. >>> welcome, i'm kim lawton, sitting in for bob abernethy.hank 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

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, anywhere on smartphones and iphones. we have much more on our website, including more about stephen mists and morof my converti witgerard pows. 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 pope benedict xvi's visit to croatia last weekend. [ bells ringing ] [ speaking in foreign language ] >>> 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.

joining me now is kim lawton, managing editor of this program. kim, are the bishops really following those 2002 guidelines? >> reporter: well, they say the majority of bishops are following the guidelines, but there are a couple who are not, and that has lead to some pretty high-profile scandals. one in philadelphia, another one most recently that, last couple weeks in missouri, where the local bishop had to apologize for a priest that was arrested child pnography charges. >> and whether a bishop has to follow those 2002 guidelines is up to the bishop. there's no way that the other bishops can make him do that, right? >> reporter: well, they are nonbinding, and the bishops say that they don't have the authority to discipline or impose penalties, that only the pope can discipline a bishop. so therefore they say this has to be part of the "fraternal correction," and it is sort of voluntary. >> the southern baptists, southern baptist convention, also gathered this week in phoenix and took steps to make their denomination more diverse, more ethnic diñ