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Connect the World

Pope Benedict Visits Britain

Aired September 16, 2010 - 16:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BECKY ANDERSON, HOST: A royal welcome for Pope Benedict XVI as the red carpet is rolled out in Britain.

But here, as in many countries around the world, the pope cannot escape the sex abuse scandals. As an exclusive CNN poll shows most Britons think the pope hasn't done enough. Tonight, we ask if this is the week he'll draw a line under a decades old crisis in the Catholic church.

This is the show that demonstrates how that scandal goes beyond borders. From CNN, this is "Connect the World."

The pope expressed shock and sadness and admitted church authorities should have acted sooner. But could he have done more to protect the children at risk? We're going to head to one American church this hour to find out.

You can connect with the program online by Twitter today. I'm asking whether the pope should use this trip to apologize. My personal address at @BeckyCNN.

Also coming up, Rwanda's President Paul Kagame hits back as the claims his country committed genocide in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

And continuing our week long focus on languages, why Israelis are refusing to give up (inaudible) for Yiddish.

That's the show in the next 60 minutes.

First up is the head of the global Catholic church, Pope Benedict XVI said he wants to extend the hand of friendship to the whole of the UK. The church sex abuse scandal is proving to be a major barrier (inaudible) visit. Phil Black, live from Glasgow in Scotland - Phil.

PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Becky.

Yes, well after all the talk and perhaps speculation that the pope wouldn't be welcome here, he had a pretty good day on his first visit to this country, it is said to be largely indifferent if not hostile to his very presence.

And it ended here at this park here in Glasgow with tens of thousands of people waiting through the day for the opportunity to share the experience of a papal mass. And they were pretty thrilled to share just those two hours in his presence.

His day had begun back in Edinburgh, where he was received officially on this state visit by the queen. And in response to her welcome, that was where he gave his first public address in this country and gave a taste of the message that he has brought to the British people. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POPE BENEDICT XVI: As we reflect on the suffering (inaudible) of the 20th Century, let us never forget how the exclusion of god, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a (inaudible) situation of man and of society, and thus to reductive (inaudible) of the person and his destiny.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACK: That is the pope warning against the exclusion of god and religion from public life. When many Christians in this country will tell you that is something that they believe is going on at an increasingly rapid rate. This is a society that is considered to be increasingly secular.

Well, the pope has come here with a message for the British people that he believes that that is a bad thing - Becky.

ANDERSON: Phil, did he say anything about the sex abuse scandal?

BLACK: Interestingly he did even before he arrived here in Britain. On the flight from Rome, he spoke to journalists. And spoke in very critical terms about his church's handling of the sex abuse scandal. He criticized the vigilance that shown - or the lack of vigilance that had shown in not picking it up sooner. And then also criticized the speed of its response.

He talked about this being a time of great humility for the church. He's spoken in critical terms before, and this was among the most - or among the strongest language that he's used on this subject. And this is an issue that really goes to the core of the many people here who believe he's not - or does not deserve the full honors that come with a state visit to this country. Will these words in and of themselves assuage his critics and let them ease of their criticism. Well, probably not Becky.

ANDERSON: Interesting.

All right, Phil Black there in Glasgow in Scotland. Phil, thanks for that.

If you want to get a sense of why the pope faces a skeptical crowd here in Britain, check out this poll that CNN had conducted by an organization called ComRes. We asked just over 2,000 people, "do you think the Catholic church has shown enough public remorse for the child sex scandal?"

Well, nearly three-quarters said no. Only 10 percent thought the church had.

When asked, "do you think the pope has done enough to punish priests found guilty of child sex abuse or not?" Only four percent said yes. You don't see the numbers broken down on your screen, but of the Catholics polled, 13 percent said he'd done enough. That's more than any other group.

And there was an interesting response to this question. Asked, "do you think the pope should resign over the child sex abuse scandal?" Forty- seven percent said he should not.

Again, not shown there, but amongst Catholics polled, that rose to 74 percent - or three-quarters saying no.

Well, with me now in the studio and throughout the show tonight, CNN's senior Vatican analyst, John Allen. John, we welcome you to the show.

Just been through the numbers that we got out of the poll we conducted, the ComRes company. So first up, your thoughts.

JOHN ALLEN, CNN SENIOR VATICAN ANALYST: No good news for the pope, who at least in terms of his handling of the sex abuse crisis, it is quite clear that both the general public and also his own Catholic flock are deeply disappointed with how this has been handled.

ANDERSON: How do you think he's been received in the UK so far?

ALLEN: Well, I've been in phone contact, obviously, with Vatican officials throughout the day. They told me they are thrilled. They thought the turnout in Edinburgh, an estimated 125,000 people in the streets, roughly 70,000 or so in Glasgow, were impressive numbers. Measured against expectations, they thought they were enthusiastic, pumped up. There was more like a high octane energy around the pope's presence.

You know, on the other hand, I think it has to be alarming that I think if you or I were to walk out this building and into the street and stopped 10 Londoners at random, I suspect we would find seven, eight, nine of them frankly don't care that the pope is in town, or more or less blase about the whole thing.

