greeted the mass of crowds of faithful who lined the streets there in our nation's capital. and he stopped to bless a baby or two along the way. we'll go to nbc senior white house correspondent chris jansing, i understand you had a front row seat to that ceremony, how did this compare to so many of the other white house ceremonies that you have covered? >> reporter: nothing like it. i think that's fair to say. in fact, people who have been here for decades have said that this is the kind of welcoming ceremony that they have never seen, certainly the kind of crowd that turned out, but i think we've also heard in the weeks leading up to this from senior white house officials, how much the president was looking forward to this. how much he felt he took away last march when the two of them met at the vatican. and in spite of the fact that they obviously do have differences on issues ranging from abortion, gay marriage to an obamacare mandate for providing contraceptive coverage, something u.s. bishops are concerned about, there are broader issues that the pope