>> rose: welcome to the program. tonight a conversation with former secretary of defense robert gates about i.s.i.s., syria, russia and more. >> the problem that we now face is that anbar and some other areas are in the hands of i.s.i.s. as i say, i think it's going to be tough for them to expand beyond a sunni areas of iraq. the danger is that they nest this long term and it becomes a base for further destabilization of the region, for further action in syria and lebanon and elsewhere and a place where they can plot terrorist acts against us. it also validates this idea of

the caliphate -- to have this caliphate which has such appeal in their propaganda. >> rose: we conclude with archbishop vincenzo paglia from the vatican talking about the church and the family. >> the pope is really friendly. i would say he makes all people feel comfortable with him. there are barriers in the sense i remember when, in the first celebration he went in the middle of the people.

there because little child. he stopped and embraced him. this is the style of pope francis. in my opinion it should be the style of the church. >> rose: robert gates and vincenzo paglia when we continue. >> 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: robert gates is here. he was secretary of defense from 2006 to 2011 under president bush and obama. his meme boyar memoir" duty "has just been released in paper back, some cull it the most candid account of washington ever written when the u.s. continues to battle forms across the middle east. the defeat of ramadi marks a major setback. in syria u.s. special operations forces killed a senior islecies leader in a raid saturday, identified as the group's chief of finances. robert gates, welcome back. what are our options and what's necessary to stop i.s.i.s.?

>> i think you need to step back and recognize there are four conflicts going on in the middle east and syria is the epicenter of all of them. the first is sunni islam led by saudi arabia vs. shia led by iran. thor their vs. reformers, secularists vs. islamists and then whether the artificially created countries like syria libya and iraq comprised of historically adversarial ethnic groups, religions and so on can hold together absent representation or whether they go the way of yugoslavia. they all come together in theory which is one of the reasons it's such an intractable problem. the i.s.i.s. phenomenon, in my view, is fundamentally the result of the civil war, a spillover of the civil war in syria and the anti-sunni

policies followed by iraqi prime minister maliki. and i think our withdrawal of all our troops had a role but i think these other two things were the major cause to the point where the sunnis saw i.s.i.s. originally as liberators because they were so antagonistic toward the government in baghdad. so it is a very tough problem and i think that we're seeing the difficulty of getting the iraqi security forces trained. the anbar tribes we're not seeing the kind of organized resistance we saw in 2006 that led to the uprising there against al quaida and the extremists. kurds seem to be holding their own, doing a pretty good job but it's a very tough problem. >> rose: so what do we do?

my view is, first of all, we have to keep doing what we're doing with the iraqi forces and the truth is it's going to take some time. >> rose: it's been a long time. >> well, actually, when we left in 2011, the iraqi army was in pretty good shape. we had been overseeing their logistics. we had had a role in choosing their leaders, and they were comp at the present time and they were capable. the trouble is that maliki replaced them with a bunch of political hacks who had no military experience, didn't have the respect of any of the troops. that's why the troops turned and ran because their leadership, not just the top generals but pretty far down were worthless. so now we basically have had to almost start over because, in the three and a half years since then, the quality of everything in the iraqi security services has deteriorated so badly. so we've got to accelerate that

in some way. i believe that we need to change the rules of engagement for the limited number of forces that we have there so we can be more effective in helping the iraqis. i think the president was right to demand a political change, get rid of maliki before we help. and he's right the boots on the ground, the ground armies have to be arab, kurd, so on, not american. but with a limited number of people, if we can empower our special forces, if we can have some on the ground air spotters air controllers and spotters and we can have some trainers embedded trainers down to say the battalion level with the iraqis, i think we could move this process along a little faster. >> rose: abadi told me in washington recently in an interview that the iranian advisors are on the front lines advising the shia militia. the american advisors are not on the front line.

