changed the rules to a two-thirds majority. so now these 115 that will be 76 plus one. which will be the 77. and so there's a lot of conversation about a form of them has early on trouble reaching the number, maybe it clears the way for somebody who might be a longshot here. >> chris i want to point out, each cardinal is coming up to take their separate oath. george, go ahead. >> thank you, thomas, what i was going to say is that the two-thirds rule has always been the norm. john paul ii changed that so that after 34 failed attempts to get to two-thirds, there could be a runoff among the top two and a majority vote would suffice. there can still be a runoff after a week and a half of failed ballots. but even in the runoff, thanks to benedict xvi, the successful

candidate has to get two-thirds. what they're saying here as you see, thomas, is that they each individually agree to the oath they have just communally sworn and they do this with their hand on the holy gospels. >> and again we're watching each one of the 115 cardinals come up and take their individual oeths. right now before going behind locked doors to cast their secret ballots, to elect the new pope. i want to thank chris jansing. george weigel and father mark haydu, we'll hand it over to alex wagner who is standing by with our continuing coverage of electing a new pope from vatican city. alex? >> we are continuing coverage of the election of the next pope. all 115 cardinals are entering the sistine chapel where the first round of votes will take place. joining me today, msnbc contributor, ari melber, mana

managing editor of the grio.com and msnbc contributor, the chief of msnbc's papal desk, mike barnicle is with us. the papal conclave is about to begin. the 115 cardinals are in the sistine chapel where they will sequester themselves until a new pope is elected. the first pope could be chosen as early as this hour. but that would be primary of sorts. no cardinal is expected to be named pope. beginning tomorrow, four votes will be held each day, two in the rng who, two in the afternoon, until one candidate regions the magic number of 77, which represents a more than two-thirds support. there is only one party, the catholic church, but rival factions have emerged. the cardinals who work in the vatican, have one side supporting the status quo, they are reportedly leaning towards backing milan's angelo scola. on the other side are the reformers, urging the church to take on vatican corruption and

secrecy, this group is reportedly led by americans and they favor new york's timothy dolan and boston's cardinal sean o'mally. another north american may be a wild card, quebec's ouellet. as the doors to the sistine chapel are locked, 115 men will decide the next leader of the worldwide church with over one billion members. it is day one of the papal election. joining us from washington, is the host of msnbc's "hardball," chris matthews. it's great to have you, especially on days like today. >> hi. >> i want to -- should i say -- [ speaking latin. ] >> i'm from the latin. i guess i want to start with the fact that we have another boston/new york rivalry as if the yankees and red sox were not

enough. o'malley and dolan. we have never had an american pope. despite the fact that there are 75 million catholics in america, 25% of the population. in this horse race, chris, where do you pin the likelihood of the world getting an american pope? >> not likely. and a little more likely than it would have been during the cold war. and the cold war when the world was polarized, east and west. i think there was a real sense that the vatican shouldn't take sides, so directly as to pick an american. but i do think it's so interesting to me, given the problems of the church in this country and in ireland, that the two irish american guys are doing well in this. because they're the ones most sensitive to the hell that's been broken loose in recent decades in the catholic church, with this exploitation of altar boys by the priests. and the american catholics can not stand it. they want it over with. they want it zeroed out. absolutely zeroed out. if a priest has a sexual need, get out of the priesthood if

you've got something you're hiding in terms of your sexuality, get out of the priesthood. it's no place for you, it's people willing to live by the law of celibacy, narrowly defined, but by a life of chastity. it's a very hard standard to live by. the only people that are willing to live by is priests or change the rules. change the rules officially or enforce the damn things. right now no catholic in america believes the rules are enforced. they believe there's a real problem of sexual misconduct in the church. widespread cover-ups. i think o'malley understands it and i think dolan definitely understands it. by the way, what really what catholics want, they want to get back to the bing crosby/spencer tracy kind of a priest. the regular guy who looks like the guys in the movie, regular, happy normal guys willing to give up sex. that's what we're missing.

>> mike barnicle, papal expert and son of boston -- >> [ speaking latin ] >> i'm glad that nbc relaxed having broadcasts in latin, i never would have survived that. but in terms of o'malley, chris brings up the point that he is someone who has dealt pretty hands-on with the sex scandals in the church. as a resident of boston, a son of boston. what's your take on him as a bishop and also a contender here, what he could do inside the church? >> well i agree with chris. the chances of an american being named the next pontiff, the next pope are slim to none. by virtue of the fact that it's a stacked deck, the college of cardinals, cardinal o'malley, along with cardinal dolan, i think more than most cardinals have an appreciation for what the church is, not only in the united states, but in the world. and the church is not the college of cardinals. the church is not the hierarchy. the church is dealing with the