ANDERSON: Well, he will be in town in about 25 minutes time. He'll be landing at about 25 past the hour. And we'll be covering that here on CNN.

Were the trip and the pope's comments ahead of this trip about the sexual abuse scandal be enough to help the church recover? Or should we expect more?

ALLEN: Well, I think it will do him some good. But I think there are two problems. One, he said all of this before. I mean, you will remember when he came to the United States in April 2008, it was the exact same story. He talked about the crisis on the plane. That was the first time he had really done so. That galvanized a lot of very positive public response to the pope thinking that he had finally gotten it.

I think in the two years since, language no longer does it. I think what people are waiting to see if concrete action. And until that's delivered, I think these kinds of fervorinos (ph) aren't going to do you a whole lot of good.

The other problem he has, of course, is that there is an activist core of victims advocacy groups and other organized critics of the pope who are immediately, and have already immediately pounced on this saying it's disingenuous. In fact, one of the main groups in the States put out a statement saying this is dishonest. The problem is not the church wasn't fast, it was too fast in the wrong direction to cover up this problem.

ANDERSON: Yeah, people are looking for more than a public apology at this point. It's (inaudible) is perpetrated. It's issues of compensation as well.

You got three more days. The pope will be in London and then in Birmingham, which is just north of London.

When I was talking to organizers about this trip ahead of the trip, there were a number of issues that we talked about - security being one of them, the cost of this trip, but also about whether and how the pope would address the sex abuse scandal. Certainly in the States, he spoke to those who had been abused, victims groups when he conducted that trip. Should we expect to see some one-on-one activity so far as the pope and these victims groups are concerned while he's here?

ALLEN: Yeah, I think we should. The Vatican is not officially confirmed that. And they never do in advance. They always wait until ex post facto to tell you the meeting took place. And it's always, of course, deliberately off camera and behind closed doors. They will tell you that that's for respect to the privacy of the victims and the need for discretion of the encounter.

Usually, a couple of these victims - and it's usually a small group, three to five, often a couple of them at least, will make themselves available to the media afterwards. So we may well get some after the fact reactions.

But yes, I think we should expect it to happen.

ANDERSON: Let's remind ourselves that the media coverage in the run- up to the trip to the states was pretty critical of the church. And yet when the pope got to the states, I think the Vatican, and pretty much everybody else would agree, it was a pretty successful trip.

Now the coverage ahead of, and the criticism ahead of this trip has been very similar. Might we expect that once this trip fully gets underway, gets to London, gets to Westminster and gets up to beatification (ph) in Birmingham, that we find a sort of similar sort of swing, a bit more positive sort of reaction.

ALLEN: Well, I think so. I mean, in some ways, you know, the genius of the atrociously bad public relations operation in the Vatican is that it sets the bar very low. And almost anything the pope says or does is going to seem like a pleasant surprise in comparison.

And Benedict is personally a very gracious, kindly man. And I think personal contact with him does always tend to sort of dial down some of the negative stereotypes.

You know, you're right about the trip to the states. Gallup did a poll afterwards that found he got a 15 point bump in his approval ratings. You know, and he's gone into tough environments before. He's gone into France. He's gone into the Czech Republic. He's gone into Turkey. And the drumbeat in advance of all of those trips was disaster is coming and it never happened.

So I do think at the end of this, people will write headlines saying that it was a success for the pope. The question is, what's the lasting impact of that? I mean, is that going to survive six months down the line when the next sex abuse crisis erupts someplace?

ANDERSON: Interesting. So, it remains to be seen, and whether this is good for the growth of the Catholic church or not. John, stay with us, so you can be with us throughout the hour as we move through this. And as promised, as the pope lands in London, you will see it first here on CNN.

Well, the pope's visit comes as the Catholic church continues to grow globally. The Vatican says as of 2008, there were around 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide, up about a percent from the year before. Those are the latest numbers that we have.

What you need to understand is that how that population is shifting. Consider a map of the world where each continent's size reflects its Catholic population. This is then how the world looked in 1950, with nearly half of all Catholics living in Europe. Latin America accounted for about a third of the total. Africa and Asia not even 10 percent between them.

But look at the difference in 2000. Europe share has almost been cut in half, Latin America is now home to the lion's share. Africa has seen its proportion grow four-fold. Asia up as well.

Well, with that in mind, let's focus in on the challenges facing the church in two very different countries. Al Goodman is in Spain, but first a look at the Catholicism in the Philippines.

ANNA COREN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Anna Coren in Hong Kong.

Here in Asia, the Philippines is the largest Catholic nation in the region with more than 80 percent of its population members of the church. And while it's had its share of high profile sexual abuse cases in the past, there have been no reported cases in more than five years. In fact, support for the church is as strong as ever in a country where priests are highly respected.

But despite this faith, the relationship between the church and its people can be strained over the issue of sex. Attempts to introduce sex education into schools and create easier access to contraception and family planning in this impoverished nation is strongly opposed by the church, which believes this will lead to promiscuity.

