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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Roman Officials Ask Residence To Open Homes To Pilgrims; Profile of A Nun Training
Aired April 06, 2005 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone from Rome.
By this time on Friday, officials estimate that as many as five million people will have come to this city to pay their respects to Pope John Paul II. How they figure these things out is a mystery to me but we can tell you that each day Rome feels smaller. The crowds grow larger.
Today, the mayor of the city suggested that Romans open their homes to pilgrims who need a place to stay. Needless to say, there is not a hotel room to be had. As the people of power now replace the ordinary pilgrims, the city, the Vatican has changed.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): It was the flood that would not stop. By the hundreds of thousands for the third full day they wound through the streets of Rome waiting hours to spend seconds near the body of Pope John Paul II.
Inside the Vatican, the cardinals move forward with plans for Friday's funeral and what comes after that. They answered one of the questions that is on almost everyone's mind.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): The beginning of the conclave will be on Monday 18th of April in the morning.
BROWN: The cardinals also revealed that they have now read John Paul's will, which apparently contained no clues about the mystery cardinal so many have wondered about.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): The will of the Holy Father was read and the full text will be given tomorrow. I can confirm that the Holy Father before dying did not give a name for the cardinal.
BROWN: Beyond the inner workings of the Vatican parts of the city ground to a standstill today as Rome continued to swell with visitors. Night had fallen when President Bush and the rest of the official U.S. delegation arrived. They went directly to St. Peter's Basilica arriving here just after 10:00 and immediately went inside through a separate entrance apart from the crowd.
Outside St. Peter's Square tonight, time has now run out for many of those who had hoped to see the pope's body and to say their goodbye.\ (END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Someone told us today that at one point a million people, a million people were standing in line waiting to see Pope John Paul's body. If that is, in fact, true that is a remarkable fact.
Anderson Cooper is down below again tonight in the midst of it with time running out for those who are waiting -- Anderson, good evening again.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, Aaron.
Time is running out and you can actually really feel that here. You know we've been here for the last several nights and we've always talked about how these pilgrims are coming and the sense of community and people are friendly and that is still certainly true.
But there is a slightly different atmosphere tonight. There is a slight sense of desperation and these people are tired. They are hungry. They have not bathed. They have been here, one woman we were just talking to has been here for 15 hours slowly moving on this line.
It is so thick just for us to get through to this spot to be on camera was extraordinarily difficult and required, I mean people sort of, you know, parting the ways which they did very reluctantly.
It is probably a good thing that this is only 24 hours more left to go. The line has been closed. The last people who could be on the line are on the line but they still have a long way to go before they get inside St. Peter's Basilica.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): The line is as far as the eye can see and it's brought Rome to a standstill, hundreds of thousands of people winding their way through the streets to pay their final respects to Pope John Paul II.
They waited patiently hour after hour after hour to pass through St. Peter's Basilica where the pope lays in state. Sixty-five hundred extra police officers have been deployed to deal with crowd control but people were as respectful outside as they were inside. Fields have been turned into tent cities. Visitors who were prepared to sleep anywhere have been pleasantly surprised.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We didn't expect this. It's like a luxury.
COOPER: There were some problems, of course. Ten to 15 people an hour needed first aid at an emergency post near St. Peter's Square. Most had fainted or suffered from panic attacks.
As night fell, Rome slowed to a crawl as people continued to stream into the city. Authorities announced they would not allow anyone to join the line after 10:00 p.m., a day ahead of schedule so that the crowds could pass through St. Peter's Basilica ahead of Friday's funeral. Some were simply too late. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know when they decided to stop at ten o'clock. I don't know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, you didn't know that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So what are you going to do now?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know. What can I do? (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
COOPER: Officials now say one million people from Poland may come to Rome for the funeral and the total number of visitors could reach four million.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, Aaron, as bad as it would be to not be able to get on this line there is something actually even worse. One man who was standing just over there about four minutes ago nearly passed out. The authorities took him away. He has been standing on this line for 15 hours. He was within sight of St. Peter's Basilica and now he's not going to get in because he's now in a medical tent getting medical treatment -- Aaron.
BROWN: Anderson, that is heartbreaking. That's unimaginable. Thank you, Anderson Cooper tonight.
Down in the square around where it's essentially been empty most nights you now see much more activity than before. In those squares within the square, and I'm not sure if we can get a shot of it or not, chairs have already been laid out that will be part -- there you can see it, chairs have been laid out. They'll be part of the funeral on Friday.