poor. the vulnerable, the hurt, the daniel damaged, the victims of sexual abuse. women, gays, black, latino, that's the catholic church. and both men, i think have it within them to redirect the focus of the church back to what the church is all about, in this country and around the world. i have never been anywhere in the world that i have not encountered a jesuit or a mary knoll, doing the work of the church. the scandal and secrecy of the church in the last 15 years in particular has been a sin in and of itself. one of the roles of the next pope, whether it's an american, o'malley or dolan, which it probably won't be. however the next pope is they have to open the windows of the vatican and let some fresh air and sunlight into, into the church. i mean what people are watching now, what we're watching now, most noncatholics, you can probably equate it with a

combination of "downton abbey" and nfl draft day on espn. they're going to close the doors and come out with a number one round selection and here it is. but other than that, the church is an everyday institution. and the comparison, it's kind of apt. chris raised it to congress today. people don't like the house of representatives, they don't like the senate, they don't like congress, but they like their parish priest. >> they want a more representative democracy. >> you hear in mike barnicle's house, the despair. the outrage of american catholic who is seek not just a new pope, but a new papacy. an opening up, as you said of the secrecy, the addiction to secrecy, the lack of transparency. but you know, i'm reminded because of my many years going to russia, of the communist party. there is something about the

need to have kremlinology to understand who might be the next pope. you need a kind of mikhail gorbachev. i will say my preference, don't laugh, michael, i'm a lapsed catholic and i haven't felt so religious sitting next to you since two popes ago. two priests came to my home to give me catechism on the night of my narj. ej dion said the best pope would be a nun. this church needs to retrieve its commitment and connection to the growing churches around the world. >> what did the last two poeps choose to do? >> they chose to clamp down -- >> on nuns. >> on nuns. >> chris, i want to bring you back in here. you had a great line last time we spoke about the pope.

which is they gave us meat on fridays and we probably have rather had contraception and that i thought spoke to the nature of reform within the church. you look at polling on this, 55% of the country thinks priests should be able to marry. 58% of the country thinks women should be able to be priests. how optimistic are you that whoever is the next pope will embrace some of that thinking? >> i'm with mike on that. i tell you, the only way it could happen is if you had one of the situations like katrina was talking about in paralleled life with our secular political world. where a pope, a president like fdr will pick a felix frankford, a conservative. or a conservative president would appoint a liberal. the only way we're going to get a liberal is if it would be a mistake. but as long as it takes the position, there's something wrong with birth control, people are not going to trust the moral

leadership. absurd ruling, at the time they did it, they couldn't come up with a reason. they couldn't come up with a reason to oppose gay marriage. the church couldn't find a reason to oppose birth control. there wasn't any, except they said it was bad before and wanted to be consistent. even infalability was something cooked up in the 19th century. celibacy has to do with land rights and property and things like that, nothing to do with sexual discipline. they could have priests marry tomorrow morning if they wanted to. and the thun thing, it's another case where they fall back on semantics they say you can't have zba marriage, because marriage means male and female. that's the way the term has been used, you change the meaning. it's about loving relationships for life. if you want to have a male or female priest, you say priest or priests. it's a new meaning. they fall back into the old language game of defending the past by the formal use of the language and it does get to be a catch-22 with these folks. i know mike and i, i don't go to church every week, but a lot.

i can't remember a single sermon in my whole life. i can't remember a single sermon. this must be something wrong. >> that's an absolutely critical component of the difficulty of the catholic church in america. the sermons, you go to mass on sunday, and there is someone 87 years of age in the pulpit. giving the sermon. you see no one in their 20s, certainly no one in their teens. and eventually, you get up and you leave midway through the sermon because it bear those relationship to the life you're trying to lead or leading. and unless they address the issue of celibacy and priests, we're all going to be mass in an assisted living facility. >> what do you is you try to figure out who is the starting pitcher tuesday night. you use your time for different purposes, but you stay in the pew. >> i want to check joy, the idea of age in the catholic church is something that's probably under discussed. a georgetown university last

year showed in 1970, the average age of the american priest was 35 years old. in 2009, it was 63 years old. which effectively means it's the same guys that have been in the church the entire time. when you talk about faith, and the fact that it really needs to be woven in to you know, personal life, it's hard for that to happen when as mike said, the guys up there are in their 60s, 70s and 80s, how does an institution remain relevant, when it's aging out of relevancy. >> i was catholic when i was a kid. my sister and i were baptized a catholic. >> then you're still a catholic. >> that's a distinction that i think younger catholics make. is i was raised catholic. but the sense of ongoing faith -- >> it's difficult. >> being part of the institution, is something that i think has been lost to some degree. >> you find families, what my mother wound up doing with young children, is trying to find a church institution is more nurturing to the whole family. there's more for kids to do, more interaction for younger people. i think a lot of churches are

