captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for saturday september 26: pope francis in the city of brotherly love, and urges ordinary catholics to take a greater role in the church. in our signature segment: faith, service, sacrifice. meet the new generation of men hoping to enter the priesthood. >> there is a lot of trust to rebuild, wounds to be healed. but i think we all are here because we want to do that. >> sreenivasan: and, monitoring a city's air quality by tracking asthma patients. next on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: lewis b. and louise hirschfeld cullman. bernard and irene schwartz. judy and josh weston. the cheryl and philip milstein family.

sue and edgar wachenheim, iii. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we are your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios at lincoln center in new york, hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: good evening and thanks for joining us. pope francis is in philadelphia on the final leg of his six-day visit to the united states. after his arrival this morning, the pope led a mass at the 150- year-old cathedral basilica of saints peter and paul. in his address, francis stressed the importance of lay people to the catholic church, including what he called "the immense contribution of women," though he has rejected women becoming priests.

>> ( translated ): we know that the future of the church in a rapidly changing society will call, and even now calls, for a much more active engagement on the part of the laity. >> sreenivasan: outside independence hall this afternoon, the pope spoke about religious freedom and immigration, using a lectern once used by president abraham lincoln. the pope's biggest event this weekend is attending the catholic world meeting of families. as many as one million people are expected to attend the festival staged tonight outside the philadelphia museum of art. ahead of next week's united nations general assembly, u.n. secretary general ban ki-moon is pressing iran to help reach a political settlement to the civil wars in syria and yemen, where iran has great influence. the secretary general met with iranian president hassan rouhani today at the u.n. rouhani is an ally of syrian president bashar al-assad, and is backing rebels fighting the government in yemen. u.s. secretary of state john kerry met with iran's foreign minister today, also to discuss syria and yemen, and the pending deal for iran to curb its nuclear program in exchange for

economic sanctions relief. president obama and president rouhani both address the u.n. monday but have no plans to meet. thousands of migrants to europe are stuck in a no-man's land between croatia and serbia. the migrants, many of them syrian refugees, are camped out in fields between the two countries, which both border hungary. since hungary built a fence along its border with serbia two weeks ago, more than 40,000 migrants have entered croatia from serbia. 3,000 migrants transported by croatia were admitted to today to hungary, but hungary is now building a fence along its border with croatia, too. u.s. defense secretary ash carter has approved returning guantanamo detainee shaker aamer, a saudi citizen and legal british resident, to his family in england. the u.s. government has held aamer for 13 years without pressing any criminal charges. u.s. national security agencies decided six years ago he was no longer a threat. prime minister david cameron is among the british leaders who advocated for aamer's release. the 49-year-old father of four, is expected to go home within 30 days. 113 other men remain at guantanamo.

the obama administration is planning to spend another $300 million to prevent h.i.v. and aids in africa. the spending will target teenage girls and young women in 10 countries where, the administration says, 1,000 women are infected with h.i.v. every day. national security adviser susan rice said today the goal is to reduce h.i.v. infections among those women by 40% over the next two years. this is the next phase of the president's emergency plan for aids relief, known as "pepfar," started by president george w. bush. >> sreenivasan: for years, the british government has reportedly tracked and stored billions of records of internet use by british citizens and people outside the u.k., in an effort to track every visible user on the internet. that finding comes from the intercept website, which is publishing findings from

national security agency contractor edward snowden's leak on government surveillance practices." intercept" reporter ryan gallagher wrote the story and joins me now, via skype, from brighton, england. first of all, explain the scale of surveillance that was happening from the british equivalent of the n.s.a., the g.c.h.q. >> well, the skill is quite phenomenal. i mean, it's hard to translate it when you just see the numbers. but you're talking about 30 to 100 billion metadata records of phone calls and e-mails every single day, so vast, vast quantities of information they're sweeping up. and they're talking by 2030 having in place the world's largest surveillance system, surpassing what the n.s.a. and u.s. has built. >> sreenivasan: when somebody hears that there's millions and

billions and possibly trillions of pieces of data they'll say, you know, what, how do you actually identify this is specifically me that's doing this, or going to the site, or saying this thing in a chat room? >> well, i mean, we have-- we don't actually-- one of the interesting parts of the story is that we had a bunch of specific cases where, for example, we had monitored something like 200,000 people from something like 185 different countries, so almost every country in the world. in one case they decided to pick out just one of these people. it seems like at randop, what web site he had been viewing. it's kind of an all-seeing system. when you're gathering that amount of information, that's something that does have an