Those allowed in, dignitaries and others, church officials and the rest, will be outside and there is much more activity in the square itself as preparations are being made for Friday's funeral and we still have more than 24 hours to go.
And then after that, of course, the conclave, which begins on the 18th, when cardinals begin their conclave they'll continue a tradition that dates back to the 12th Century.
The College of Cardinals itself has actually evolved over the last 1,000 years or so into its modern form. It is now and has always been though one of the most exclusive clubs, if you will, on the planet.
Cardinals alone get to choose the next pope and all but a few were appointed by John Paul, which is not to say that the pope to follow will be exactly like the one who has just died.
Here's CNN's Jim Bittermann.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's not easy to become a member of this club, the cardinals who are the pope's closest associates in life and elect his successor when he dies.
All started as priests. The Catholic Church has more than 400,000 priests. Most all cardinals also were once bishops but you can't become a bishop without the personal approval of the pope. There are more than 4,000 bishops.
And to become a cardinal you've got to be a bishop who has caught the eye of the pope in one way or another. All but three of the cardinals eligible to vote for his replacement were named by Pope John Paul II but does that mean they have to share the pope's views on key issues to get the promotion? The cardinal from London thinks not.
CARDINAL CORMAC MURPHY-O'CONNOR, ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER: So there is a lot we have in common but we're different kind of characters and that's the great thing. The church is united and yet this great diversity both in the characters that inhabit it.
BITTERMANN: The fact is the cardinals vary widely in their backgrounds, experience and their opinions. Pastoral cardinals, those who work out in the real world with its real problems, tend to see things differently from those working in the Vatican bureaucracy.
A cardinal from AIDS-stricken South Africa, for instance, always maintained the pope's line on the use of condoms but looks the other way when his flock practices so-called safe sex anyway.
The cardinal from Belgium believes it's time for another church wide council like Vatican II to look at all sorts of issues that have cropped up since. The cardinal from Vienna thinks the church needs to look again at issues like the role of women in the church and celibacy. Everyone is coming to Rome with a different agenda.
FATHER THOMAS REESE, CNN VATICAN ANALYST: Different parts of the world are coming with different issues trying to find one man who can fulfill this whole big job description.
BITTERMANN: The man who filled it last time was himself a surprise, at least in part because he did tolerate some diversity. Some of the pope's men are more hard lined than the pope was himself.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger called homosexuality an intrinsic moral evil, whereas someone like California-based Cardinal Roger Mahony has established outreach ministries for homosexuals.
JOHN ALLEN, CNN VATICAN ANALYST: On many, many questions these people simply don't think alike. You have to remember, Jim, that the College of Cardinals is not an organism that has a single will and intellect.
BITTERMANN: And so if while they might all look alike in their red cassocks, the looks can deceive. Many cardinals have towed the line and bided their time waiting for exactly this moment. (on camera): One American priest used to say there's nothing deader than a dead pope, meaning that when a pope passes away no one feels any obligation to follow the wishes or echo the views of the previous pope when it comes to evaluating what the church may need from the next one.
Jim Bittermann, CNN, Rome.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: As we said, John Paul's funeral mass on Friday morning will be held outdoors in St. Peter's Square. He'll then be buried in a crypt underneath the basilica at St. Peter's.
We can show you where that crypt is located by using animation that starts high above the Vatican and zooms down to the square where the mass will be held, something familiar to you all by now.
During the service, the pope's coffin will sit on the steps of the basilica, afterward carried inside St. Peter's through the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to a staircase that sits just in front of the main altar.
The coffin then will be carried down the stairs and placed under the floor in an empty alcove. The tomb of Pope John XXIII used to be in that alcove until it was moved upstairs to a chapel in the main floor back in 2001. All of that Friday morning begins at 4:00 Eastern time, 10:00 here in Rome.
Ahead on the program tonight, what it meant to be Jewish and living in Rome with John Paul II.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This leader was particularly sensitive to the problems of the Jews.
BROWN (voice-over): To the Jews of Rome and beyond, a lost friend in Pope John Paul. Rome's chief rabbi on what he hopes for the pope's successor.
MEAGHAN PATTERSON, NOVICE: I don't know that I've had a specific ah-ha moment but I'm coming to be more myself.
BROWN: A young woman now training to become a nun.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boys and girls it's Howdy Doody time.
BROWN: Of more earthly matters, an escaped prisoner and a deputy warden's wife vanish for more than a decade. It's a tale that sounds like it could come from a drugstore novel but it's the real McCoy and so are we.
From around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: In just a moment a young woman who answers the call. This is a terrific story coming up.