going through this. finding a way to be relevant. be relevant to younger people, with kids. and the churches that are succeeding at it are being aggressive in being modern. having younger people give, even if it's not the pastor. having the youth pastor. having someone else address a younger generation. it's not just the catholic church. you increasingly go into these institutions and you see grandmothers and possibly their grandkids, you're not seeing families, you're not seeing younger people. it's difficult to keep a church alive without the younger element. >> if you're interested in maintaining your faith on a daily basis or weekly basis, you're now forced to your point to go parish-shopping. in washington, you go to holy trinity in the georgetown campus. >> which is where i had my first communion. >> father kevin o'brien. you would go to saint ignatius, on the boston college campus. invariably you you find it's a jesuit presiding over the mass,

a jesuit giving the sermon and they are somehow more hooked in to life than unfortunately some of these older parish priests, god love them are in their late 70s and they're all alone. >> i'm with you, michael, i love kevin o'brien is fabulous, a great example and holy trinity is a half hour from my house, it's more of a ride to go there. but when you go there, you feel the joy, we used to feel at holy cross when we went to mass. we had to go every day. but i would go on saturdays and sundays. and there was a joy to going to church. a lot of parishes now are just downright grim. they're grim. there are people who come to church because they don't want to go to hell. they're scared if they miss a sunday, they're going to go to hell. they show up like reagan robots, they walk in the door and did what they were supposed to do. but they weren't happy being there. that's why i love the jebbies. they are liberal and intellectual. if anybody is thinking of becoming a catholic or coming back to the church, katrina or

joy. the phrase "i was raised a catholic." it drives me crazy. religion is not a food court. if i don't like mcdonald's this week, i think gi to bob big boy's, i understand the stylistic differences. but when it comes down to choosing a religion on the base of style, it's got something to do with belief, i think. >> you're talking about, you and mike have both talked about what the catholic church means to progressives and liberals, which is an institution that has combatting poverty. helping those in need around the world and the message, there has been no messaging around that to the younger generation. that matters a lot to people though think about the social fabric and the idea of community. you watch this pomp and circumstance, which is beautiful and historic and in many ways but frank brunei makes an interesting point today. he says much of what has eroded the church's authority must be addressed is the addiction to secrecy. its rejection of transparency. when an organization shrouds

itself in mystery it is invariably treated as a cradle of intrigue. and yet here its self-appointed leaders are, walling themselves in order to make the most important decisions about the church's governance in complete isolation and privacy. they will keep only their own counsel and speak to the outside world in smoke signals. >> they can look like an island unto themselves. i was not raised catholic. >> you're kidding. >> putting that news out on the table for america today. >> can you still speak to the idea of secret institutions. >> i do think what you have as an institution, even above and beyond the terrible sex crimes which chris was speaking about eloquently earlier. an institution that hasn't caught up at all with modern life. you talk about transparency. the way young people expect institutions to be accountable and to answer criticism. i think the catholic church has special problems. they are also of a piece with the problem that many

institutions have now. you mentioned congress and the split between how you feel about it as an institution versus your own member. you look at the media, you look at corporate america and business institutions. sports in large part. a type of institution that people care a great deal about. but many people feel has fallen and doesn't know how to answer for its own, its own cheating which in some cases are crimes so i think, i think for churches, the big question is how do you move beyond only seniority as a form of power and credibility and figure out other ways to engage your younger congregants. >> ary articulated the message of the book by chris hayes, "nation" editor. msnbc editor. >> because the crisis of the institutions across the boar. we're going through a demographic shift in this country and i think the church is going through demographic shifts. 40% of world's catholics live in latin america.

>> 40%. >> latin america, in the region. what's going on there again is a measure of how young people are turning off and the evangelical churches are surging. i'm not sure of picking a pope from sao paolo would help. but it would send a signal. it would send a signal in an important way that the romans versus the reformers, isn't the dominant paradigm of a church in crisis. >> mike, let's talk about that. the front-runners here. i mean ouellet is from quebec. andrew scola who may be the front-runner, the archbishop of milan is 71. scherer, the archbishop of sao paolo, is 63, the junior candidate, but pope john paul ii was in his 50s when he was made pope. >> he was a very young man to be selected as pope.

