy with personal letters and also by allowing the vatican to be used for meetings, eect meetings, so they could accomplish things between diplomats from cuba and the united states. this is a very active role.

>> it is an active role he has played. >> rose: cuba is ready for this change. >> oh, yes, it seems to me. my country will be ready for the change but it will become ready when the change will be structured step by step and it seems the change -- cuba has tourists and foreign investment in the economy. this is a new law for investment. but it's a noble law for -- even

for repartition of the capital for investors. the creation of the special zone of the new port of the west of havana a port for containers, a modern port, who can receive big boats. all of that has been in preparation and for the mentality, i believe the cubans are always prepared for a new

relation in sports, in baseball. >> rose: yes. it must feel good to you that pope francis and youv6;'÷ as cardinal ortega and the amp archbishop in haviahavana because you have been an indispensable link to spraincies. >> indispensable no. perhaps we have created before the possibility of the links the secretary of state, and

pope francis can play in this. it was created a climate of confidence and the possibility of the church to resolve conflicts because i am sure the government of cuba has asked to the secretary of state of the vatican to say something to the pope for presenting president obama this problem of the embargo, et cetera. and the holy city has accepted that.

and because the cuban government was sure that even the popes that visited cuba and this one had always a -- had a positive approach to cuba to the situation of cuba, to the cuban relation with the -- cuba's relation with the vatican, all that has been well conserved and they have been developed in these years before and that facilitates this contact we have now in this moment.

it seems to me you have asked me about the holy father and his role and if it was necessary this pope. i believe the pope john paul ii live in cuba, at the moment live in our country has said cuba must be open to the world and the world will be open to cuba. and in this moment the religious sister of my house, at the moment, in what president obama has announced, the possibility of new relations, he said to me, the holy father is

the first miracle of john paul ii because he has said cuba must be open to the world and the world must be open to cuba. >> rose: and now it is. and now is the moment, it is the first miracle, he has said. he was very simple but he's very interesting because it means in the real life and the real history of the relationship between cuba and the vatican, the three popes have played a role. at thethe moment has come for the last pontificate of pope francis with

his own quality to play in this role at this moment because the histories like that, and it was the pope for the present time. >> rose: thank you for coming. a pleasure to have you here. >> thank you for your invitation. i apologize myself on account of my english because -- >> rose: we heard you. thank you. cardinal ortega of cuba. back in a moment. stay with us. >> rose: james taylor is here, a five-time grammy award winning singer/songwriter, the "new york times" called him a foremost contemporary composer of what you might call american lull buys. he just recorded his first album

of songs since 2002, it's called "before this world." i am pleased to have james taylor back at the the table. welcome. >> thank you charlie. glad to see you. >> rose: writing songs are you? >> i am. i was absent for a while and i had created a lot of different albums and projects in the last 12 years five different albums but none was original material and this is. >> rose: did you say i'm ready to write again or you felt suggesting songs that needed to be attended to? >> there is sort of two phases for writing songs for me and i had enough songs sort of on the burner underway that i really wanted to finish them up, and i found that nothing would do. i know writers who can write for three hours a day or five hours a day or get up at 5:00 in the morning and write until 9:00,

but that wasn't -- that wasn't doing it for me. i needed to actually sequester myself away. i borrowed a friend's place in newport, rhode island, on the harbor in the off season. >> rose: yeah. and after a couple of empty days. >> rose: started coming. it started to come through and i managed to finish a few of these songs. i was excited to learn that there was still something in the well. >> rose: yeah. and we recorded it at home, at a home studio, which was also nice not to have to leave home to record. >> rose: in the berkshires. yes. >> rose: i've seen that studio. >> that's right, you have seen it. >> rose: you brought the canning together and -- brought the gang together and here we are. >> that's the other thing. i feel at this point i'm a member of a musical community. i have a band of fellow

musicians with whom i've worked for the past, oh, three in some cases four decades. so i value that community, and i like to get them together and make music with them, because it's really quite a unique thing. >> rose: so you wrote the songs in newport and performed and executed them and recorded them in the berkshires. >> we did indeed. we came back home and cut tracks for ten days. it's sort of a traditionally-made album. we tracked for ten days. i then took the basic tracks and overdubbed vocals and some experimental stuff and a lot of choral work. it's my 16th time in with a batch of songs and i love the way it's come out. it was great this time making it. >> rose: well we think of you foremost as a songwriter or

foremost as a singer? >> yeah, i'm a singer/songwriter but also touring and performing and, as i said, a band member -- a member of a musical group, a musical community. we have been traveling a lot and playing a lot. >> rose: this began for you way back in high school, didn't it? >> i guess i wrote -- i came up into music during the great folk scare of the 1960s as my friend calls it. but music, you know, was the time of dylan and the kingston trio and joan baez and a lot of folk acts. there was a guy in cambridge massachusetts, a guy named tom rush. >> rose: yeah, i know tom rush.