they're back. >> that's correct. >> rose: should they be on the front lines? >> i'm not sure they should be on the front lines but they need to be forward of where they are now, which is back in big training camps where the basic training and so on is carried out for the iraqi security forces. but they're not close enough to be helpful in advising when it comes to the fights themselves. >> rose: but my understanding we have been training iraqi soldiers in saudi arabia, jordan and everywhere else. >> i think training them in those places, the numbers are going to be so small i personally don't think those trained outside of iraq are going to play a significant role. i think you have to do it -- >> rose: i'm going to get to what you think is the center of what we need to do, but they're on the march in iraq. ramadi is not that far from baghdad. i realize there was an attack on baghdad, a lot of other things

would come into play and nobody is assuming they will let that happen, but they seem to be gaining. >> well, thanks mostly to the iranian-led shia militias, and then ultimately u.s. air power they were able to take back the sunni city of tikrit. but this is one of those classic cases, the city is in ruins. the city was largely destroyed by the fight. so what you see happening is that i.s.i.s. is beginning -- is continuing its spread to basically areas that are coincident with where the sunni population lives. and i think what stops them the natural barrier for stopping them is when they get moved closer to the shia areas where there are a lot of people who will fight and who see them as

bitter enemies partly because i.s.i.s. is sunni. so i don't think you're going to see large chunks of iraq outside the sunni areas, but you are looking at a good part of western iraq in the hands of i.s.i.s. and i think getting them out of there going to be a real chore and especially getting them out of now ramadi and fallujah and mosul. >> rose: braces where americans -- places where americans sent a lot of lives. is it bad to put together american airstrikes, american advisers iranian advisors and shia militia to try to bring together as much fire power as you possibly can because it's that serious the threat of i.s.i.s.? >> well, i have a hard time accepting a significant iranian

presence and military role in iraq, given our sacrifices and everything else. >> rose: but you just said that they were in part responsible for what happened in the previous victories. >> so i -- the government, clearly, is using the shia militias, but the idea of having general sal salomani, the iranian general on the ground and on the front lines, i have a hard time dealing with that. >> rose: because he was a big enemy. >> a huge enemy. >> rose: what about the enemy of my enemy is my friend. >> bibi netanyahu told me the enemy of my enemy in the middle east is my frenemy. (laughter) i mean, we have to work with the situation we find but we must also do what we can to limit the

extent of iranian influence in iraq. it's already significant. and, so, i think figuring out the way forward with the iraqi government in a way that limits or at least prevents further iranian influence, i think is important. whether we can accomplish that or not, i honestly don't know. >> rose: but that's a huge if. a huge if, i grant that. >> rose: when does it become an emergency? >> i think that the problem that we now face is that anbar and some other areas are the hands of i.s.i.s. as i say i think it's going to be tough for them to expand beyond the sunni areas of iraq. the danger is that they nest there long term and it becomes a

base for further destabilization of the region for further action in syria and lebanon and and elsewhere. and a place where they can plot terrorist acts against us. it also validates this idea of the caliphate of this -- to have this caliphate which has such appeal in their propaganda including here in this country. >> rose: this islamic state. this islamic state, they have to occupy territory and government. you do serious damage to their narrative. but how you do that and get them out of iraq is a tough problem and i'm not sure we've got the solution. >> rose: how important is it when you see the raids like in sir dwra where you get the seventh, sixth eighth leader which is clearly in charge of finances and that's important for them because they need to sell the oil they need

resources to carry on that kind of thing they need to have the ability to recruit all of that. >> well, we used to semi joke in the situation that the worst job to have is the number three position in al quaida because we just kept killing them. number two we couldn't find and number one we couldn't find for a long time but number threes, they had a very short tenure in office. i think it's important to be able to send a message that our forces do have enough intelligence that they at times, can go after these leaders, that they can strike behind the lines and this is the kind of thing i had in mind in terms of further embowerment of our -- empowerment of our special forces. >> rose: it's written that the bush dissolution of the army in 2003 -- you were not there at that time -- was the single most

catastrophic decision of the american venture. in a stroke the administration helped enable the creation of the iraqi insurgency." do you agree with that? >> i agree with that entirely and would add that the second worst decision was the debathfication law and, as i wrote, it's like no one ever read the books about denazification in germany that if you ran the local power plant or taught third grade you had to be a member of the party and the same in iraq you had to be a baathist to get a job. so you basically put 400,000 people trained in arms in the army out on the street with no way to support their families and you basically took every civilian who knew how to make anything run and made them -- put them out of a job.