But right now about a quarter past the hour, in our case about a quarter past 4:00 in the morning, Erica Hill is in Atlanta with some of the other headlines of the day -- Erica.
(NEWSBREAK)
BROWN: Erica, thank you.
Of the many challenges facing the next pope, bringing more foot soldiers, if you will, into the fold will be a major one. And a shortage of priests is not the only problem. Convents too are struggling as fewer young women answer the call to become nuns.
But some can't ignore the call, so here's CNN's Deborah Feyerick.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, how are you? Come on in.
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The first thing you notice about 26-year-old Meaghan Patterson is her laugh, the second thing she'd probably make a really good nun.
MEAGHAN PATTERSON: I don't know that I've had a specific ah-ha moment but I'm coming to be more myself.
FEYERICK: Meaghan is a novice, the Catholic term for a nun in training. She lives with the sisters of St. Joseph in Philadelphia, the same order as the nun who wrote "Dead Man Walking."
MEAGHAN PATTERSON: We're pretty normal. I mean, you know, we do stuff that anybody would do. We get up in the morning. We wear pajamas to bed.
FEYERICK: Meaghan began thinking about a career in religion in college. She had boyfriends, though no one serious and she majored in English.
MEAGHAN PATTERSON: My senior seminar was on Jane Austin. I loved the British literature, love it, so I chose to look at the themes of courtship and marriage.
FEYERICK: When she's not studying Catholicism, Meaghan is working at the sister's welcoming center in the drug-ridden Kensington area. She teaches immigrants how to read and write and helps out with whatever needs doing. And, of course, there are the vows, loyalty to God, yes, money and men, no.
(on camera): Do some young women with everything that's out there, with all the images in the magazines, on television, do some women have a problem with the celibacy for example, sort of cutting themselves off from regular...
SISTER CHARLENE CIORKA, SISTERS OF SAINT JOSEPH: Sure.
FEYERICK (voice-over): Sister Charlene Diorka helps guide young women like Meaghan considering a life in the convent.
DIORKA: I'm not saying that celibacy is not a struggle, that it's not a sacrifice. All of us have to deal with that and live with that. But for some it isn't really how God is calling them.
FEYERICK: In 1960, there were 109 young women like Meaghan beginning to train for life as a nun. Meaghan was the only one in her year. Some years there aren't any. Five hundred of Meaghan's sisters are over age 70.
Ten minutes' drive from the convent, Meaghan's father is holding court as principal of Queen of Peace Catholic School.
MICHAEL PATTERSON, MEAGHAN'S FATHER: What do you know about the pope?
FEYERICK: He jokes that his eldest daughter should have become a doctor, lawyer or accountant so he'd get better Christmas presents but he is seriously proud of her.
MICHAEL PATTERSON: She has a good heart. Excuse me. She's a nice daughter.
FEYERICK: Growing up in Philadelphia, Meaghan always dreamed she'd one day marry and have children. That may never be but she's OK with that.
MEAGHAN PATTERSON: I don't look at it as a sacrifice that I'm not having children. I look at it as my life is called to be something else.
FEYERICK: Deborah Feyerick, CNN, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: That's a good kid. What a remarkable commitment someone willing to make.
John Allen joins us again tonight. John has helped us understand all the issues that have presented themselves over the last week. The news of tomorrow, of Thursday here in Rome, I suspect will be the pope's will. We'll get the detail. What is it you look for?
ALLEN: Well, Aaron, first of all I think it's important to understand this is not a will in the conventional sense because a pope doesn't really have property to dispose of.
BROWN: Right.
ALLEN: I mean there are a few personal effects and so forth. Traditionally, what popes have done with their personal effects is allowed family members to pick them up. Now in this case because Wojtyla has no close family, we would expect that at least some of them would go to his closest collaborator and dear friend Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz.
But really the heart of the will is a spiritual message. It's the pope's last teaching moment in a sense. Preparing for this, I went back and reread Paul VI's will, which came out in 1978 and I was struck by what a beautiful message it was.
You know Paul VI was a very refined, sensitive man, in some ways suffered very much. He was known as the Hamlet pope because he agonized over things so much and you could see some of that agony in his will. I would expect we would see the same reflection of John Paul's personality much more robust, energetic, evangelical.
BROWN: So this is an opportunity, literally a last opportunity, to underscore what the papacy, what his papacy has been?
ALLEN: I think more of what...
BROWN: Or is it move it to another point?
ALLEN: No. I think it's not so much the papacy as the man.
BROWN: The man.