AL GOODMAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Al Goodman in Madrid. Pope Benedict XVI is due to visit two Spanish cities in November - Barcelona and Santiago de Compostella. He's likely to get a warm welcome, Spain has been largely sparred from the sexual abuse scandals that rock the church elsewhere in Europe with just a few alleged cases reported at some religious orders here.

But the pope faces a different challenge in this traditional bastion of Roman Catholicism, a recent government survey showed just 74 percent of Spaniards still consider themselves Catholic. And of these, just two out of 10 regularly attend mass.

ANDERSON: All right. Well, that's the pope's visit. And as I say, throughout the hour, we'll be doing more as the pope lands here in London. I still have John Allen with us as well, your analyst this evening.

Well controversy stalks our latest connector of the day, Rwanda's president faces leadership challenges and questions, including yours. I set them to Paul Kagame. That is up next. Find out what he has to say.

This is Connect the World. I'm Becky Anderson in London. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANDERSON: All right. Your back with Connect the World. I'm Becky Anderson in London.

Now, since we started the part of the show that we called Connector of the Day, we've profiled people from all walks of life from every day activists to world leaders. And tonight, we're putting your questions to Rwanda's newly reelected president Paul Kagame. And believe me, there were some tough ones. We're going to have those in a moment.

First though, CNN's David McKenzie takes a closer look at this controversial figure.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: For a tiny land- locked country, Rwanda punches above its waist. And most credit President Paul Kagame for Rwanda's stages as a major player in Africa, remarkable when you consider that 16 years ago, Rwanda was wracked by a genocide that saw more than 800,000 killed in a 100 day orgy of ethnic violence.

A general with the Rwandan Patriotic Front, Kagame helped end the blood-letting and bring stability to the region.

Rwanda's president since 2000, his credits was with making powerful friends in the West. A darling of donors and giving Rwanda a voice on the global stage.

PAUL KAGAME, PRESIDENT OF RWANDA: Mr. Secretary-General...

MCKENZIE: Kagame has presided over a period of peace and progress, helping attract significant foreign investment and connecting Rwanda with East Africa and the commonwealth.

But human right's groups say that the progress has come at a cost. They say the government's strict laws against genocide ideology are being used to squash dissent and muzzle the press. And that recent attacks against political opponents show a ruthless side to the Kagame regime. The government denies any involvement.

Now, Rwanda's difficult past is resurfacing. A recent leaked UN draft report alleges that Kagame's RPF committed war crimes in neighboring Congo while pursuing militia responsible for the genocide. And the UN chief had to personally fly to the capital to try and persuade President Kagame not to withdrawal Rwandan peacekeepers currently in Sudan in retaliation.

Paul Kagame's honeymoon period with the international community seems to be over. And most analysts believe that even with everything he has achieved for Rwanda, it his next seven year term that will be the true test of his leadership.

Dan McKenzie, CNN, Nairobi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON: Right. Before I get you to President Kagame and the interview I conducted on your behalf, let's just get to Heathrow Airport where Pope Benedict is just coming off the plane. He's come down from Scotland where he gave the first mass in Glasgow, now arriving in London for what is two days.

As part of the trip, he'll be in one part of London to meet students and religious leaders. He'll have an important meeting with the head of the Anglican church here in the UK. That's the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace, his resident. He'll be addressing members of British society in Westminster and conducting evening prayers there.

And on Sunday, he'll go up to Birmingham.

That is the mayor of London, that's Boris Johnson, just greeting the pope as he arrives there. These are pictures coming to us from Reuters. Arriving there at Heathrow Airport from our former Connectors of the Day, in fact, Boris Johnson with Pope Benedict as he arrives in London for the second leg of what is a three leg trip, effectively here in the UK, in England and in Scotland this time.

Not going to Ireland. That won't be part of this trip. This is the first, ever, papal state trip to the UK. Other trips have been called various other things, but yes, this is the first ever papal state trip. And the pope there, then, being accompanied by the mayor of London as he arrives at Heathrow Airport.

Stick with CNN, we'll have extensive coverage, of course, of this papal state trip to England and Scotland.

And the pope there disappearing into what I believe is probably a first-class type of environment where they'll take his passport and things of that sort. I guess they - I'll ask John Allen if they do do that with the pope, in fact.

Right, let's move on. I caught up with President Kagame, Paul Kagame of course, who is the president of Rwanda earlier today. And also to discuss leadership challenges that David McKenzie discussed in the report just earlier.

I started with a question, though, from one of our viewers, Keira (ph) wants to know, "what does Kagame thinks is the most important issue facing Rwanda today? And how he plans to solve this." This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAME: The most challenging part is now social and economic transformation. We want to see (inaudible). We want to eliminate poverty. And to make sure that we have institutions (ph) that (inaudible) to our corporations (ph), to have schools, to have (inaudible), to have infrastructure, we have investments. We see prosperity coming to Rwanda. This is the major challenge, but we're making very good progress.

