now, last time it happened was nearly 60 years ago. 1963, j.f.k., pope paul vi. kennedy was still overcoming anti-catholic sentiment, and he would be now perceived as taking orders from the pope on how to run the country. thankfully that kind of stigma seems passe, at least i hope it does. but president biden s trip isn t without its own controversy. the issue of reproductive rights is heating up in america and becoming a fringe political cudgel. now you have an interesting division in the catholic church. bishops say he shouldn t be able to take holy communion because he supports women s resprocketive rights. but that s not what the pope says. where are the people? more than half the american people say religion, catholicism
president biden that the clergy in the united states doesn t agree with and it s very interesting to see what he ll do this time when he meets. because, you know, interesting distinction, you re right, the vatican s position, the dogma on reproductive rights is clear. the church, though, is the people. they re not different in terms of the rest of the population in terms of favoring human rights. he s a big ten catholic. his approach to homosexuality is to say we welcome, we re not about excluding, we re about growing the church. another hot political issue, when trump was talking about building a wall, pope francis said we re about bringing walls down not putting them up. we see this division very much in the u.s. the leadership in the catholic
we ve known g had -20 was goinge here for several months. when the president landed in rome, there s no question he was going to meet with the pope. he s also very frprotective of s faith. he understand when it comes to abortion and reproductive rights, he s in a different place than the church nap is problem obviously, particularly with particular catholics, conservative catholics and where the vatican sits on this issue. officials make sure, one, this isn t something the president is discussing on a regular basis, his faith and his view of the church. two, what pope francis represents on several other issues very much in line with what the president is talking about climate change, poverty, inequity. those are the things the president want to discuss with the pope and hopefully take a union fight message out when you talk to white house officials. it s very interesting. you understand these issues very well. and the pope said things about
so we are here in vatican city. president biden is now here as well. he just landed when we started the show. he s going to be meeting with pope francis tomorrow. reproductive rights is heating up as a big issue. you know what s coming in our supreme court back in america. how will it play here? we have something very interesting. there s a stark division between the man who runs the shop behind me shoulder and conservative bishops in the united states and it is playing out in ways that you may not even know when this comes to reproductive rights. so where is our country on this issue? where are catholics? where are other christians? you re going to learn something about what this issue is really about. we re going to have the wizard of odds and then we ll have somebody that is a player in this game next.