so the two were, i think terrible decisions. >> rose: tell me who made that decision. >> well, i'm told that the provisional -- our coalition provisional government made that decision jerry bremer. >> rose: well, he made it and not don rumsfeld or george bush? >> like i say, i wasn't there but my understanding is it was made in the field and nobody overruled it? so there was nobody with a reading of history around to say we can't do this? well... >> one of the many "what if" -- what might have been. >> rose: yes. let's talk about what's going on in the recent conference here with a lot of saudi and arab leaders coming here to talk to the president. evidently they had a very good session. whatever comes out of it, we don't know yet. you said to me this morning, wish they'd done ate lot earlier. >> the sad thing is they said

they wished they had done it a lot earlier. it's the seventh year of the administration. i think we have not done a good job of reaching out to our friends and allies in the region. i think that the saudi disenchantment with the u.s. really didn't begin with i.s.i.s. or -- or with the iranian nuclear negotiations but rather with the way we handled mubarak. >> rose: first mubarak and then red line. >> red line syria was huge as well. >> rose: they also were opposed to the invasion of iraq. the foreign minister of saudi arabia came and did a show with me about the same time he was in washington saying don't do this, you don't know what you're getting into. correct? and you're a historian. >> seems to nee question that some of the republican

candidates seem to be wrestling with is what would you have done. >> rose: yes. i think that's the wrong question. i think the right question that has value is what are the lessons you draw from what happened in 2003 and how would that shape your view of how you would conduct policy? for sure one of the lessons is we overestimate our ability to shape events in the middle east and the second is the law of unintended consequences is always in effect. and the military says sergeant murphy is on every mission. if something can go wrong it will go wrong. >> rose: suppose you had been advising the president and the c.i.a. came in and said oops, before we launched this invasion we found out there are no weapons of mass destruction. we can topple saddam, but there are no weapons of mass destruction there. what would you have advised the president? >> i think under that

hypothetical circumstance, first of all, i think the president probably would not have invaded. >> rose: but he hasn't said that, though. >> i know he hasn't. but i think that, you know, the intelligence was wrong. i always believe that the charge that he lied us into war and misled us was wrong. he believed the intelligence he was given. maybe the one thing i had done differently is maybe ask harder questions about the intelligence just because i have been in the business so long. >> rose: yeah, but the secretary of state went to langley for two days before he went to the u.n. >> but i think to get down beneath in terms of the currency of the sources, how recent their information was, how reliable they were, maybe those questions were asked. i don't know. >> rose: but they got the wrong answer.

>> they got the wrong answer. see how they got that one wrong. >> rose: did great damage, you think? a place you spent a lot of years. >> i think it did do damage. but i think there is an important lesson to be taken from it and that is we ought to be very, very cautious ever again to launch a war purely based on intelligence analysis and reporting. as opposed to the actions of another country. >> rose: what lessons do you think they learned at the c.i.a.? >> well, i hope -- >> rose: who to trust? i think one of the things i always tried to do when i was at the agency and particularly when i ran the analytical side was to try and do each analytical piece like a lawyer's brief. here's what we know. here are the facts that we have

accumulated. here's what we hear from our sources and here's what we think. and i actually separated out sort of the evidence from the analysis, from what we think so that people could evaluate what the actual intelligence was before the analyst got to work on it. now, the other side of that coin is that the entire case on where osama bin laden was was totally circumstantial. there wasn't a piece of hard evidence. there were a bunch of good amists at the c.i.a. connecting the dots with circumstantial evidence so it's the opposite side of the coin. >> rose: you seem to be in favor of negotiations with the iranians because they're

rational actors. >> within their context. getting them to the table was an achievement for american foreign policy. they didn't show up out of good will. they showed up because their economy was being strangled and they were in fear of being overthrown by their own people. and i think there are some good things in the agreement. >> rose: the iranians said they were in fear of being overthrown by their own people. >> i think first of all the green revolution -- >> rose: they took that away. but it took a lot of force. >> rose: an election and response to an election. >> and i think there are aspects of the freedom that have to be improved for it, i think, to be a good solid agreement. one is the pacing and lifting of sanctions and others on the verification. a third is -- >> rose: okay but here's the question -- based on what you