ANDERSON: President, our viewers have written to us regarding the recent election and charges of corruption. Blase Booma (ph) asks, do you have link whatsoever in the persecution of opposition members during the run-up to the recently held elections?

KAGAME: Absolutely not. In fact, if you look at our track history, it has been that of (inaudible) governance, that we have been governing in absolutely complicated and difficult situation. And of course, some of these accusations have been very sad (ph) and outrageous. And anyway, they can't be true in a situation where you see all this progress that has been made in our country.

And the population themselves will say, they talk about how happy they are with what they are achieving and how they are moving on. And then you have these outrageous accusations. I think, certainly, they are just absurd to say the least.

ANDERSON: We have got a lot of very powerful viewer comments asking about the accusations of genocide by your own government in neighboring Congo. I want to read out just what one of our viewers has written.

Aremizena Mihigo (ph) has written, "I'm a Rwandan who grew up as an orphan in exile after my parents were massacred by your army in Remera. All Hutus from there, hundreds of them, were massacred. I survived by a miracle. And they were killed simply because they were Hutu intellectuals. Is that not genocide?"

Your response.

KAGAME: Well, if it happened. If they ever happened, that would be problem. But as far as I'm concerned, and as I know, and as many Rwandans know, that it did not happen.

But these stories, or accusations comes from sections of people who are actually linked in one way or another, surprisingly even those who were very young and such and did not participate, come under the influence by either of their parents or relatives or others who are (inaudible).

And the arguments has been to try and create an equivalence (ph). They have been trying to say, no, actually - you know, there are two genocides. There was only genocide of the Tutsis and there's another genocide of the Hutus. This has been the issue underlying this whole argument about, you know, appear (ph) the Tutsi also having committed genocide and so on.

This is nonsense.

ANDERSON: I want to press you on this, because the UN report accuses you of committing appalling atrocities across the border in the DRC. So is the UN wrong?

KAGAME: Well, of all the people UN - UN has been wrong of the issue of Rwanda, not only in terms of statements, but in terms of actions they carried out or did not carry out when the UN in Rwanda when the genocide took place.

ANDERSON: I get the sense you believe the UN's failure to stop the genocide in 1994 to some extent invalidates any criticism of you or the RPF.

KAGAME: The UN has nothing to say about genocide, or about Rwanda. They should just keep quiet. In fact, they can't be the ones, you know, ever accuse anybody for failure or for different things in Rwanda. How can Rwanda be accused, or RPF be accused - or the troops of Rwanda be accused of genocide in the Congo when in actual fact, we repatriated millions of Rwandees (ph) - the ones they call Hutus.

ANDERSON: Is there evidence to suggest, though, that people have been slaughtered. What will you say in the face of that?

KAGAME: First of all, there can't be evidence about genocide in the Congo by Rwandan troops, because that did not happen. But to say that in the whole situation that people die, I think you are talking - I mean, you are saying the obvious.

So if people died, anywhere, do you immediately characterize it as a genocide? Does any dying of anybody is (inaudible) over the circumstances something you would freely genocide?

ANDERSON: Let me push you. You are aware that these accusations are going to lead to the resurfacing of what could be deep ethnic tensions within Rwanda itself, and to certain extent delegitimize your role in your job?

KAGAME: But the issue, you see, should not be just around personalities or me or anything. I think I want to take this beyond and look at the people of Rwanda themselves.

There's nothing that is going to be legitimized about our government, about me, about what we are doing, because we are also making progress. And we're making progress with Rwandan.

ANDERSON: John Roberts (ph) has written, asking, "what are you going to do to ensure that after this term as president, there is peace in Rwanda?"

I'll back up and say, is this your last term as president?

KAGAME: Now, this is my last term. I say this a 100 times. People don't want to believe it, because they say no, we've had 100 people say that and then they change their mind. And this is something African. And so on and so forth. Particularly in my case, in the case of Rwanda, it will be my pleasure and my duty to ensure that we all respect the constitution as it is today that provides term limits and allows people to come in and we allow people to go out and so on and so forth.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON: President Paul Kagame speaking to me earlier and answering your questions as your Connector of the Day. We'll have more of that interview online at CNN.com/connect.

Now next week, we're going to take you elsewhere in Africa when Nigeria's president will be your Connector of the Day.

Goodluck Jonathan is running for a new term of office. Can he bridge Nigeria's Christian-Muslim divide. It's your part of the show. Send us your questions. And then tell us where you are writing (inaudible) at cnn.com/connect.

This is Connect the World live from London tonight. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANDERSON: Your back with Connect the World here on CNN. I'm Becky Anderson for you in London.

Coming up what the pope knew, a special report into Benedict XVI's handling of one sex abuse case while he was Cardinal Ratzinger.

Pakistan's flood crisis isn't just effecting Pakistanis, what life is like for over a million refugees.

And our series on languages continues tonight. How your mother tongues in shape and improved the way you live and think. That is the show in the next 30 minutes.

Before we move on, though, let's get you a quick check of the headlines here on CNN this hour.