ALLEN: We do know a few details already that the Vatican spokesperson gave us this morning. We know that this is a document that was written in diverse points in time, several handwritten pages, some of them just a few lines, some of them a half page of text.
Interestingly, Dr. Navarro-Valls told us today that the first page is dated 1979, which you'll remember is really just a few months after John Paul took over the papacy.
But I don't think that's at all surprising given the fact that his predecessor reigned only 33 days and I think he obviously came into the office with the understanding this could happen anytime.
BROWN: We were talking earlier today about what we in the media business, the lid is about to go on. Cardinals who have been willing to talk with us, both publicly and privately are going to become less so willing, fair enough?
ALLEN: Yes. Essentially what's happened is they've struck a gentlemen's agreement that after the funeral they're no longer going to make themselves available to the press and I think this is -- the primary motive is they're concerned that in this new world in which they live.
And bear in mind you know that of all the stories CNN has covered over the years, you know, earthquakes, wars, revolutions, you've never covered the death of a pope and the election of a new one because CNN didn't exist in 1978.
The point is that it's a new media universe and I think the fear is that if they subject themselves to this round-the-clock drumbeat of press coverage that in some sense the press will condition their conversations. The press would set the agenda. They won't be doing it.
BROWN: John thanks again for staying up with us tonight. We'll talk tomorrow, John Allen with us.
Coming up on this special edition of NEWSNIGHT, we'll talk to one of the men who will take part in choosing that next pope. Also, the chief rabbi of Rome on John Paul's relationship with the Jewish citizens of this city and the world what he hopes for, what he worries about.
We'll take a break first. From Rome and around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: The conclave to choose the new pope, as we learned today, won't begin until the 18th of April. That's nearly two weeks from now. Tonight in Rome, Pope John Paul II remains an overwhelming presence. During his life, even his strongest critics were hard pressed to deny his moral authority.
The boy who would become the pope grew into a man, a young man in Poland at one of the 20th Century's lowest points. What he did then and what he saw then would shape him just as he would leave his mark on others, reporting the story CNN's John Vause.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was January, 1945. The war in Europe was coming to a close. The Russians were driving the Nazis out of Poland.
As her guards fled, the teenage Edith, malnourished and sick, walked out of a labor camp her only thought to get home more than 100 miles away. It is difficult for her now to think of those days. Staggering through the snow and bitter cold she made it to a train station and collapsed.
EDITH ZIERER, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR (through translator): I believed this was the end. I didn't want to go anywhere. I wanted to stay sitting there. And then in the morning, a priest came along.
VAUSE: The priest was, in fact, a young seminary student. She told him she was too weak to stand.
ZIERER (through translator): He then disappeared and came back with a glass of tea for me, a glass of tea, a glass. I hadn't held a glass in my hands for three years, hot tea for me. I drank the tea and then after an hour or two I had no notion of time. He came back and brought me two slices of bread, Polish bread, round. They were huge with cheese and butter and packed in paper.
VAUSE: The Catholic seminarian and the 14-year-old Jewish girl began a remarkable journey.
ZIERER (through translator): Then he said, "You told me you want to go to Krakow?" "Yes" I said. He said, "Me too." Then he lifted me up but I fell back down again because my feet, I couldn't, and then he carried me on his back for quite a few miles.
VAUSE: Only after reaching Krakow did she ask the young man his name.
ZIERER (through translator): His name is Karol Wojtyla.
VAUSE: In the chaos of post-war Poland they became separated but she never forgot his name. Thirty-three years later in 1978 she would read in the newspaper that Karol Wojtyla, her savior, had been named Pope John Paul II.
ZIERER (through translator): I wrote four pages in Polish to the Holy Father. I said, "It is very difficult for me to keep living like this. I want to thank you."
VAUSE: Twenty years later, she would get that chance when they met again in Rome.
ZIERER (through translator): He said to me, "My child, speak loudly because I am an old man and I can't hear so well." He put his hand on my head and blessed me.
VAUSE: They would meet once more at Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. Edith could barely speak through the tears but recited a line from the Torah, "He who saves one life it's as if he saved an entire world."
John Vause, CNN, Jerusalem.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: And in St. Peter's now at just coming up on 4:30 in the morning, a half hour or so early, they have opened the gates again. They are leading people in. this is the last day Pope John Paul's body will be viewed. People have been waiting ten, 15 hours.
A couple of days ago the wait was six, seven hours, so it's doubled over time. As we said earlier, at one point they estimated there were a million people standing in line.
I don't know if that is exactly true or not but I can tell you that there is -- there has been an enormous crush. They make their way. It's a very brief moment they have inside. This outside area is where...