think has been done now, on the one hand iranians are saying the sanctions have to be lifted immediately and the u.s. says phased. on inspections, they seem to be rather intrusive based on what john kerry said and others have said in terms of what the do. >> except the ayatollah said they won't be allowed to go into military facilities so that's a nonstarter. the other question is will there be no-notice inspections? can we go anywhere anytime or -- >> rose: or do they have to know we're coming. >> at the gate (knocking) knock, knock. >> rose: if those are not fats side, what is the third. >> the third is whether you can actually reimpose sanctions once they're listed. i have this cartoon image of countries and companies just hovering on the iranian border with billions of dollars to invest and the notion that you're going to get them all back out or you're going to get

the chinese and the russians to reimpose sanctions once they're lifted, i think, is a hard case to make. >> rose: that's part of the fear who worry about this deal. they feel if the sanctions are lifted immediately, not only will you not be able to put them back, but the iranians will take this t money and do a lot of nefarious things. >> and that gets to the larger point which is the premise of the agreement based on the administration's own words is the hope that, over the ten-year period of the agreement ten-to-fifteen-year period of the agreement that the iranian government will focus on growing its economy and will over time become a constructive stakeholder in the international community and stop and abandon their theological and ideological principles abandon their ambitions in the region and their interest in having a nuclear capability and abandon

their medaling, and i think that's a very big leap. i think that's an unrealistic expectation. based on everything we've seen. >> rose: but is it a risk worth taking? >> the risk is worth taking if the deal is worth taking. >> rose: yeah. and, so, the question is what's the quality of the deal at the end? the deal has to stand on its own regardless of iranian foreign policy. >> rose: do you and george schultz and jim baker all say the same thing about these three items and if he gint them back away, and if he backs away what happens then? >> i don't believe the only alternative at that point is war. the iranians didn't come to the table out of good will. they came because they were under enormous pressure. you simply increase the pressure. now, if they race to a nuclear weapon, well that may be where they were headed in the first

place despite all their protestations that they have no interest in a nuclear weapon and it's contrary to their theology. >> rose: the place between one nuclear weapon today is, like, two and a half months. >> i think that's what i've read. >> rose: yeah, i've read it, too. and this deal makes it a year. >> maybe. >> rose: you've got a lot of questions here. this is a lot. you have to assume a lot. >> i've done -- charlie i've done a lot of arms control with the soviet union and i have been an intelligence officer and intelligence advisor to the negotiating team and i had responsibilities when it came to the verification regime and how we could monitor compliance. those agreements were very simple and mainly relied on our own satellites. we still found anomalies and we still found evidence that we thought soviets were in

violation of those agreements. this agreement is much more complex, requires direct access to many places to ensure that they're not cheating. so this verification regime is really important, and the devil is in the details. and my concern is that we'll find evidence of an ambiguous compliance and we'll have a big inner agency debate about it here in the united states about whether the information is valid or not. the state department and the white house will be arguing it's not valid. the intelligence community will be saying here's the evidence that we have, and we'll be wrapped around the axle, and we won't know for sure. so that's why the details of this verification are so important. >> rose: most of the debates within government are between state and c.i.a. or defense or is that just one example you used? >> that's just one example. particularly on arms control,

those who have negotiated the arms control agreements don't like to have the intelligence guys saying, you know the other side may not be complying. >> rose: do you believe, a the president seems to be, based on all that he has -- he's shown he's prepared to use force in different ways -- if the president is of a mind-set that this is so important that it's worth taking the risk, a or do you believe that the president simply wants this too much and there's a real danger for us because -- >> i think anybody who has ever engaged in negotiation knows that, to be successful you have to be willing to walk away from the table. and i worry that the agreement has taken on such importance that even if these ambiguities and questions are unanswered

there will be a great reluctance to walk away. even if your intent is simply to come back to the negotiations and try and get a better deal. >> rose: so you think is president may have wanted too much. >> let me just say i hope not. >> rose: but you're worried. i'm worried. >> rose: seems the president as you suggest is counting that behavior will change. after iran becomes a member in a greater sense of the larger community of nations that they will change their behavior. do they have an incentive to change their bahavior wpt to -- with respect to that? with respect to supporting hesbollah, with respect to the role they're playing in yemen supporting the rebels? >> i don't think so. i think the iranians feel the way things are going in the region, they clearly are concerned about i.s.i.s., but they have significant influence