Pope Benedict XVI has arrived in London for the next stage of his visit to the UK. Earlier today, he met the queen in Edinburgh, in Scotland, and celebrated mass with thousands of pilgrims in Glasgow.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy says France will continue to dismantle illegal Roma migrant camps. France's expulsion of thousands of ethnic Roma, commonly known as gypsies, dominated a one-day EU summit on Thursday. Sources say Mr. Sarkozy clashed with European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso over the issue.

A team of Chinese experts has arrived in Japan to investigate the death of a panda. Fourteen-year-old Kou Kou was on loan from China. He reportedly stopped eating last week while he was sedated for an artificial insemination procedure. Chinese media have reported that the Chinese experts are questioning the Japanese zoo and how they were trying to breed Kou Kou outside his mating season.

Four senior leaders of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge from the 1970s regime all face trial for genocide. The aging defendants, who include a former head of state and an ex-foreign minister, all deny any guilt. Between 1975 and 1979, nearly two million Cambodians died from starvation or execution.

Those are your headlines. And topping out our headlines, of course, the visit to the UK by the pope. Before he was Pope Benedict, he was Cardinal Ratzinger, one of the most powerful men in the Vatican. It's recently come to light that as head of the congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger had direct responsibility for decisions in some notorious sex abuse cases.

CNN's Gary Tuchman examines, now, his handling of one case from the heartland of the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): In 1989, Bishop Daniel Ryan drove about 45 minutes north of his diocese office in Springfield, Illinois, to the town of Lincoln. He came here to Lincoln to visit one of his priests. A priest who was living here, in a prison.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): In 1985, Father Alvin Campbell pleaded guilty to multiple charges of sexual assault on boys as young as 11 years old. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Matt McCormick was one of the children Campbell abused.

MATT MCCORMICK, SEXUAL ABUSE VICTIM: I don't come by the school, and I don't come by the church.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): Starting in seventh grade, Campbell molested McCormick in the church's school. The rectory. And even here.

TUCHMAN (on camera): This is the confessional you were in?

MCCORMICK: This is the confession. And he would sit there.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): Campbell was sent to prison, but he was still a priest. That's why Bishop Ryan had come to visit him, to try to convince him to voluntarily leave the priesthood. Campbell refused.

So Ryan turned to Rome for help. He sent copies of Campbell's indictments, spelling out in graphic detail what Campbell had done to his victims, and asked Joseph Ratzinger to defrock Campbell. Ratzinger's answer? No.

"The petition in question cannot be admitted, in as much as it lacks the request of Father Campbell himself, which is called for by the current norms."

TUCHMAN (on camera): Incredibly, what Cardinal Ratzinger was saying was that he could not agree to defrock a priest, even a convicted child molester, without that priest's permission.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): We showed the letter to Matt McCormick. It was the first time he'd seen it.

MCCORMICK: I'm sorry, I have to read this again.

TUCHMAN (on camera): What's the first thing you would say to Pope Benedict if you were face to face with him?

MCCORMICK: What would I say to him? I'd say that, "What you have done is created an environment for pedophiles and molesters of children to exist. And the violation of these children falls on your shoulders."

TUCHMAN (voice-over): Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the Vatican's prosecutor, worked with the pope for years on sex abuse cases. When he sat down with me at the Vatican, it was his first ever television interview on the pope's record.

TUCHMAN (on camera): Monseigneur, do you see, though, how it sounds so ridiculous under our canon law, unless he requests it, we can't defrock him?

CHARLES SCICLUNA, MONSEIGNEUR, CONGRETATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH: It would sound ridiculous if you forget the next paragraph that says there is a way of reducing him to the lay state, and it is by church trial.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): Ratzinger's letter does say the bishop can avoid responsibility for keeping Campbell by putting him through a church trial. But again, that would take years, and Campbell had already been convicted in a criminal trial.

Scicluna admits the process needed changing.

SCICLUNA: I think that these cases certainly taught Cardinal Ratzinger, his collaborators, that something needed to be done. And something has been done. Today, canon law has a different scenario. This thing would not happen under today's canon law. And that is also the merit of Cardinal Ratzinger, who is Pope Benedict XVI today.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): Campbell would finally be defrocked three years later, after he eventually agreed to request it himself.

After bouts with depression, alcohol, and drugs, McCormick today is happily married with a daughter.

BETH MCCORMICK, WIFE OF MATT MCCORMICK: Wanna give Mama a kiss.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): And a wife who gave up on the church.

BETH MCCORMICK: We both converted to Lutheranism because of this. I don't -- I personally, I don't have faith in the Catholic Church whatsoever. At all.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON: That was Gary Tuchman reporting there.

Many of you have been weighing in on the pope's visit here, writing to us at the website. Let me just take you through some of these e-mails. I've got John Allen with me as well, still in the studio here. And John, have a listen to some of these with a view to the child sex abuse scandal, the focus for many of our viewers.

Blogger cefur is completely shocked by the whole affair. He says, "This is worse than terrorism."

Someone who goes by the name of lygythowse thinks transparency is the key to going forward. He writes, "Everything must be laid bare in order for all people, Catholic and non-Catholics, to know the truth, so that the problems are properly dealt with."