impact or effect. >> sreenivasan: the qchq has even more lax oversight than the n.s.a. in your articled you pointed to a couple of cases of almost corporate espionage. >> we have the case where they were monitoring people listening to internet radio shows. there are a couple of other really fascinating and important case where's they've used this information to-- major european telecommunications companies. the reason they did did that is they wanted to get into these companies' systems and steal information they held in their systems because that would help them spy on other people. also, in these cases, these amounted to major cyber attacks, cyberattacks in europe on allied countrieses, companies in allied countries. and so, you know, the

ramifications are quite severe. even in terms of the european union, what the u.k. agency is doing in europe. >> sreenivasan: ryan gallagher from the intercept, thank you so much for joining me. >> thanks for having me pop >> sreenivasan: pope francis' visit comes at time when u.s. catholic church attendance has shrunk by half in the past 40 years, and when 40% of american catholics who've left the church say they don't intend to return. but since francis' elevation to the papacy in 2013, there's been a slight uptick in ordinations-- the number of men becoming priests. the pope will spend his final evening in the u.s. tonight at a seminary just outside of philadelphia, where a diverse generation of young men is studying to become the church's next leaders. the newshour's stephen fee visited that seminary and has this report.

>> reporter: at the st. charles borromeo seminary outside philadelphia, 146 men are on the decade-long path to becoming priests. the classrooms look conventional, and you would find some of the courses like spanish and philosophy at any american college. but you'll seldom find women here, as the church still doesn't permit women priests or for its priests to marry. and celibacy is still part of the job description. that vow is a worthy sacrifice, according to the seminarians we met during our visit. do you think there are misconceptions about who seminarians are and who priests are? >> oh yeah. >> reporter: like what? >> i just think they think we're not like normal guys in the sense that we don't watch movies, we don't watch tv. we don't play sports, you know. >> reporter: do you do any of those things? >> yes! >> reporter: originally founded in 1832 to educate 500 seminarians, today st. charles enrolls less than a third of that figure. that parallels a nationwide trend. since 1970, the number of

american priests has dropped by 40%, from nearly 60,000 to just over 37,000 today. and as the catholic population shrinks in the north and east and grows in the south and west, thousands of parishes are without pastors. but since 2012, there's been a small increase in ordinations in the u.s., from 457 three years ago to 515 last year. at st. charles, 20 men enrolled in the seminary this year, up from six men the year before. 18-year-old phil tran began his studies this fall. the oldest of six children in a vietnamese-american family, tran was immersed in catholic teachings from a young age. >> so it's funny, because for most of my life, the priesthood was something i kind of ran away from. i've always had people going up to me, telling me i'd make a good priest. >> reporter: by sixth grade, friends and family jokingly called him father phil. still, when he finished high

school, tran planned on studying mechanical engineering at philadelphia's drexel university, where he was offered a partial scholarship. >> knowing who i am as a person, knowing that i want to live my life as a man of god, knowing that i have a servant heart, that made me just realize that, you know-- i love math, i love science, i love engineering, but i couldn't see myself enjoying that for the rest of my life, when i know that i could be touching people's lives in a more direct way, in a way that god might be calling me to do. >> reporter: tran is one of four seminarians of vietnamese origin to enroll at st. charles this year-- a sign of the changing demographics within the church. over the past 40 years, the number of foreign-born catholics in the u.s. has increased five- fold, with an influx from asia and latin america. manuel flores was born in puerto rico and said, at first his mother was disappointed in his choice to become a priest because that meant he would never marry or have children. >> being in a hispanic family,

it's about the family. so, you know, she was kind of half expecting me to be a father, you know, to children, be married and such. but and she kind of, after i entered, it kind of became more of an accepting kind of thing with my mother. she was very loving about it. >> reporter: bishop timothy senior oversees st. charles. as a seminarian here in 1979, he met pope john paul ii when he visited philadelphia. today, bishop senior is preparing for another papal visit. he attributes the recent uptick in seminarians to a generational change. >> well i do think that there's a sense among younger people today, among the millennials, of the importance of service, of a life of service and giving back, and an attentiveness to the needs of those who are less fortunate, an awareness that somehow how i've been blessed is also an opportunity.

>> reporter: bishop senior says it's hard to say why the number of seminarians has inched up, but he believes pope francis' focus on serving the poor and reaching out to those disaffected by the church might be factors. >> there was for too long-- and the holy father has said this-- i think a presumption that it's like the catholic faith is the gift of the sacraments: the eucharist, the confession, all of our tradition. it's kind of, here it is, take it or leave it. and it can't be that way. the church needs to turn outward and to again meet people where they are and help them to discover that great gift again. >> reporter: are we seeing the clergy change along with the changes in the complexion of the greater church? >> they have to. our presbyterate needs to reflect the demographics of the people that we serve. i'm thinking here in the archdiocese of philadelphia that, you know, st. charles seminary today is 16% latino. >> reporter: but that diversity

doesn't include women, despite the fact that more than half of american catholics believe the clergy should include them. and it doesn't include married men, though other christian denominations allow pastors to marry. so far, pope francis is not prepared to change that. >> we can't change the teaching to solve a personnel problem. the sacramental theology that is embedded in the church's understanding of the priesthood is related to gender and so that the priesthood is something that we believe in the plan of jesus was something that he shared with the 12 apostles who were men. >> reporter: at 36-years-old, tim sahd is not a typical seminarian. he worked in journalism and in his family's metal recycling business before deciding to become a priest four years ago. >> i bought a house. you know, i thought this was the last kind of move.