in iran, they have significant influence in lebanon -- they have significant influence in iraq, i meant to say significant influence in lebanon, significant -- they're playing a role in yemen and so, i think that they think things are going pretty well from their sphoint in the region other than i.s.i.s. >> rose: that's whey the arab countries are worried? >> yes. >> rose: they gain supremacy in terms of sphere of influence. >> and it's never going to be all or nothing. if the iranians get a whole bunch of new money, sure, some of it will go into their economy, maybe most of it will go into trying to revive their economy, but i think it's naive to believe some significant part of those additional resources won't go to further iranian interests in the region. >> rose: are the actions of

president obama today since you've left government different than your understanding of how he viewed the world? >> i think there have been some changes from what i wrote about in "duty" but i think those were beginning to happen in the last sick months that i was there. the decision to basically tell mubarak he had to leave immediately that decision, as i write in the book, was opposed by every senior national security official in the government, beginning with the vice president. >> rose: including secretary of state. >> including the secretary of state. >> rose: all opposed telling mubarak you have to leave. >> have to leave right now. >> rose: then who influenced the president to say that? >> well, there were younger people on the back benches that basically were saying you've got to be on the right side of history, and i'm sitting on my

side of the table saying, yeah, if we could just figure that out. but i think that -- and then there were -- the decision to intervene in libya divided the administration, and the president was very clear to me that it was a very close call on his part. >> rose: you were on one side. i was opposed to the intervention. >> rose: secretary of state. and secretary of state clinton ended up being on the side of intervening. >> rose: along with -- actually -- >> but on the other side were the national security advisor vice president, me, chairman to have joint chiefs. >> rose: that's what makes the presidency a tough job. >> absolutely. you know, the president every now and then -- i mean, he had this huge array of huge problems and every now and then when we would be alone in the oval office, he would be talking about these things and i would

just smile at him and say tell me again why you wanted this job? which makes me wonder why this gaggle of people who want the to run for president really think this is a good idea. >> rose: what's your assessment of those republicans running for president? >> well, you know, we'll wait and see. each of them has an interesting background, some governorssome senators. >> rose: you know what i'm asking. >> you know as i told bob bob schieffer, most of them have not had jobs that require foreign policy background so my guess is their attitudes and views on foreign policy will be flushed out and get deeper as time goes on. >> rose: but you, at the same time, are the guy who writes and said, you know, barack obama is facing the toughest test of his presidency, the osama bin laden mission, which you had some reservations about, made the right decision and was a best example of leadership you'd seen

in a while. >> yeah, iio that it was the most courageous act i had seen in the situation room, one of the most courageous decision is had ever seen. >> rose: and the interesting question, what is it that enables someone to do that? what qualities enable someone to be there and to be right more often than wrong and always be right if it's life and death? >> i think that what's really important and all the presidents i work for have certainly a lot of self-confidence. president obama would -- one of the things that surprised me and pleased me was very early in the administration, it became clear to me that here's this guy who had never really run anything but he was a decision-maker. he didn't hesitate in making decisions and he didn't worry or fred about it. and if he had the time to spend a lot of time analyzing a problem, he would do it. he would tell me, i can't defend

it if i don't understand it. but if he had to make a quick decision, life and death decision, he could do that, too. and that's what is impressive. and he would never look back once having made the decision. >> rose: so you're saying to me between the time you left government and today you really haven't changed your mind about him as an effective leader? >> i have not changed my mind about him as an decision-maker and a willingness to make tough decisions. >> but you have changed your mind about him in what way? >> well, i have disagreed with some of the things that have happened. as i said, i disagreed with the way he dealt with mubarak. i disagreed with the decision to go into libya. i think that the crossing of the red line was a terrible, terrible development. the united states has to be -- the president of the united states has to be very careful about drawing a line in the