>> and tom was a great model for me. i emulated him in my early work and he actually recorded a couple of my songs early on, too. so music in those days and the opportunity to perform was very accessible. >> rose: you always wanted to perform. >> i did. i wanted to perform. >> rose: and then the great history story of you is you were in london and hanging out and you sent some tracks to peter asher. >> that's right. peter had just signed on as head of a&r the person responsible for finding acts for a record company to record, and he was doing that for a new label started by the beatles apple records and i was in the right place at the right time, just sort of a classic and perfect lucky break -- show business break. >> rose: soon you were on the cover of "time magazine."

>> i was. that was exciting game-changing. i went from having worked very hard at relieving my family of their expectations. i went again to the center of the family dynamic. it was a training thing to happen. >> rose: meaning what? well, you know i sort of dropped out. i dropped out of school. i had spent some time in a psychiatric hospital sort of under observation for teenage angst and depression and i think the two benefits of that were i got a deferment from the draft. >> rose: and wrote songs. and i wrote songs. at the end of it, i had spent my college fund and my family no longer had any really -- they were just happy i was still

around, you know. and they no longer -- >> rose: they were no longer expecting great things. >> no. no, i was free, and i used it. i went to new york, i came here to town and started a band with my friend and fellow cohort in music danny and we tried for a year here in new york, but eventually i had to go across the ocean to get discovered to get -- >> rose: well what do you make of the fact these songs you've written before have had such permanence? you know you go into places and you hear them. everybody knows it's james taylor. it's james taylor. it's sweet baby james. it's carolina on my mind, go down the list. >> well, i think it's partially that i have been around for a long time and have kept at it.

>> rose: you're always on the road. >> i am. >> rose: because you enjoy it? i do. >> rose: it's not because you need the money. >> well, i need the money too. it's how i make my living. >> rose: well, a good living, though. >> it is. baseball has been very, very good to me... (laughter) >> rose: it has. that's my work. it's what i love to do. >> rose: it's what you do. yeah. so i guess part of it is i have been around for a while and also i have this audience that -- >> rose: loves james. -- for one reason or another -- >> rose: loves james. -- they keep coming back. it's true. i love them, too. they've supported me, and i can travel in the world and find an audience and have an excuse to be there, and it's just a very

satisfactory arrangement to me. >> rose: now angels of the fenway is the one i've read the most about. >> a song about the 2004 miracle season that reversed the curse of the bambino when the red sox -- >> rose: first world series win since forever. >> yes. >> rose: could i read the lyrics? >> yes. >> rose: or you can sing them if you like. roll tape, look at. this we have you singing it. here it is. ♪ 86 summers gone by ♪ ♪ bambino put a hex on a game ♪ ♪ in the shadow ♪

♪ get a little chip on your shoulder ♪ ♪ say something that's downright rude ♪ ♪ picking up on the cream of the crop ♪ ♪ being everyone's favorite son ♪ ♪ she's born in 1918, that's the year the red sox won. back then in the golden days ♪ ♪ something they never should

ever have done ♪♪ >> rose: all right. love those red sox dont's don't you? >> do i love the red sox. i was born in boston, raised in north carolina, always identified myself as a red sox fan. my mom always took pains to keep her connections to new england. she was a fisherman's daughter and she didn't want us to -- she didn't want us to lose our connection with the new england area, for some reason that was really important to her. she would load us all into the family station wagon and drive us up from north carolina to the cape every summer. >> rose: you know this and we've said this before, your and i knew each other at the time because i knew your father and mother. you always went to martha's vineyard. i wondered why because we have

the beaches in north carolina, but they went to martha's vineyard. then it was hometown and you went there because you grew up there. >> it was. it was an unusual place to vacation. it was remote in those days in the '50s and '60s, and it was a cheap place to vacation, too. it was a cheap summer rental, and there was a nice collection of people who came there. it really meant a huge amount to me to be -- there was a lot of music on martha's vineyard. i met my friend danny there my best friend zach weesner who was jerome weesner's son. >> rose: the scientist. i met harburg. a lot of lefties and academics. >> rose: that's where you became a man of the left. >> i guess i inherited it from