i think he was 58 when he was selected as pope. first of all, briefly, you know we've been talking about the church in crisis. i might be a minority, but i don't feel that the church is in crisis. the hierarchy is in crisis. but the faithful, that is the church, i don't think they feel a sense of crisis as much as they feel a sense of te despondency. i think it would send a strong signal if it was a third-world cardinal, from ghana or latin america. it would send a strong signal. >> the developing nations. i mean it's worth noting that there is not been a noneuropean pope in 1200 years. that was pope gregory iii from syria in the eighth century, that gives you of a, how long the catholic church has been around, and -- >> i'm not a big fan of tokenism. i think it would be great if we

had a third world pope from brazil, like scherer. but i want to see somebody come in and clean up the mess in the great old robin hood movies, the rich and the poor and dorothy day catholics and i'm all part of that. that's the part that is like jesus 2,000 years ago, the jewish carpenter who didn't have any money, but he was the guy who had the truth, look out for the little people. that's been forgotten. there's nothing here in all we're watching that has anything to do with the little people. a 2,000 years ago jewish guy, it's different and it's been lost. we got to get back to it. we got to get back to purity. the one thing i liked about the old robinhood movies, at the end of the movie where they needed to find truth and justice, king richrd the lion-hearted would show up at the end of the movie would show up and say, you're right, they would clean it up and get rid of all the bad guys.

i want someone to come in and is say who has been missing with young boys, and who is not a true priest and get rid of them all. every single one of them. if you don't have that faith in the pope, who you going to have it in? that's what they're up to. they have to pick a guy, who's going to be a girks probably european who has the guts to go into the church, into the belly of the beast and remove the problem. they got to do it. >> it will be, chris, the whole church will be in crisis unless the next pope is as you said, someone willing to come in and deal with the moral corruption, and the fiscal corruption. the vatican bank. i mean the amount of money that's been stolen or whatever has happened to it. the level of corruption and secrecy at the top of the vatican rivals anything in recent history that we've seen among any institutions. and unless the next pope is willing to deal with both of those items, the moral corruption and the economic corruption, the fiscal

corruption at the top of the catholic church, we're in for another long way of handling it. >> i think -- i want to say, i think chris skipped a lot of sermons to go to the movie theaters. either robin hood -- >> you can have it both ways. >> i'm a movie nut, katrina. >> katrina, you know, we talk about this as people who have catholocism in our blood lines, it was part of our family structure. at the same time, the church, there's been a cleave between some people at this table and the institution writ large and what role do the lay people play in holding the church accountable and pushing for more reforms and saying this isn't right. because of some degree it has to come from the top. there has to be someone in the belly of the beast as chris says. >> there has to be. >> but to some degree, the grassroots are accountable as well. >> we talked earlier about the nuns. the nuns are trying to hold the church to what they believe the church's best traditions. i don't have a clear sense,

because as i said, i'm a lapsed catholic, what the lay community, the groups are that could force some reform. it's going to take it. but you do need -- and i come back to this. the gorbachev analogy is not wrong. when he came into the politburo, the belly of the beast, in '95, the average age in that body was about 80. he came in and cleaned it up. it may be a lesson that the soviet union collapsed, but you need someone on the inside who is going to listen to the reformers outside, but listen globally, too. i think the rich countries, europe and the united states have played an oversized role in the church's thinking, that goes to your money point. i mean you're talking power and property. power and property and how do you, how do you break that up? the ordinary voices of people living in pain, in poverty, needing compass. and -- care.

how do you do that? it's so far removed. >> here's a start. there have been diocese, many diocese throughout this country that are now at the edge of bankruptcy because of settlements made from the sexual abuse cases. and first of all, this is parenthetical thought to that. the idea that roger mahoney, a cardinal of los angeles is casting a ballot for the next pope when he should be in front of a judge. that's outrageous. you could take care of all of the monies, owed to the victims who have thus far come forward and been adjudicated to have been victimized by sexual abuse and thus been given monies by the court. you could take care of all of those sums of mondayvy and make all of the diocese in this country solvent by selling just a few, a handful of the paintings that they've collected in the vaticans. >> the massing of wealth. >> has anyone been to a cardinal's apartment. cbs filmed one. it's like a palace.

i didn't realize the pope was going to be pope emeritus, either. that's like -- >> chris, i want to get your thoughts on that when we talk about a reformer. you have a complicated situation here, a, benedict has stacked the college of cardinals with sympathizers effectively, his folks. and, john paul and benedict. and benedict is going to be living on the grounds of the vatican. which is -- somewhat awkward in terms of cleaning up the mess, is it not? >> are you talking to me? >> yes. >> i don't care about benedict and i don't think, i think he's irrelevant now. i think he did the one great thing of his life, like a shakespearean character. nothing made him look good like his leave. i was never a big fan. i thought he gave a marc anthony speak during the last conclave. it was a brilliant piece of politics, he woon it rather quickly. i don't think he matters. i think john paul xxiii matters still today. because it shows that a pope can

still be a leader and be inspired. and to do things like pope john xxiii did. we've been talking about the idea that the idea of a great pope is elusive. it's not, it's in our memories. a big, heavy fat pope from italy of all places, turned out to be the greatest pope we can imagine. he restored the church to understanding it was about the poor. and i keep going back do that. if you think what separates christianity from all the other religions? it's compassion, it's looking out for the other people. mary magdalene is one of my favorite figures from the new testament. jesus loved her, he was a buddy of hers. think about that, not all the guys in red here. think about the church as it began with the notion of breaking with the old jewish order of strict observance of all the food laws, to know this is about people and need. and if you look at the bible, who is he curing and who is he taking care of jesus? going after people who are blind and crippled and outcast for sexual misbehavior.

