and remembering jewish prisoners who used music to defy their nazi captors. ♪ major funding for "religion and ethics newsweekly" is provided by the lilly endowment, an indianapolis based private family foundation dedicated to its founders' interest in religion, community development, and education. additional funding by mutual of america, designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. and the corporation for public broadcasting. welcome, i'm kim lawton, sitting in for bob abernethy. thank you for joining us. the 2012 presidential campaign is kicking into gear, and potential republican candidates are already courting religious conservatives.

former massachusetts governor mitt romney announced his candidacy thursday. romney says his mormon faith should not be a political issue, but it was a concern for some conservative evangelicals in the last election. in 2008, more than 40% of republican primary voters were evangelicals. with that in mind, a parade of presidential hopefuls and other gop leaders spoke to religious conservatives in washington this week at a meeting organized by the faith and freedom coalition. >> i want to thank you for forming this faith and freedom coalition, because nothing long survives without advocates, and that includes values. >> joining me now is cherie harder, president of the nonpartisan trinity forum. beforthat, she worked in policy positions for first lady laura bush and former senate majority leader bill frist, a republican. cherie, welcome. >> great to be here.

>> how important are religious conservatives, and specifically evangelicals, to the whole republican coalition? >> well, they're quite important. one thing i think i should mention is, of course, evangelical spans a whole range of ideological temperaments. i mean, within the evangelical umbrella, you have everyone from jim wallis to jim dobson, beverly lahaye to shane claiborne. so that term usually applies theologically. lately, it's also applied politically, but i think it's important to remember that, of crse, trere pple of many different political persuasions though who would call themselves evangelicals. but within the political spectrum, they remain important, although i think that both the agenda is broadening, and i think we should be careful not to consider them as a monolith anymore then we would consider, say, women voters as a monolith. >> but they have tended to vote overwhelmingly republican. i mean, at the last election we saw a little bump for barack obama. 26% of evangelicals self-identified voted for him. that means, you know, 75% still voted republican. >> oh, i think there's no doubt

at all that there are certain agenda items that are going to be very important to evangelicals, many of them social and cultural agenda items. i also think though that in the election coming up, you are going see some really key differences. for example, in this coming election, it seems that many economic and financial issues are really at the forefront as opposed to social issues. i also think that you are going to see a broadening of the agenda. there are many evangelicals who have been very much at the forefront of humanitarian ises, difrent issue related to international relations, aid to the poor, even environmental issues and creation care, so that the agenda that in the past has characterized evangelical involvement i think you can count on as broadening. >> but where is that going then end up in terms of support for particular candidates, and especially if you are looking at the republican spectrum? are evangelicals sort of lining up behind anyone in particular right now?

>> well, that is the big question. and i think at this point, we haven't seen evangelicals fall squarely behind one particular candidate. i thi there's still a lot of sorting out to be done. and i don't think one candidate has really just emerged as a frontrunner in that area. there's a lot of qualified candidates out there. i think evangelicals are tang their time. they're evaluating the candidate on terms of a variety of different factors. and last time around we had a few candidates that really did seem to have a strong hold on the affections of many people who would describe themselves as evangelical in terms of their voting. this time around it's going to look different. >> and very briefly, do you think mitt romney and jon huntsman, another potential candidate, also a mormon, is that going to be an issue for evangelicals? >> you know, again, evangelicals aren't a monolith, so on one hand, anything i say is going to be a generalization. but i think, generally, evangelicals, like other americans, are looking for a

qualified commander-in-chief who represents their values and can be counted on to lead the nation wisely and in a strong way. they are not looking for a pastor-in-chief. and so i think most evangicals, like most americans, recognize that they may have theological differences at points with the man or the woman who might be president. >> all right, cherie harder. thank you very much. >> thank you. in other news, dr. jack kevorkian, the controversial advocate of physician assisted suicide, died on friday. he was 83. kevorkian had assisted in the deaths of more than 100 people. he served eight years in prison for second-degree murder. many in the faith community, especially religious conservatives, condemned kevorkian's actions. a report out this week warns that rising food prices could lead to a permanent global hunger crisis. the international aid group, oxfam, predicts the cost of food