And I've got a couple of similar tweets coming in today, here @beckycnn, talking about transparency. John?

JOHN ALLEN, VATICAN ANALYST: John Paul II in 1984 said that the Catholic Church is supposed to be a house of glass, in which everyone standing on the outside can look in and see what's going on. I think everyone would say there's still a fair bit of ground to cover before that becomes reality.

Now, I would say the Catholic Church of 2010 is far more transparent than it ever has been, far more transparent, even, than when I started covering it in the early 90s. And I think a lot of that is the pressure of the sex abuse scandals that really began to erupt in the United States in late 2001, 2002.

I think what you've got is a centuries-old institution with a very kind of antique culture and way of doing things that is desperately struggling to adapt to change in circumstances. By that standard of sort of thinking in centuries, as the Vatican typically does, its response has been quite rapid. By the standard of the 21st century world, on the other hand, it comes off as foot-dragging and denial.

ANDERSON: Nzkelly -- a couple more e-mails to us tonight. "It's sad, it's not religious, but I feel -- I truly feel for those who put their people -- their trust in these people."

Blogger ssbn737b -- that's a long one, isn't it? -- writes, "It's true, many church officials turned a blind eye to the abuse, but this is a criminal matter. Parents are perfectly empowered to report these acts to the police. Where's their responsibility in all of this?" An interesting question, John.

ALLEN: Yes, it is, and I think the truth is, that to make the Catholic Church carry all the water for the broader social phenomenon of the sexual abuse of children is, in many ways, unfair. It's not like sex abuse of kids happens only in the Catholic Church. Other religious denominations, institutions like the Juvenile Justice System, the public school system, have all struggled with it.

So, I think while the Catholic Church has an awful lot of cleaning up of its own act to do, I think the question also raises an important point, which is that all of us, collectively, have a responsibility for fixing this as well.

ANDERSON: All right. I'm going to leave it there for the time being. We do know that the pope has arrived in London. The pictures that you are seeing, viewers, on your screens just then were pictures of the pope in Glasgow earlier on today, after he arrived there from Edinburgh, where he met with Queen Elizabeth.

We're going to take a very short break for you. Still to come, the ever-growing humanitarian crisis in Pakistan. More than eight million people have been left homeless. Among them, refugees from Afghanistan. We're going to take a look into claims many are being forced to return home.

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ANDERSON: We're doing our bit, but what about Pakistan's rich? US envoy Richard Holbrooke asking that question as the international community tries to help flood victims there. He says the world will only be able to fund about 25 percent of the money that Pakistan needs to rebuild. The government will have to find the rest, he says. He's pointed to the country's tax system, one of the most lenient in the world.

And it's not just Pakistanis who need help. As Fred Pleitgen reports, the country hosts more than a million refugees, the vast majority are from Afghanistan. They, too, face a most uncertain future.

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FRED PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Picking up the pieces even where it looks like there's not much to salvage, Azakhel, an Afghan refugee camp in northwest Pakistan was destroyed by the flooding that hit more than a month ago.

Haji Muhammed Jan is 63. He fled violence in Afghanistan 30 years ago, and has been living in Azakhel ever since. Now, he says, he's left with nothing.

HAJI MUHAMMED JAN, AFGHAN REFUGEE (through translator): We don't want to go in the tents, and can't live there, because people from different families have been mixed there.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): Like Muhammed, most refugees came here after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. About 1.7 million Afghans remain in Pakistan, 23,000 in Azakhel alone.

PLEITGEN (on camera): Azakhel was a bustling community and, as you can see, this area's just littered with personal items. We have some shoes here, some clothes. Here's a pill box that actually still has some pills in it. Also, an audio cassette.

When the waters moved in here, this entire area was flattened within a few hours.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): Now, after the destruction caused by the floodwaters, many Afghans fear Pakistan is trying to relocate them, to develop the land their camps occupy, and possibly even move them out of the country. A claim government officials deny.

AJI ANAN, NOWSHERA DISTRICT COORDINATOR: We want to save them and protect them from any future floods. Or any future calamities, for that matter.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): The refugees receive most of their assistance from the UN. We accompanied UN refugee agency representative Ahmed Warsame to a meeting at the Azakhel camp, where elders voiced their concerns.

AHMED WARSAME, UNHCR: UNHCR will make every effort to assist the Afghans to go back to their homes if it is technically feasible.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): For now, many live in makeshift tents on the roadside. Wazir Ahmed (ph) has polio and receives almost no medical attention. But for most Afghan refugees, returning to their war-torn country is not an option. Many of the younger ones, like Khair Muhammed, were born in refugee camps. Some have never been to Afghanistan.

KHAIR MUHAMMED, AFGHAN REFUGEE (through translator): We want to live in our own houses, but can't afford to rebuild them. We need help to rebuild our houses.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): It is the Afghan refugees who are among the most vulnerable. Their possessions destroyed and no homeland to return to, hoping they can stay in their shattered camp. Fred Pleitgen, Azakhel Camp, Pakistan.