he's looking out for those people. he's not teaching fire and brimstone. i think a lot of this -- i love all of this i guess some of this stuff. but i tell you when you go oat over there to rome. i was over there for the elevation of cardinal worrell. i kept saying to myself, what has this got to do with jesus? i looked at all the nice statues in the giant hall of st. peters, this is a beautiful place, what does it have to do with christianity. i was just at the cathedral in vuittonberg with my wife last weekend, i've got to tell you that's where it all began. the selling of indulgences, it was this kind of display that drove us to a world of protestantism and the break-up of europe. they don't like this, most protestants, they don't like it at all. smells and bells, that's what reagan called it. this has nothing to do with goodness. and that's a problem. and the protestants are right about that one.

they're right. >> well i got to tell you, chris, as we look at the line of princes of the church, cardinals, taking a further oath. before they convene, the doors shut and before they begin to cast the first ballot for the papacy. you wonder if you're a practicing catholic or a lapsed catholic or a protestant. you wonder how many of the men that we are looking at now have forgotten the root of the faith that they represent. the root of the faith that they represent is forgiveness, it's compassion, it's the good samaritan. it's taking care of the least among us, it is not these nearly ideological wars that they've created against gays, against divorced couples. >> against women's right to sort of make choices over their own bodies. >> against american nuns. you just wonder how many of them have you forgotten who you are. and what you represent and who sits in front of you on sundays

and who you preach to. because we remember, because clearly, too many of the 115 do not remember. >> let me ask you, joy, you know, you were raised catholic and in terms of going back to the church or generational divides over faith, how important do you think faith as sort of determined by an institution is in american life these days? >> i think it is very important. so i'm speaking for the catholic myth convergence. methodists still say the nicene creed, and say, i believe in the holy catholic church. which i thought was weird when i was growing up. i think what chris said is important. an institution can have power, but it does need to have a central figure and a leader. i think postpone john paul was a great man. whether you were catholic or not, you felt that he stood for something bigger than just the church and the pomp and the circumstance and the prada slippers. you felt like he was speaking

for something large. i think faith is reinforced when you feel that there's a leader who truly believes in it and can communicate with you whether or not you're part of the tradition. when he was standing up for people locked behind the iron curtain, talked about the poor. i can remember in the community i grew up in, the catholic church in the part of denver where i lived, they were the ones who were out there protecting immigrants. they were the ones out there, our church and their church would go out where people were picking vegetables and fruit out in the hot sun to try to understand what immigrants were going through. the catholic church is still in the forefront on the issue of compassion for immigrants, it isn't put forth. i think the problem with the former cardinal ratzinger. his big idea was to protect the old-fashioned faith to say we want to try to tell the faithful, you've walked away from the doctrine. rather than telling the church, you've walked away from the doctrine. think the next guy has to tell the church. the parish priest has to tell the institution, you're the ones who have walked away, not the

parishioners, i think that was one of the biggest problems that people with the previous pope. >> when we talk about spiritual life in this country. it's spiritually fraught. it's become politicized, the idea of religion. there are a lot of cultural touch stones that sort of surround the question of religion and faith and worship. and in reality, here we have fairly progressive group of people talking about the importance of the chouch, what it's done for the poor. i wonder how much there needs to be a complete overhaul in terms of speaking to the next generation. >> we talked about foreign policy. it's funny, at times the church has been more comfortable engaging on foreign policy or going to cuba and sitting down with fidel and doing things that were very controversial at that global scale. but to my mind, has not been as comfortable returning to the notions of the poor and the compassion really when it comes to what we do within our own

borders or what governments do. >> do you think young people are craving a sort of place to worship? a sense of community around faith? >> no. i don't, i mean -- it's hard to say while we watch this important process. but i think that particularly in the west and in europe where we've talked about -- yes, everyone may come from europe for the pope but most of the industrialized democracies have crashing rates of observance of any regular participation in a church. >> and raising rates of secularism. >> rising rates of secularism. the only religious participation that's on the rise in europe is muslim immigrants to urieuropea countries. i don't know how any leader is going to reduces that macro trends. >> all 115 cardinals have finished taking their oath. this is the last glimpse we will get before the vote, it's probably worth noting that this, the conclave came as a result of