staples such as corn will more than double over the ne 20 years. the report lists climate change, population growth and the use of crops for biofuels as some of the reasons for increasing food shortages. according to the u.n., food prices are already the highest they've been in two decades. ere re me severe tornados in parts of the u.s. this week, including a deadly one in western massachusetts. meanwhile, relief efforts continue in joplin, missouri, after one of the worst tornados in recent history. officials have now accounted for all the missing. at least 138 people were killed. at a memorial service last sunday, president obama promised that the country would not forget about the disaster and would help joplin rebuild. several churches also held prayer services for the victims. organ transplants used to come mostly from deceased dons, b in the case of kidney transplants, medical advances have opened the door for many more transplants from living donors.

experts say it is an ethical good to become an organ donor, but just how far should society go in promoting organ donation? it's early morning at washington hospital center and time for a quick prayer before flavia walton heads into surgery. >> please help my mother get through. please help the surgeons and guide their hands, lord. >> for eight years, her husband, bill, has had severe kidney disease, and flavia is donating a kidney. but her kidney isn't going to bill. they weren't compatible enough, at least when it came to kidneys. so bill had to be put on the transplant list. >> you are placed on the list, and then the wait begins, and it goes on and on and on, and your only hope is you can check the list on the internet and see if the numbers are getting any smaller. but they never do. >> then bill and flavia heard about a program known as a paired kidney exchange, where

flavia could donate h kidney to somebody else, and in exchange, bill would get a kidney from another donor who was a perfect match. >> bottom line here is you've got to give one to get one. >> the waltons were part of the world's largest kidney swaps to date, sponsored by washington hospital center and georgetown university hospital. it involved a complex chain of 28 surgeries at 4 different hospitals. most of the donors gave a kidney in order to benefit a friend or family member. but a couple of donors did it out of a sense of aruism, with no particular recipient in mind. in the end, 14 patients who had been particularly hard to match received kidney transplants. the donors and recipients were introduced to each other at an emotional news conference. >> i love this guy. i don't even know him, but i love him. >> you can't imagine how fortunate i feel that somebody from somewhere in the universe came and gave me a kidney. >> to see someone that you love most in the world deteriorate is

a sense of helplessness and powerlessness that youust cannot comprehend unless you've been there. but to be able to do something is so empowering, but it is such a blessing. >> more than 100,000 americans are currently on the waiting list for an organ transplant, the vast majority of them waiting for a kidney. over the last decade, an estimated 60,000 people died while still waiting for a transplant. given those numbers, many experts say there is a moral obligation to encourage more people to become organ donors. >> just a little nudge would do enormous amounts of good in terms of saving lives and making sick people's lives better. >> the incentive for flavia walton to become an organ donor was clearly to benefit her husband of 42 years. >> if god could give his son for me, or for us, i could certainly

give a kidney to keep someone else alive. and i certainly want to keep him around as long as possible. i don't know if he wants to keep me around that much longer. >> no, i got no complaints. >> okay, okay. but no, it was not a hard decision at all. >> living donors are screened psychologically to ensure they are not being unduly pressured into the surgery. it is major surgery, but because of medical advances the risks to the donors are quite low. because of these factors, professor veatch at georgetown university's kennedy institute of ethics says there are few ethical problems with kidney swaps such as the one the waltons were part of. >> if we can get a living donor, we g a better kieya more viable kidney, and it shows up in the survival rate statistics. >> his main ethical concern with the swaps is making sure that kidney patients without a loved one willing to donate are not pushed lower on the waiting list, particularly those with

hard-to-match blood types. >> we at least want to be fair with the people on the wait list who don't have a family member available. being fair might mean waiting a trivial extra amount of time, but we certainly don't want to make those people wait years extra just because of the swap arrangements. >> while the swap program has been successful, some other strategies to encourage organ donation have run into roadblocks because of the national organ transplant act, which forbids any monetary compensation for organ donation. 25 years ago, veatch testified in support of that law, but he's now urging that it be revisited. he's calling for experimentation with some token financial inceives. for example, he would support a modest discount on driver's license renewals for people who