but there was just something inside of me that, you know, i don't know that i could properly describe it. but i think all of us have that moment where we realize that either something feels right or it feels like there's just something quite missing. i've given things up. but i don't look at it that way at all. because the things i've received are so much to me, so much greater than the things, perhaps, that i've given up. >> reporter: 40% of seminarians here at st. charles eventually decide not to become priests. it's not only the sacrifices that make joining the clergy a difficult decision. there is also the cloud of sexual abuse. revelations about decades of sexual abuse between 1950 and 2002 implicated more than 4,000 american priests. some philadelphia priests went to prison. what do you say to a parent who says, i can't trust the church to bring my son into the clergy because of the tarnish that was

brought by the sex-abuse scandal and the subsequent cover-ups? >> i say i understand. and it is incumbent upon us to serve the men who are in formation, and ultimately, the church by making sure that our community is serving the needs of these men so that they grow and mature to the men that they can be. and that we're discerning a call to the priesthood for someone who can embrace that commitment and is not going to be failing in such a horrific way. >> reporter: seminarians at st. charles undergo "safe environment training," pastoral psychology courses to be on the lookout for abuse within the church and its institutions. they're also trained to use alcohol wisely and understand boundaries between priests and their parishioners. the soon-to-be-priests we spoke to say: the abuse scandal compels them to be better priests. >> when all that came out, i

said i don't want to be that. i want to be better than that. there is a lot of trust to rebuild, wounds to be healed. but i think we all are here because we want to do that. >> if anything, the priest sex abuse scandal actually motivated me to try to become the best priest i can be in order to bring healing and to bring christ to people and we have a lot of work to do and i think pope francis is so wonderfully leading us in this sense, as well as pope benedict xvi of trying to regain the moral credibility that we have lost. >> reporter: tonight, the seminarians of st. charles borromeo welcome pope francis with song and prayer, and with a hope that his papacy will bring renewed energy to the catholic clergy. >> there's no sugar coating there. he's always free to express himself as he is. he's not hiding behind any kind of bureaucratic kind of, you know, mentality. you know, he's being what the church needs him to be.

>> sreenivasan: follow pope francis on the final leg of his u.s. trip, and watch our livestream of papal events. visit pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: tonight we begin a new, recurring series looking at innovative ideas and experiments cities are using to solve problems. the goal: to improve quality of life and serve as a model for other cities facing similar issues. for the past three years, louisville, kentucky, has been tracking asthma sufferers as a way to monitor the city's overall air quality. the newshour's christopher booker has the story in our first installment of "urban ideas". >> reporter: every night, usually somewhere between dinner time and putting her children to bed, louisville nurse dawn sirek reaches for her inhaler. >> it's really simple, and that's it. >> reporter: on good days, this is only her second dose of a daily asthma maintenance routine. but on bad days, of which there are many, dawn says she loses

count of just how many times she needs to reach for the inhaler. >> i have symptoms every day. it factors into my life every single day. it affects my work, it affects my being a mom. it's awful. >> reporter: for the past few months, whether it is a good day or a bad one, dawn's daily battle to breathe has become intricately linked to an innovative partnership of big data and public health. sitting atop her inhaler is a tiny g.p.s. transmitter that with each puff passes valuable bits of information that not only helps dawn manage her asthma, but is also helping the city understand why so many of its residents are having trouble breathing. >> this is something that respiratory therapists like me kind of dream about. >> reporter: melissa williams works for propeller health, a respiratory health company, and the data collection partner for the program, known as air louisville. >> the first thing i do is log in, look at the dashboard. it'll give me a list of all of my patients in the program. >> reporter: coupled with a participant's smartphone, the sensor sends the time and

location to propeller's central database, giving patients, doctors, and respiratory therapists like melissa a real time understanding of just how the city's asthma patients are faring. since starting in 2012, air louisville has had hundreds of participants and hopes to enroll 1,000 by years end. >> it will show you when they typically have events. it will give you, like, the average temperature, the air quality weather conditions on those days. so it will help to simplify triggers. >> reporter: with an estimated 13% of its population suffering from asthma, louisville has one of the highest rates in the country. sitting in the ohio river valley, the city's unique geography, coupled with a steady flow of pollution from heavy industry and automobiles, makes the city particularly susceptible to poor air quality. the american lung association ranks louisville as the nation's 15th worst metropolitan area for air pollution. >> i have counterparts in our chamber of commerce, they collect best lists. right? so louisville's the best place to raise a poodle. it's the best place for asian

