joseph ratzinger should never, ever have been a bishop. he just didn't have the gifts, the charisma. he's a theologian. he's a catechist. he didn't have the administrative skills. >> narrator: so when the clergy sexual abuse scandal exploded into an international crisis on his watch, pope benedict seemed unable to take charge, while the church hierarchy responded as it had done for years. >> i worked from 1981 to 1986 as the secretary canon lawyer at the vatican embassy in washington, d.c. >> narrator: in that role, father doyle's job was to deal with sexual abuse cases on behalf of the church. >> my job was to talk to the diocese and find out what was going on, and above all, see that they kept a lid on: that there was no publicity, that it didn't become known to the public, causing scandal. >> narrator: then he began to have doubts about what he was doing. >> even at the early stages, i had met some of the victims. my life was changed when i met them. then it went from a purely academic issue, from names on a piece of paper, to human bei

it was certainly problematic in some instances, but, for example, gustavo gutierrez and joseph ratzinger had discussions and liberating base communities from especially this systemic economic oppression that arises not only out of capitalism but out of the ways in which states depend on capitalism and promote capitalism, and the way in which the economic and the political, the market and the state, perpetuate economic injustice. so liberation theology, you push that strand -- some ways pushed to hard as far as the catholic church was concerned in certain directions the church was worried about, but in other ways i think it finding in pope francis a kind of at least re-evaluation. >> host: pope francis political? >> guest: well, he'll be receiving president obama in march. he is making a visit to america for the world meeting of families next year. it does seem there's a sense in which he is of interest to politicians. of course there will be the photo ops of the pope and the president shaking hands and amiably so, i'm sure. there will be certain kinds of news stories which stress their c