sign up to be organ donors. or, he says, there could be a question on income tax returns asking people to be donors, and even offering a tax deduction for those who say yes. >> it sort of taints the altruism of organ donation. on the other hand, real human lives are at stake here, and i would be willing to compromise the altruism at the margins if we can really save some lives. >> veatch also says the religious community should do more to promote organ donation. >> it's considered an altruistic, charitable act, and all the major religions look favorably upon that behavior. >> veatch tries to counter one theological concern he hears among some conservative christians, especially in the black church, who believe individuals will be bodily resurrected in the end times, and therefore they worry about the implicationsf organ

donion. >> the doctrine is when you are resurrected, you will be resurrected to look like you, but with all the bad stuff fixed. so if you had cancer, the cancer won't be there, and if organs had been procured, or consumed by fire, you will get a new version of the body. >> flavia walton, who is a member of the african methodist episcopal church, says she tries to address that theological issue in her community as well. >> think that there's some notion or some belief among many that feel that when we meet our maker, we have to meet our maker all in one piece. for me, it means i just want to meet the maker. i don't think the maker cares whether i'm all in one piece or not. i don't think that's the issue. >> the waltons say organ donation is of particular concern to african-americans because more than 60% of patients who need transplants are non-white. at the same time,

african-americans have a disproportionately low rate of organ donation. the waltons hope their story can help change that. >> exposure is key, and the more we can expose to that population that it works and we're examples of that, the more emphasis we can get out there that spread the word and let's proceed. >> after two years on dialysis, bill says he can't believe how great he feels now. he says the gift of someone else's kidney has meant everything to him. >> life, basically. you can't get any more basic than that -- life with a little ginger thrown in, because it's a life that is much more comfortable than what i had. >> flavia says donating a kidney turned out to be a spiritual experience for her, definitely worth the short time she spent recovering from surgery.

>> just feeling good that i've been able to do something and that hopefully i'll be able to make a difference not only in the life of the recipient of my kidney, but hopefully it'll spread, and hopefully i'll be able to make a difference in helping other people make a decision to make a difference in the lives of others. >> and as politicians and ethicists wrestle over how to encourage more organ donations, the waltons hope stories like theirs will be the best incentive of all. i'm kim lawton in washington. we checked in again with the waltons. the surgery saved bill's lif but he has faced continuing complications. an unusually broad coalition of religious leaders teamed up this week against smokeless tobacco in major league baseball. they urged the player's union to

agree to a proposed ban on tobacco use at games. even though chewing tobacco has been a longstanding baseball tradition, the leaders said the players have a responsibility to be better role models for young fans. meanwhile, a religious wager is underway in professional basketball. miami's roman catholic archbishop thomas wenski is betng dlas bishopevin farrell that the heat will beat the mavericks in the nba finals. on the line from wenski, some florida oranges, handmade cigars and key lime pies. and from farrell, barbecue ribs, tortillas, salsa and pecan pies. we have a story today about courage and humanity in the face of brutal oppression. in one of the nazi concentration camps during world war ii, there was a jewish prison choir. the members learned verdi's famous requiem mass, with its plea to god for deliverance from evil. survivors said they derived spiritual strength from singing the requiem to their captors. bob faw reports.

>> every note. get inside of every note. inside of every note. >> in a washington, d.c., church an impassioned conductor implores his choir. ♪ >> don't move, don't move. very nice. what you're doing is very nice, and there's no room for that. it has to be extraordinary. the sort of thing that you will remember all of your lives. >> whenever he can, murry sidlin urges them to do more, because what they're rehearsing, what they are trying to commemorate, is another performance by another choir in horrific circumstances -- jewish prisoners in a nazi concentration camp. >> to us, it's just damn words.

they leave e rehearsal and walk over bodies to get back to their barracks. we cannot be indifferent. >> this music, verdi's "lyrical mass for the dead," is a full-throated testament to the majesty and judgment of god, profound even in this rehearsal at washington's kennedy center. but it was perhaps never more powerful or poignant than its performance on june 23rd, 1944, in the concentration camp, terezin, just outside prague. when jewish prisoners sang the requiem to their nazi captors, that catholic mass, says terezin survivor vera schiff, gave prisoners a way to defy the nazis.