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ANDERSON: Well, United Nations' high commissioner, Antonio Guterres, is the man who monitors the safety, security, and well-being of refugees around the world. He's in Pakistan, currently, accessing the impact of the floods. And I caught up with him a little earlier, while he was there, and began by asking just how dire the situation for Pakistan's refugee community really is.

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ANTONIO GUTERRES, UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES: We have 16 refugee camps that were washed away. One of them badly damaged. About 68,000 refugees homeless, also.

And we are working very hard with the Pakistani High Commission on Refugees to support these populations to make sure that they have immediate relief and shelter, and that solutions will be found for them, again, in the areas where they were expelled by the waters.

ANDERSON: Are we talking, here, about internal Pakistani refugees, or Afghan refugees?

GUTERRES: I was mentioning Afghan refugees. Of course, we still have about one million Pakistanis that were displaced by conflict inside Pakistan. Many of them were also affected by the floods. And they also need a lot of support, because they have two tragedies, one after the other, and so, they fully deserve our support.

ANDERSON: Pakistan hosts some million Afghan refugees, as you said. What do you know of reports that they are being forced to return home, given that many of their camps have been washed away?

GUTERRES: We have a clear guarantee from the Pakistani government that nobody will be forced back home in the present circumstances. It is true that some have decided to go back.

Guarantees are being given to all of them that they will find a place, either in the areas where they have been expelled by the waters, or if that is absolutely impossible, because those areas are no longer livable, there is only one camp in which this might happen, in other areas where the same conditions of the past can be restored.

But even in these circumstances, it is understandable that some might opt to return, and we will support them.

ANDERSON: How can you make sure that that will actually happen?

GUTERRES: One of the members of the ministry told me today something that is very eloquent. He said, "For decades, we have hosted Afghan refugees. And we have inherited, it is true, a reputation of an extremely generous nation. We are not going to spoil that reputation in a few days just because we have this crisis."

And I think it's important for the international community to recognize that Pakistan is today the largest hosting country of refugees, and Pakistan has been extremely generous, hosting so many refugees for so much time, with all the problems they have. One reason more for them to deserve full support of the international community when they are facing such a dramatic situation.

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ANDERSON: Antonio Guterres talking to you there as we join the dots on the day's big stories for you. Well, CONNECT THE WORLD is celebrating language this week. Up next, we're going to focus on the people who are saving to restore Yiddish to its former glory. And we'll take expert insight on how your mother tongue could be the captain of your soul.

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ANDERSON: Welcome back. Now, all this week, we've been looking at the world's languages. On Monday, we were in the United States, where many of the 800 tongues heard on the streets of New York every day may not be around for very long. Experts say some 400 languages are endangered.

From there, we headed to China. Mandarin may help if you're an ex-pat doing business in Beijing, but some say it's so complex that only the younger generation can grasp it.

And then we were in Lebanon, where the official language is feeling a bit threatened. We looked at efforts to keep Arabic on the agenda across the Middle East's multilingual landscape.

Well, you're back with us here today. Across the world, you'll hear 7,000 languages spoken, some going strong, some heading into oblivion, and others not going without a fight, like Yiddish, for example. You see an example of it behind me from a World War I era poster. Now, it calls on Jewish immigrants to the US to conserve, proclaiming food will win the war.

CNN's Paula Hancocks shows us the rich cultural connection this language offers modern-day Israelis.

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PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Coen Brothers' latest hit, "A Serious Man," conjures up memories of Yiddish, early 20th century Poland, showing the hard life many Jews lived in Eastern Europe.

Moving to Israel, most Jews began speaking Hebrew, leaving behind Yiddish and its negative associations with the ghettos of Eastern Europe.

Not so for Daniel Galay. Playing what he calls Yiddish music, he talks of the rich cultural identity. This Israeli composer and writer is one of the champions of restoring Yiddish to its former glory.

DANIEL GALAY, YIDDISH WRITER: Yiddish has a lot of emotions. Yiddish has a lot of wisdom. Yiddish has a lot of experience, a thousand years in Europe, different countries, different regimes, Yiddish is the identity and history, also, of this country. It's not just a language and literature, it's the history, it belongs to this place.

HANCOCKS (voice-over): These Israelis would agree, spending the evening at a Yiddish theater in Herzliya to watch a one-woman show. Ironically, by an actress that doesn't actually speak Yiddish.

ANAT ATZMON, ACTRESS: I think that it's very important to keep this language, because it's our language. It's part of our tradition, part of our history, part of us.

HANCOCKS (voice-over): Some ultra-Orthodox Jews still speak Yiddish within their families and communities. But many secular Jews who spoke it were killed in the Holocaust.

But don't try telling these sixth graders it's a dying language. For these children, learning Yiddish is fun and optional.

NATI STERN, PRINCIPAL, TEL NORDAU SCHOOL: The pupils regard it with a huge amount of enthusiasm. They enjoyed it, and they still do. And they speak Yiddish, they sing Yiddish. Sometimes it's even -- I even think they think Yiddish.