prolonged deliberations over the next pope, which stretch back to 1268, i think the longest time in between poeps was two years and nine months, we are expecting a probably shorter timeframe before we have a new head of the catholic church. chris, i haven't asked you if you have a front-run anywhere this race. >> obviously tim dolan. i think he's a great guy and i think he's been a great leader in new york. i want to say something about the pope we all liked, that was pope john paul ii. when i went to his funeral, the most amazing week and a half. i have to tell you something really spiritual happened. there was the wonderful music at night. we watched five million people walk through the line there. it made me a lot of romans. the reason all the romans were there is because pope john paul ii would go around every weekend, and have dinner with the local parish priests and then he would have mass, meet with the kids in the school hall

and he would say a mass. say a mass at the big church the next day. he did about 150 of these, he almost made the entire number of parishes in rome. in other words he took seriously the pastoral law of a pope. he was bishop of rome. he thought it was important to do that every single weekend. like tip o'neill in a way, some guy who thought it was very important to stay connected to the people. i think the discipline, the commitment is something we've got to look for, someone who is willing to be close to the people and make an effort to retail his faith. i think he did that that's why there's so many romans who waited in line when he died. three million waited in line and all the polish people came in poor clothes, from former communist countries, they came down, too. people respect, we keep ffr forgetting that on television. it's not about celebrity, it's not, it's always about service, it's always about service in the end. that's why people look up to people like ted kennedy in the old days and tip o'neill. they served and they could tell

that. it wasn't about being in the newspapers and i think we, if we want to look for a pope. i don't know care where he's from, i want him to serve the church, the people in the church. >> mike barnacle. we're about do see these doors close on the sistine chapel. i think there is, dare i say, a sense of hope or at least optimism about what might happen in the course of the next few days in this vote. do you share that? >> sure. i'm an optimistic person. i'm optimistic each day when i wake up and you know i value my faith. as chris said, you know, one of the great gifts that pope john paul ii gave was he was accessible. he seemed accessible to people who never met him and only saw him through television. and the first pope john of this century gave the same impression, he was accessible. as they close the doors, they're closing the doors on the chapel filled with 115 men, not all of them have done this. but too many have done this -- they have made the church the

faith seem inaccessible and remote from every day life. and strange to people who are worried about crimes being committed by priests, going unaddressed by the leadership. >> one can hope that though the doors are closed, their minds and hearts remain open and that some kind of change comes out of that meeting. i have to say a great thank you, to the great chris matthews, "hardball" airs every week night on msnbc. chris, thank you for your time. expertise and movie trivia as always. coming up, impractical, problem mattic and never going to happen. and that is just what republicans are saying about paul ryan's latest budget. we'll examine the congressman's fantastical and ironic fiscal planor when ezra klein joins us next. erss i've never seen befor. this ge jet engine can understand 5,000 data samples per second. which is good for business. because planes use less fuel, spend less time on the ground and more time in the air.

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a budget that balances the budget. a path to prosperity, a responsible balanced budget. this is a document, a plan that balances the budget in ten years. >> that was congressman paul ryan this morning unveiling the third edition of his budget. it looks, well, just as untethered to reality as the last two versions. ryan's plan aims to balance the budget in ten years through deep spending cuts and significant changes to the social safety net including block granting medicaid and welfare programs. much of ryan's 91-page budget is unrealistic if not downright fantastical. it relies on the repeal of the nation's health care law, something that did not escape chris wallace on "fox news sunday." >> are you saying that as part of your budget, you would assume the repeal of obama care. >> yes. >> well, that's not going to happen. >> well we believe it should. >> the absurdity of the plan remained evident even this morning over at fox. >> paul ryan saying he's going,

his idea in his budget is to eliminate obama care, that's not practic practical. even though you might want it the supreme court has spoken. >> but perhaps the best way to describe the new and improved ryan budget is ironic. recall if you will, campaign 2012 when vice presidential candidate paul ryan endlessly criticized president obama's $700 billion savings in medicare. >> the president took $716 billion from the medicare program, he ratided it to pay fr obama care. he raided $716 from medicare to pay for obama care. obama care takes $716 from medicare to pay for obama care. >> and what has congressman paul ryan proposed today? making those very same cuts to medicare. this morning, senator claire

mccaskill opted for a more detailed assess m of the paul ryan budget. >> it is one of the most blatant acts of being disingenuous around politics in this country that i've ever seen. >> over at the "washington post," jonathan bernstein wrote i can't think of any comparably dishonest episode in recent american political history. it's very simple, every story about the ryan budget should highlight the breathtaking dishonesty on display here. joining us from washington to discuss irony and paul ryan's love-hate relationship with obama care is "washington post" columnist, ezra klein. good to see you. >> good afternoon. >> it's budget season. it means you're wearing a budget hat. >> i've got my pocket protector and the whole thing. >> let's talk about the paul ryan budget. i've used the word ironic, claire mccaskill has some stronger language to describe

