ministry, priests, deacons, bishops and lay people. there he is walking down the steps now of st. patrick s. the crowds are crying out to him. 50 feet away from us right now. incredible. amazing. i notice you taking a picture with your camera, as well, father. i never usually do this onset with you. [ laughter ] but it is interesting that juxtaposition of people wanting to see him with their own eyes and also wanting to capture the moment on a camera and it s sort of that interplay between the two. you were talking, i spoke to a gentleman in washington from sierra leone raised muslim and married to a christian and went through every single member of his family, this one is catholic. this one is jehovah s witness, and they were all convening on facebook to say thumbs up to this pope around the world. so he s creating this virtual community and opening up the dialogue and people don t normally talk about these things.
in the morning in the senate rotunda waiting for, working with the news networks and many of the lay people, lay workers, the camera operators, the people that were there as the car pulled up, he got out and gave a marvelous talk. many women there and men were crying and one of them came over to me and said hey, father, is this normal? i said it s absolutely normal. people with not much religion, people have been away and asked them, what about him gets you? the authenticity, humanity and smile. you know, when you stop and think what does it take to be a good pastor? authenticity, humanity and a smile. look at the people reaching out, nuns there in blue, so many people and now he s coming very close to the front doors here at st. patrick s. i can tell you there are probably 100 or 00 people who have been screened and on either
i m joined by cnn s vatican correspondent, father thomas racica of the holy see and biblical scholar and cnn contributor, bruce filer. father rosika, wondering what you made of this celebration, these ves pers an the comments made by this pope inside? beautiful ceremony of ves pers. the religious priests and seminarians. a beautiful celebration. this was not a mass. a very touching moment during the homily when he recognized the wonderful work of women religious. spoke about their charitable works and their educational works and the cathedral burst into applause three different times. these were very important words to be spoken at this moment in
encouraging and talks to young people saying go and visit your grandparents, be with your grandparents. that is a beautiful touch. this is the father and the grandfather all wrapped up in this person. of course, the whole theme of the trip is for the family, so that does make sense that he would try to emphasize that but does that at the vatican. very important to him the idea of the family. he s a couple feet behind us when he comes out the door. i know. when he first came in, it was stunning to see him so close and wolf blitzer and i were on television and wolf looked in the monitor and i said wolf, turn around, look, he s right there. we were in st. peters square when he came out on that balcony on that extraordinary night. who would forget that? to see him so close, the excitement for the faithful and new yorkers that may not be catholic or maybe who once were catholic, there is something about this man i think that everybody can relate to in one way or another. i had a v