CHANA POLLINGALAY, YIDDISH TEACHER: People didn't want to talk about Yiddish, they didn't want to admit that they spoke Yiddish, or that their neighbors spoke Yiddish, or that they went to Yiddish plays.

And so, there's this kind of secret, this elephant in the room that's been passed down through generations in Israel. And some of this secret was transmitted to children, who are now in fifth or sixth grade.

LIALA AVITAL, STUDENT, TEL NORDAU SCHOOL: We're making performance, and it's not only learning Yiddish, it's -- we're making fun things, just in Yiddish.

HANCOCKS (voice-over): Interest from the younger generation in a language considered of the oldest generation is surely the way to keep it alive. Paula Hancocks, CNN, Jerusalem.

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ANDERSON: From cultural influences to emotional impressions, just how much does your mother tongue, or our mother tongue, influence who we are and how we see the world? We're joined now by Guy Deutscher. He's written extensively on language and its effect on how we think.

Is it possible that two people may think about the world differently purely by their language?

GUY DEUTSCHER, AUTHOR, "THROUGH THE LANGUAGE GLASS": I think it is. The first thing to say about this is that we are really only beginning to understand this question, because it's only in the last few years that researchers have been able to measure some very specific aspects of our thoughts that seemed to be influenced by the mother tongue.

But what they have already shown is that different languages force their speakers to express different types of information. And by doing this, they can create different habits of mind. And this can effect things like our memory and associations, our perceptions, and even our orientation in the world.

ANDERSON: Guy, can you give me some concrete examples of that?

DEUTSCHER: One example is gender. There are many languages -- Yiddish, is one of them, but there are many more -- which talk not just about men and women as "he" and "she," but also treat a whole range of inanimate objects, like stones or tables or apples or spoons, as "he" and "she." So in German, for example, you would say about a table that "he" is in the kitchen. But if you speak French, you would say that "she" is in the kitchen.

And psychologists have shown that if you grow up in a language which forces you to speak about objects in this way, as "he" or "she," then this will actually affect your associations about such objects. And so you will tend to think of tables as more masculine if you're German, but more feminine if you're French.

ANDERSON: Guy --

DEUTSCHER: And --

ANDERSON: Yes, it's fascinating stuff. You've written that most respectable psychologists and linguists, as you call them, think that the influence our mother tongue has on the way we think is negligible or trivial.

DEUTSCHER: Yes. The -- a large part of the reason for that is that there's a whole slightly embarrassing history to this question. Especially in the 1940s and 1950s, there was a very popular theory that claimed that the language we speak actually limits our understanding, that it's a sort of prison house that doesn't let us understand things for which we don't have words. And this has been shown to be completely false, because in theory, you can express anything in any language.

And because -- as a sort of reaction to this, to the errors of the past, so to speak, most linguists and psychologists today are extremely careful because they don't want to repeat those mistakes. They would tend to say that the influence of language is not significant.

ANDERSON: Sure.

DEUTSCHER: But in the last few years, really, very strong research has shown that there are a few examples where language actually radically affects the way we think.

ANDERSON: Just finally, you've studied languages for many years, and many languages around the world. Which are the most expressive languages? And which languages would you say are those that really help us express and help us understand who we are and where we are, as it were?

DEUTSCHER : I think this is an entirely subjective question. For every -- the mother tongue is usually the most expressive language for each one of us. We can -- any language can, in theory, express anything, at least in as much as pure logical content is considered.

But the whole range of associations, connotations that we have in our mother tongue is something that really determines, to a large extent, our cultural identity and is entirely irreplaceable.

ANDERSON: All right. Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. Guy, we thank you for joining us, Guy Deutscher. It's your language week here on CONNECT THE WORLD. Guy, one of your experts this week.

With nearly 7,000 languages spoken, you would hardly think there'd be a need to invent more. Yet, there are entire languages born out of nothing more than fun and creativity. From the Klingon these "Star Trek" fans use to Esperanto, the universal language. We're going to take a look at those on Friday here on CONNECT THE WORLD. We've really enjoyed this week on languages. We'll be back after this break with your World in Pictures.

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ANDERSON: Let's get you through the lens this evening. And tonight, fashion statements. The outlandish Lady Gaga set the scene earlier this week at the MTV Video Music Awards with her dress made out of -- get this - - raw meat. Believe me when I say that maybe it inspired some of these outlandish designs.

For New York Fashion Week, here a model struts her funky stuff in something not dissimilar to a doily.

Also making its way onto the catwalk, a dress clearly inspired by a shower sponge.

Something, too, for the boys. Angel wings, apparently the must-have fashion accessory next season.

And in Berlin, a fashion statement of a different kind. Thousands of people protested government spending cuts by holding a mock parade. This model wears a t-shirt that reads "Let the rich pay."

Fashion statements on the even of lush -- lush. Here we go again. Fashion statements on the even of London Fashion Week in our World in Pictures this evening. There you go.

I'm Becky Anderson. That is your world connected. Stay with us, though, for the headlines and, after that, "BackStory."

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