what she sees in this piece of paper. what do you make of it? >> i think when people think about the budget, you should keep two numbers in mind. i think they explain most of what you need to know. 59 and 0. 59% of paul ryan's cuts, 59%, almost $6 out of $10 that he cuts, these are his numbers i'm using i have not done this myself. come from health care, mostly from the poor. from cutting medicaid or obama care, doing a little bit of cuts to medicare. these numbers don't include the medicare cuts from the affordable care act which he's keeping but they're not new cuts, they're already in the law, not included in these numbers. he's got 60% of these huge cuts coming from health care mostly for the working class or the poor. the zero is taxes, he doesn't raise a dollar in taxes. instead he's got a genuinely very implausible tax reform plan to bring the entire tax code down to two brackets, 10% and 25%. he said it wouldn't cost any money. they would be able to do it without hugely taxing the poor and the middle class. i don't, when the experts i've

spoken to don't think that is mathematically possible. but he's not offered any details, so it's hard to say actually what he's talking about there. but so he's got a budget where he's just making massive cuts primarily to health care for the poor. in order to pay for deficit reduction. in order to not have to put any of that deficit reduction on top of tax increases and that i think is the simplest statement of the priorities in this budget. >> joy, paul ryan has an op-ed in today's "wall street journal." he writes a budget is a means to an end and the end is the well-being of all americans by giving families stability and protecting them from tax hikes our budget will promote a healthier economy and create jobs. our budget will reignite the american dream. the idea that anyone can make it in this country. you read that and then you hear what ezra is is saying, about 60% of the cuts affecting the poor and the low income in america. and i don't understand how it all adds up.

what part of that fosters the american dream. >> i think his op-ed could have been a lot shorter if he would have just wrote, are there no work houses, are there no prisons? go after the poor. keep all the cuts to obama care which you say you hate. cheating off the president's work. he wants to make just these draconian, cruel cuts to programs for the poor and he's got an obsession. every time paul ryan puts out proposals they go after the most vulnerable. they go after the elderly poor and the nonelderly poor that seems to be his only big idea. but i don't believe for one instant that it's about deficit reduction. i don't believe for one instant it's about government spending this is a guy who voted for t.a.r.p. and by the way, when he voted to bail out the banks and spend federal money to bail out wall street, he was only one of 20 republicans to do it he bucked the vast majority of his own party to vote for t.a.r.p. he doesn't mind spending federal money as long as it's on the rich. >> i think joy is hitting on

something important, the twin falsehoods even apart from the hypocrisy of his record. one is just because it has numbers in doesn't make it a budget. my lottery ticket is not a budget. just because there's a bunch of numbers on the page. >> that's your way to get the american dream. >> this thing has a lot of numbers that doesn't add up. it's more like fan fiction for ayn rand that it is a budget. he's not a deficit hawk to joy's point, he's a health care hawk. he's interested in going after every health care program that's on the books, from obama care as you just articulated to medicaid, the program that is the most important for poor people, who need help and also for our society, because when we use medicine and preventive care for poor people it saves all of us money. it's good on moral and efficiency terms. that's what's so frustrating here. i think washington has called him serious for so long. they're over-invested in treating this fake charade like it's a budget. >> let me ask you this, if this

is supposed to be a budget that's effectively giving the house gop and the republican party their marching orders or a banner to walk beneath, it's coming at a weird time. because we're talking about medicare here and turning that into a block grants to the states. that's coming against the relief of multiple, 27 states in this country opting to expand medicaid roles under the affordable care act. >> although possibly backing off in florida. but yes you're right. i give the budget a little more credit. i do think it's a budget and i think the numbers add up. but i don't like the way he makes the numbers add up. paul ryan's career is not the career of a deficit hawk. he voted for the bush tax cuts, he voted for the wars in iraq and afghanistan which had no offsets behind them. he had a social security privatization proposal in 2005, that the bush administration rejected, because they thought it was an irresponsible proposal.