sand but when he does so for the sake of the credibility of the united states, it must be fatal to cross that line because, once you, as i used to tell the presidents if you cock that pistol you better be ready to fire it and to back away from that red line has huge impact on credibility and not just in the specific country where it applies. >> rose: even though the russian came up with an option he found appealing. >> but my attitude was -- >> rose: the symbolism to have the red line is more significant than getting the chemical weapons out of syria? >> well, at that point, 1400 people had been killed in a terrible questions attack but by that time 150,000 people had been killed by conventional weapons. >> rose: how will that war

end? >> i wish i knew. i don't see -- you know, it's kind of seesawed back and forth. right now looks like assad is suffering some losses, but, you know, the tragedy is that, before it ends, a lot more innocent people are going to die, and nobody seems to have a good idea -- >> rose: a will it be a military solution in. >> well, you know, my hope all along has been that the situation would get bad enough that his own military would get rid of him and then settle for some kind of a deal, whether that becomes possible, whether that happens -- >> rose: but somebody that is to take him out. he's not going to take himself out -- >> it's pretty clear -- >> rose: as long as he's there -- >> it's going to be a problem. >> rose: turn to russia. where do you think russia and ukraine is today?

we just saw some evidence of news reports that they had captured two russian soldiers. >> i think my own view is putin is unlikely to rest until he takes mariupol and has -- >> rose: a direct link to -- a land bridge to crimea. >> rose: will that be enough? well, it depends. i think that if -- i think it probably is. the question is whether there is some kind of a negotiation that can take place that keeps eastern ukraine part of ukraine even if it has considerable autonomy -- >> rose: you mean autonomy just to eastern ukraine? >> yes. >> rose: all right. but i think putin has basically played a very -- he's played hard he's played very -- he's been very tough in his resistance to the sanctions and

everything else and, right now, it appears that that situation is going in his direction. and the ruble has regained some of its strength. >> rose: oil prices are up. oil prices are up a little bit. my guess is he's feeling pretty good. >> rose: sanctions aren't working then? >> well, they're having an impact. my guess is that the drop in an oil price that a more dramatic effect on the russian economy. >> rose: you don't have any concerns he may want to go into the baltic countries? >> i'm worried about him stirring things up there. i'm not particularly concerned about a direct military action, but his ability to use the many russians who live in all those countries, particularly in estonia and latvia, to stir things up and create instability, i think we shouldn't underestimate that. he's already launched a cyberattack against estonia in

2008, so i don't think we should relax when it comes to the baltic states, but i think the precious are more likely to -- i think the pressures are more likely to be more subtle and covert than in eastern ukraine. >> rose: do you believe the united states is retreating from the global stage? >> i think that others perceive -- many others around the world perceive that we are withdrawing from our global responsibilities, and it's not just the rhetoric it's not just pulling troops out of iraq and afghanistan. it's slashing the defense budget, the budgets of the state department, the agency for international development, all the tools of national security and foreign policy we're cutting back, so despite all of the claims on the hill and the congress that the president is pulling back the truth is tare

doing i've -- the truth is they're doing every bit as much damage to the image of american leadership by their cuts in the tools in american national security as the rhetoric and some of the actions in the white house. >> rose: do you think you will ever return to government is this. >> no. (laughter) i think having written this book i'm pretty well guaranteed that. >> rose: i was going to say... a confirmation for my challenge. >> rose: will you write another book? >> i have another book coming out next year. >> rose: on? on how you lead change in big bureaucracies. it's about leadership but about specifically, how you change and reform big organizations to make them work better. i've done it at texas a&m c.i.a. and the defense department. it can be done even in a time of political paralysis. in this new book, it basically talks about how to do it. >>it.

>> rose: what is that? it requires leadership. >> rose: "duty: the memoirs of a secretary at war " . robert gates. >> thanks, charlie. >> rose: back in a moment. >> rose: archbishop vincenzo paglia is here. propose benedict appointed him as president of the pontifical council for the family in 2012. established by the cano niced saint john paul ii in 1981. he has traveled around the world advocating the gospel to have the family. hoe is in new york to deliver an address at the united nations as part of the 2015 international day of families. i am pleased to have the archbishop at this table. welcome. a pleasure to meet you. >> thank you. >> rose: what is your mission with respect to the family? >> my mission of is to help all