bourbon fusion food. i collected the worst lists. right. and so, you know, one of the worst places to live in the country if you have asthma. >> reporter: for the past four years, as louisville's first chief of civic innovation, doctor ted smith has spent much of his time thinking how the city might get off of this list. but smith says the data-driven asthma hotspot map that resulted from the initial pilot program brought a few surprises. >> the conventional wisdom around things like asthma, you know, may be, "well, it's all about smoking. or it's about older housing stock. or it's about being next to a power plant or something." right? and, you know, it turns out, at least the clustering we saw early was in other parts of our community entirely. >> reporter: so besides industrial areas and highway intersections, residential areas like this one in southwest louisville is a hot spot. >> it's been fascinating. because we're pushing the envelope in terms of learning for the community, so that we could say precisely where do asthma sufferers have the most problem? and how can we a) advise them

about that? but b) mitigate how that might take place? >> reporter: when you see and look at the hotspots, i'm sure you can kind of correlate this to certain issues that exist within the city, whether that be the existence of a power facility or housing questions. do you foresee future battles that will be data-driven? >> i wouldn't call them battles. but i would say-- call it informed decision making. before we didn't have that type of information to make a decision. so it makes people think about planning in a much more thoughtful way. >> reporter: for asthmatics like dawn sirek, this program isn't about lists, rankings, or city planning, it's a new tool to help her to live and breathe easier. >> my phone dings every night at 9:00 and every morning 9:00 a.m. to remind me to take my inhaler. and the app that it's on my phone, it will tell me that it's a bad air quality day. and i had never paid attention to that in the past. and now i do.

>> this is pbs newshour weekend, saturday. >> sreenivasan: volkswagen's emissions test cheating scandal has us talking about the level of pollutants coming out of cars. california's air resources board decided friday to require automakers to cut carbon emissions from gasoline and diesel fuel by 10% over the next five years. california is only the second state to impose such a standard. joining us from los angeles to explain is ian lovett of "the new york times." first of all, just explain carbon fuel standards for someone who hasn't been paying attention. >> hi, hari. the rule is designed to cut emissions from gasoline and diesel fuels. and what it means is they're going to require a 10% reduction in the carbon contint of those fuels by 20ed 20. which will mean incorporating more biofuels like biodiesel.

now, california already has the toughest emission standards in the country, but this particular rule had been on hold for last self years because of a lawsuit, and the reapproval on fridays means the state can keep moving forward towards the 10% reduction and start moving away from petroleum products and towards alternative fuels. >> sreenivasan: is there enough of a supply of alternative fuels for californians. >> reporter: that is the question, what the effect will be on gas prices. the state is projecting this will lead to a maybe $13 cent per gallon raise by 20ed 20. i think the big question going forward is if prices do start to go up, how will people react? so far, californians have been willing to support environmental laws, even that has meant a small hit to their pocketbooks but if it it becomes a larger hit it remains to be seen.

>> sreenivasan: all right ian lovett, thank you. >> thank you, haar. >> sreenivasan: and finally, japanese climber kuriki, is closing in on the summit of mount everett. he was set for a solo approach to the peak, his first attempt in the past six years. on a previous try, he lost the tips of eight fingers and one thumb to froaft bite when he got stuck at 27,000 feet in minus 20 degree weather. and the newshour's steven fee is in philadelphia with a look at what's on the program tomorrow. >> thanks, hari. we'll be here in the city of brotherly love for pope francis' final day in the united states. planners here expect up to a million people on the benjamin franklin parkway behind me for an open-air mass before the pope returns to rome sunday evening. >> sreenivasan: that's all for this edition of pbs newshour weekend. thanks for watching. i'm hari sreenivasan.

captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: lewis b. and louise hirschfeld cullman. bernard and irene schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. judy and josh weston. sue and edgar wachenheim, iii. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we are your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

- i'm stanley tucci, your host of independent lens. george washington's birthday. in laredo, texas, the society of martha washington hosts an annual event with costumes and gowns so elaborate, they take a year to create. it's part debutante ball, part historical performance, and a patriotic way to honor our first american president latino style. - the average gown costs around $15,000, but a few girls spend as much as $30,000. - independent filmmakers cristina ibarra and erin ploss-campoamor go backstage to show us the pomp and circumstance behind this bicultural celebration. for more than a century, mexican-american girls here have carried this gilded tradition on their fashionable young shoulders.