my dad but yes that's true, it was definitely a left wing liberal enclave. but, you know, i guess -- i always identified myself as a red sox fan and it was after i met kim i got pulled back in. >> rose: your wife today. yes, kim, she had worked at the boston symphony with sagy and he is a huge red sox fan. >> rose: the great music conductor. >> yes. >> rose: the titles. the first one, today today today. i'm finally on my way. the time has come to say goodbye, goodbye goodbye the bird is on the wing. what's this about. >> its sounds like goodbye but it's let's get started.

it starts the album. i wrote it driving down to new newport to get underway to finishing some songs and it's just a song of let's get down to work. >> rose: is the process always the same? >> it is often similar. there's a period of song writing where ideas emerge and sometimes, if you're lucky that will be an entire song in one initial event but usually, you end up with bits and pieces and fits and starts, and you need to get alone with them spend empty time working on them and court the muse whatever that means and finish them up. >> rose: is there such a thing as a muse? >> i certainly have a sense that i don't write these songs that i'm just the first person to hear them. >> rose: oh.

so it's not -- it's such an unconscious process for me. this song angels of fenway is the first song i've written in a long time that i actually set out to write. i said, okay, i want to write a song about the 2004 red sox reverse of the curse, what it felt like for an entire region to be delivered. >> rose: but the others? but the others are sort of -- i just follow the direction that the song takes. it may -- you know, it may be about alex's death. >> rose: your brother. and, you know, it will start with that, but it has its own architecture, it has its own logic, and i end up just following the song through to the end and often am very surprised by where it goes. it's not a muse -- if not a

muse it certainly is an unconscious process. >> rose: the most intriguing question about science today about the brain is understanding the unconscious. >> yeah, they're going to figure that out aren't they. >> rose:. >> rose: i think they will. the other is montana. no. back in order. it's "you and i again" is the next one. >> this is a love some song to my wife. it's about long love, love over time and possibly more than one lifetime. i have the sense that when we met, you know, i'm not particularly -- >> rose: you're not shirley mcclain. >> i'm not, although i love shirley mcclain. >> rose: so do i. but i do feel it's possible that maybe we just know how to recognize each other

unconsciously much better than we do on the surface. but something about meeting kim, i felt like i knew her already a very strong sense that i knew her already. >> rose: it was just like the moment of attraction. >> it was, but it continued for the first six months that we knew each other just how -- it was as if we had been together before. i can explain it no other way. >> rose: she's made you very happy. >> she has. >> rose: she's given order to your life, too? >> she's totally turned it around, yes, and i really need that. so, you know, i just -- i wrote a song about waiting to find her again in this lifetime. >> rose: you and i again, the days go by and i wish i could slow the whole thing down and have it back again just one more time. then again maybe we can because

i can't escape this feeling that we have been this way together, you and i. there you are again i climb so high, high enough to finally see you shine. >> shining in the distance, you attending your own fire, biding the time, we were both waiting for the moment when our paths would come together, you and i. yeah. i have been writing a lot of love songs for kim. she's come to expect it now. >> rose: you better not stop. stretch of the highway. >> stretch of the highway is a highway song. >> rose: is that sort of it? that's my driveway, that stretch to have the of the driveway. >> rose: go ahead. yeah, it's just a celebration of wander lust essentially, a song about love of the open road and the life.

>> rose: "this album is reminiscent of taylor's most enduring work from the 1970s." do you like that? >> well, i should think so. it is me so it should be reminiscent of me. no, i do like that. i think that the 16th time that i've taken a new batch of songs into the studio, i think that i get better at doing it, whatever that thing is. >> rose: so you're not trying to recapture something, you're reaching forward. >> i think it's more in the nature of a slow evolution. it's just continuing, really, as pedestrian as that sounds. it's carrying on. >> rose: great to have you. great to be back and see you

my old friend. >> rose: james taylor, "before this world," and his amage to the red sox angels of fenway. thanks for joining us. for more on t captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> rose: additional funding provided by: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide.

the following kqed production was produced in high definition. ♪ calories, calories calories! >> wow, it rocked my world! >> it just kind of reminded me of boot camp. >> i don't know what you had, but this is great! >> it almost felt like sort of country club food to me. >> don't touch it. it's hot! >> i gotta tell you, yo