what paul ryan is, and this is not a bad thing necessarily, he's a conservative reformer. he has had a very consistent vision during his career, both as a staffer in congress and later as a congressman about how to reshape the relationship between the federal government and its citizens and the main way he wants to do that is to make the citizens not have that much of a relationship with the government. so behind the medicaid cuts is a plan to give medicaid entirely over to the states, cut it very badly. but then turn it entirely over to the states. so there's really no federal role almost at all. medicare gets moved over to mainly private insurers. his tax reform plan would drastically change who the tax code helps and doesn't help. the social security privatization trying to turn social security over to wall street. there's a very consistent vision here. but it's not primarily a vision about the budget. his great genius was in finding that he get programs that people would be think are unpopular and radical, in as long as he phrased them as deficit reduction. >> ezra, he, paul ryan is no apostle of fiscal rectitude this

is one who wants to starve the possibility of an empathetic, engaged government in the lives of the most vulnerable people in this country. i do come back to what ari said. because even with all due respect to ezra, you're hearing paul ryan who is cruel and clueless and this is a la la land fantasy, budget proposal being treated seriously by someone like ezra klein, who is treated seriously inside the belt way. for too long in these last years, inside the beltway has had a fixation, an obsession with the deficit. we now see the deficit is dwindling, yet we are treating paul ryan, a little less seriously because of the results of the election, but the danger is that paul ryan bringing this out is going to shift the playing field, so that it moves even further to the right. so that the possibility of a real discussion that is treated seriously by those inside the beltway -- of investment, of in the short-term, when private corporations aren't spending. when there's no demand,

government must play a role. that is off the radar in fundamental ways that's dangerous for the health and security of this nation. >> mike, i want to ask you, there's a lot that is going to be read in terms of how this helps or hurts the republican party. there is an effort under way to make them a more lovable, kinder, softer, gentler party. where does paul ryan budget fit into that? there are wings of you know, the republican party who say this is needed, this is where we've got to go. this is the future. i wonder how that undermines their branding efforts, if you will? >> i know very little about the budget. whenever budget talk crops up, i have a tendency to want to light what little hair i have left on fire, okay? i'm not a budget guy. but i am sort of a student of the human condition. and having spent many, many nights writing a newspaper column out of a big city hospital emergency room, i can tell you that paul ryan's budget could be, you could phrase it, you could put the title on it,

pay now, or pay later. unless we pay for health care now, for poor children and poor families, or people in need, you're going to pay double down the road. because they show up in emergency rooms, gunshot wounds, spousal abuse, the flu, vaccinations, and the costs are enormous. to us. so either pay it now, figure out a way to pay it now or pay it later, double down the road. >> ezra, before we let you go, i know you've made the case that we shouldn't even really now is not necessarily the best time to be tackling the deficit aggressively. but maybe having some spending in there instead? >> yeah and i think that to katrina's point, i think she'll be happy to see the budget come from senate democrats and patty murray tomorrow, which as i understand will have an investment component. there's no doubt that now is not the time for, to be sharply reducing the deficit. it is a contractionariy move in a although-employment situation.

this guy is the house budget chairman. it will set part of the agenda and be central in some of the pivotal fights, the cr and the debt ceiling coming up. so i think it's important that we understand it. >> because it's budget season we invite you back tomorrow to discuss the democratic budget coming from the senate. please wear your budget hat next time, america wants to see it. >> the papal conclave is now under way. cardinals have officially begun the process of selecting the next pope. we are monitoring the chimney and we'll bring you the latest on any new developments. but first, combatting a public health crisis or big government overreach? the sweet and down low on new york's proposed soda ban next. w. you can part a crowd, without saying a word... if you have yet to master the quiet sneeze... you stash tissues like a squirrel stashes nuts... well muddlers, muddle no more. try zyrtec®. it gives you powerful allergy relief.

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yesterday's ruling overturning new york's soda ban dealt a temporary setback to mayor michael bloomberg's anti-obesity efforts.

ari, yeah or nay? >> mayor bloomberg doesn't want you to have an extra soda, but he wants to have an extra term. his entire issue sb power as a legal matter. this was overruled on separation of powers issues, he did an end run around the lemg slate tur, familiar to other parts of his leadership. i think the mayor has done certain good things in new york, i say it as a new york resident. much of his legacy will be his inability to work democratically. in addition to an arbitrary and capricious complaint was why he was overruled. he went into an area that the city council should have been and that's what the ruling says. >> i think substantively objectively, if he could have gone through the legislature and gotten it passed, joy, would it have been a good thing or government overreaches? >> particularly in the african-american community, so much obesity and you see little kids with a ginormous soda.

and there was also an argument made by the naacp that small businesses would be harmed by this. so you know, it's, on its face it seems like a good idea, an anti-obesity move, but probably he went too far. >> mike barnicle paid $100. >> for a case of coca-cola. >> i think the issue could be resolved if everyone had access in america to a six-ounce glafs coca-cola, ice cold. no need for big gulps, because it's a greatest drink ever created. if you combine it with bringing recess and public activity back to the daile public schools on daily basis. >> barnicle loves recess. >> i do love recess. >> i can see it in your eyes. i'll have one in about two minutes. >> we have to leave it there. thank to ari, joy, mike and katrina, i'll see you tomorrow when i'm joined by ryan grimm,

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