churches to understand better and proclaim better gospel of the family. family is good news, for the contemporary world. a lot of people are alone. a lot of people suffer. in the sense, family is to be a good use for all people of the world. >> rose: the church has a synod on family do they not? >> they do around 400 bishops all over the world gather together and discuss about the family about the gospel and the problematic situations of the day. >> rose: you said the facts

speak of themselves. the number of weddings is draystistic reduced. living together and divorce increases. types of union unthinkable years ago are now commonplace and legally protected. procreation is more separated from marriage and also intercourse, the combined of new technical possibilities produces a situation where the intergenerational and heterosexual family discovers it is seen as no longer necessary in the organization of society. >> so, you know, in the beginning, the first page of the bible, god says it is not good for man to be alone. today, unfortunately, a lot of people think it is possible to be happy being alone. in the sense, we need to rediscover, to reannounce the beauty to stay together, showing

the family is the source of society. strong family means strong society. feeble family means feeble society. >> rose: here's where i'm a bit interested in asking. my understanding was that the pope, when he assumed the papacy, you know, said that all these issues you're talking about are very controversial. >> yes. >> rose: divorce. homosexuality. the state of marriage. i just read that. the pope i thought was trying to say let's focus more on the pastoral role over the church. >> exactly. >> rose: and not get so engaged by these things that create so much controversy. our mission is pastoral. our mission is to expand the

church. >> to expand the church is to stretch his arms in order to welcome everyone. above all who suffer, he exhorts bishops, priests the faithful to help the other to improve the life situation, to give good news, good words good people. in a sense the pope wants a church who is near all people. no one is to be alone. >> rose: let me ask you about this pope. tell me how's he doing? >> so i remember when i met him

for the first time. he told me that today i was visiting my apartment. a lot of rooms. i was captured by the anguish. i said, i don't want to be alone. i remain where i am. what does he mean? the pope is really friendly. he makes all people feel comfortable with him. i remember when in the first celebration in st. peter's

square, he went in the middle of the people, and he met a little child. he stopped. he embraced him. so this is the style of pope francis. in my opinion, it has to be the style of the church. at the beginning of this millennium, we are to show others the mercy of god. >> rose: how is he changing the church? >> more family less organization. more humanity, less structure.

our real treasure is humanity. our real mission is to touch with our love, with our passion. decide to change in a better way. we have to rediscover the happiness in a friendship, in helping each other in having common dreams. >> rose: i understand he is also trying to change rome, the vatican. >> yes. >> rose: the curia. ight. once i said to the pope, holy

father, you are not changed, but in this way you change our feeling, our lifestyle, because he injected his passion for the meeting with the others, and this is, in my opinion the reason and the effect of his first trip in the united states, in september, pope francis will come to the united states. he will visit new york. and the pope knows that this is

an historical trip and he wants to exhort the american people to be more human, to be more open to rediscover the mission of the people to have the united states of the -- to have the people of the united states, of the churches of the united states, to play a big role in the world, in order to humanize our contemporary work. >> rose: as you know, he's been involved trying to bring cuba and the united states together. >> exactly. this is one of the miracles of pope francis. in the way he stopped finally the cold war. with this encounter between

united states and cuba, the pope francis shows that the encounter is to be the main actor of history. >> rose: he also wants to recognize and see the world recognize the palestinian state. >> exactly. to reach the peace, in order to reach a new kind of encounter between the people. so pope francis gives to us -- he wants to push all of us to live in a new world to encounter more patience. >> rose: how is the church handling, and he's been more up front than some, of the pedophilia in the church?

>> the pope has a great passion to defend childhood and youth and young people. >> rose: and not cover it up. absolutely. because jesus says with really clear words the child and conduct with them. in the sense all crime are crimes, but the crime with child is really terrible. >> rose: you're optimistic for the church? >> i think so. if we follow the pope francis. pope francis show us a good way.

every sunday st. peter's square is full of people, not only believers but people from everywhere. in the sense we describe a new father in a word where we rediscovered in pope francis a papa. >> rose: archbishop thank you for coming. >> i thank you for your friendship and i hope you will continue to see and to hear. >> rose: thank you. god bless you. >> rose: see you in rome. i hope. >> rose: thank you. thank you for joining us. see you next time. for more about this program and

earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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