>> the text of the latin prayers suggests that we all will be judged by the almighty, and this would include the germans. that was a promise. that the day will come when we will all be facing the final judge, and that gave us a great deal of satisfaction and hope. >> it was cathartic, therapeutic and important for them to remain dignified. they responded to the worst of mankind with the best of mankind. this is our way of fighting back. >> in the cold, filth and misery of a camp like this, a romanian-born conductor, rafael schaechter, gathered 150 fellow prisoners, and in a dank basement with just one score and a broken piano taught them by rote verdi's sublime work. choir member edgar krasa says schaechter was extraordinary. >> socially, he was a wonderful person, but once he sat behind

the piano, he was a real tyrant. >> the survivors who sang in this chorus said to me that when he started work on the requiem, and this is a quote, "he was like a crazed man on a mission." he begato say things to them such as, "we can sing to them what we cannot say to them." >> through the words in this catholic liturgy, a jewish chorus could stand up to the nazis by letting them know what ultimately matters. nazi propaganda films were made at terezin to give the false impression jews were happy there, well fed and cared for. when officials from the international red cross visited, things were spruced up even more. the nazis asked rafael schaechter to perform that requiem for their guests. they probably couldn't understand the mass sung in latin, but schaechter and his

choir understood exactly what they were doing. >> performers could be deported to the gas chambers at us a wits warned jewish elders, so he gave his kor ris a choice. >> he told us about the danger and said if you -- whoever is afraid, there is the door, and you can go. nobody left. >> no one left? >> no. >> the lyrics of the requiem and their hidden meaning were the source of the prisoners' defiance. the second and longest movement, for example, tells of the day of wrath. ♪ >> "the day of wrath, that day will dissolve the world in

ashes. how great will be the terror when the judge comes" is how the latin is translated. >> it's very simple. god's in charge of humanity, and if anybody fools around with that, they're going to hear from god. >> in the wretched camp, says survivor vera schiff, verdi's requiem was a lifeline. >> it was part of the defiance, to keep up our spirits, to keep us in a frame of mind, you want to live, you want to live another day. that was helping over the hunger, over the illnesses and depravation, and that carries you a long way under the circumstances when we feared for our life day by day. >> we felt great, because otherwise we had no opportunity to show the nazis that we don't -- we're not afraid of them. >> schaechter conducted verdi's requiem 16 times at terezin. after the final 1944 performance, he and most of

thehorus we shied off to the gas chambers at auschwitz.t remembering brings pain and pride. >> i think it brings back twofold emotions -- the emotion of course of sadness, because in my case i've lost all my entire family. but simultaneously, i think i find that it was a great achievement of what people can do under unimaginable circumstances. >> this was not commemorating death. it was commemorating the beauty and importance of life. ♪ >> when the requiem ends in the multimedia concert murry sidlin created to commemorate terezin, the mournful wail of a train whistle sounds, and as the audience watches film of jewish

prisoners being transported to nazi crematoriums, one solo violin plays an ancient jewish song which the condemned sang on their way to death -- a haunting tribute to terezin, where in defiance there was affirmation, indeed, a kind of triumph. for "religion and ethics newsweekly," this is bob faw in washington. finally, on our calendar, pope benedict xvi's weekend trip to croatia. the visit includes meetings with local leaders, a prayer vigil with young people and a public mass to celebrate families. and this coming week, jews observe shavuot. the harvest festival also commemorates the giving of the torah to moses on mt. sinai.

that's our program for now. i'm kim lawton. you can follow us on facebook, where i have a fan page, too. we're also on twitter and youtube. and you can watch us anytime, anheren smartphoes d iphone we have much more on our website, including more of my conversation with cherie harder. you can comment on all of our stories and share them. audio and video podcasts are also available. join us at pbs.org. as we leave you, scenes from india as hindus celebrate the birthday of their deity shani. major funding for "religion and ethics newsweekly" is provided by the lilly endowment, an indianapolis based private family foundation dedicated to

its founders' interest in religion, community development, and education. additional funding by mutual of america, designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. and the corporation for public broadcasting.