those at the margins of society. and all were welcomed. he welcomed everyone who hungered to be part of community and to live in love. love was his greatest message. so i think as we have newly leadership who sees the connection between the gospel and those at the margins, who sees the connection with living in love, how can we leave anyone out of our care? and therefore, i think that in our lived experience, a welcoming church is the spiritual need of our time. we need to welcome everyone in. well you know, sister simone, we have a little bit of sister simone for president caucus going on here at the panel. we think that you re great and we think that your message is great and i want to wish you a very happy easter and thank you so much for being here. thank you, it s an honor to do this work. thank you so much. i want to thank sister simone and i want to thank 0-panel, which is sam, evan, bob and carrie. that s all for now, i will be back on monday. noon eastern. when i ll be j
it s starting to, but we found a bunch of stories. they re there, you can call people up and they re struggling because of this stuff. i want to bring sister simone back in you ve not shied away from the media covering poverty and talked about it in a way that s moved a lot of people, whether or not the politicians are listening to you. but for your church, the other thing the media has fixated on is the scandal and the hard-line position on social issues that we have to assume that pope francis shares. do you think there s a chance for the church not to just make this push on poverty and the things you ve spoken so passionately about. but could the church reset itself on social issues? soften its image in terms of women, in terms of the way it looks at gays and lesbians. is this a chance for that kind of reset, too? i don t know what they re going to do doctrinally and i m not in that loop. but-day believe when we read the gospel and we see where jesus went, jesus was always
things that you talk about are made real when you look at the statistics, the number of people in poverty, 46.5 million people. 16 million children. americans enrolled in food stamp programs, 47.8 million. it is a stark reality for so many americans, so many americans who were middle class not long ago, falling into poverty. you wrote a terrific piece in the national catholic reporter. in which you talked about a guy named billy. who works hard, who goes to work every day and yet, his family has to rely on food stamps, he s one of those 47 million people. do you feel like if the church were it take up for them and challenge people like paul ryan, challenge politicians on poverty, that you could make a difference? will these politicians listen to you? i think it could make a huge difference in waking up all of the voters in our country. so many people don t know the consequences of poverty, we re just doing an economic stations of the cross outside and i came in from that. we were at
campbell, the executive director of network. i m tempted to credit you with the cardinal being chosen as the new pope. because you and the nuns on the pope have been trying to refocus on the advocacy of the poor. do you think in a strange way the cardinals heard what you and the other nuns were saying and chose a pope that is trying to transition the church back do that. i m not sureky take much credit for it. but-day believe that the holy spirit that is alive in all of the world is alive and well in the selection of pope and was certainly my experience with nuns on the bus. that it was the poly spirit s action that stirred us up all of our hearts to respond to the needs of those around us. so i just like to think we re, we re all instruments making a difference in our world. and i think we re watching live pictures right now of pope francis in action. and you know, sister smoem, the
countries. i grew up catholic. went to parochial school, i was an altar boy actually and what strikes me is that the church had seen much more relevant in its day. it is lost touch with the times. so that i think catholics that i talked to today, the church does not have the same influence in their lives that they did at one time. there was a time that catholics believed if you ate meat on friday, something bad was going to happen to you. it made a difference how you conducted your life and ran your family and that sort of thing. i do believe that the church has lost a lot of that influence. so this is an opportunity and they need to seize it. carrie, you cover washington, i wonder whether the paul ryans of the world, do they hear this criticism? this was a searing criticism that sister simone made of the budget he put out, that she described as ayn randian and cruel. the cruelty of some of the policies. when somebody like sister simone speaks, does it resonate with some republican m