I don't know if that is exactly true or not, but I can tell you that there is -- there has been an enormous crush. They make their way. It's a very brief moment they have inside.
This outside area is where the funeral will be on Friday morning. And it's being prepared for the funeral tonight, as people take one last day to see the pope.
It's not exactly a stop on the tour bus of Rome, but tucked away in this ancient city is the Jewish Quarter, which is just a nice way to describe what used to be the ghetto here. It is a good place to see both one significant impact of John Paul's legacy and also to understand better why religious harmony in this world sounds so nice and is so hard to achieve.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): There have been Jews in Rome for 2,000 years. And for many of those years, they were forced into the ghetto of Rome, marginalized. The population was decimated during World War II. And, today, just 15,000 Jews remain in the city. They, of course, did not lose a religious leader this week, but they lost a friend.
RABBI RICCARDO DI SEGNI, CHIEF RABBI OF ROME: He was the first pope who visited a synagogue. And the first synagogue to be visited was the Synagogue of Rome. He recognized the state of Israel, the first pope who established political relations between the Vatican.
BROWN: Dr. Riccardo Di Segni is the chief rabbi of Rome, a medical doctor, as he explains it, a radiologist in the morning, a rabbi in the afternoon.
He is thoughtful with a rich sense of history and a gentle sense of humor. And he thinks he understands how it came to be that a pope born in a land long hostile to Jews became the pope most sensitive to the issues between these two religions.
DI SEGNI: This leader was particularly sensitive to the problem of the Jews, probably because he was -- he was (UNINTELLIGIBLE) at the witness of what happened to the Jews of his countries. And men who lived not far from Auschwitz may have an absolutely different conception of the problem.
BROWN (on camera): There's still controversy over the degree to which the church exercised its moral authority during World War II to save Jews and Jewish lives. Do you think that John Paul went far enough, said enough, apologized enough to end that controversy?
DI SEGNI: He asked also forgiveness for what the church has done. From our point of view, he's not guilty, and we are the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) of people who suffered. So, he must not ask for forgiveness. And we, by ourselves, cannot forgive for something for someone else.
BROWN (voice-over): There is, with religions, an inescapable conflict. Each believes they are right. How they deal with those who worship differently has been the root cause of great conflicts through the ages and still colors the relationship between this small community and the powerful church that surrounds it.
DI SEGNI: If I am talking with someone in a free dialogue and I express my opinion and he express the opinion, we can share. We can sit together. We discuss and so on.
But if I understand that the aim of the man who speaks with me is to convert me to his faith, there is no reason for me to discuss with him. So, the fundamental problem in the dialogue between Jews and Christian is the problem is -- of the suspicion: What do you want to do with us?
BROWN: So now what? Will a new pope mean better times or new difficulties?
DI SEGNI: What we have to do together, when all together Jews and Christian may give something to the world.
We are both believers. Everybody considers his belief the best one. But we understand that we have shared important values in this world. We have to be witness of these values, how to be witness of these values toward all humanity and make good things for humanity without destroying each other. We are still in an experimental age.
BROWN (on camera): All these hundreds of years later of trying to understand one another, we're still in an experimental age?
DI SEGNI: Yes, because Shoah finished 60 years ago. And we are trying to build a new world after the Shoah. We are in a world built over the ages. A million people died because of a lack of respect towards the dignity the men. So, we have a real new world to build still now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: A real new world to build now. One of the men who will take part in choosing the next pope is Justin Rigali, the cardinal of Philadelphia. He lived here at the Vatican for decades serving as the head of English translation. He traveled around the world many times with the pope. Indeed, he stood in that window across the way when John Paul first met the world 26 years ago. And he was in the square the day John Paul was shot in 1981.
And we spoke to Cardinal Rigali late yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Just before we sat down, we were standing on the balcony here looking out at the square.
And you've looked at it most of your career, the other way, from those windows that are so familiar to us. When you look at it now and you realize that someone you worked with for such a long time, much of your career, has passed away, how would you like us to see these days?
CARDINAL JUSTIN RIGALI, ARCHBISHOP OF PHILADELPHIA: Well, these days are -- I believe they're days of tremendous remembrance of this man. And the fact that they are shared by people of all faiths is a tremendous, tremendous tribute to Pope John Paul II.
And I would like everyone to see and remember the pope, first of all, in his great humanity, the gift of warmth and love that he exuded and that he manifested to people of all faiths, all different backgrounds, all races, all ethnic backgrounds. And this was the pope that reached out to people everywhere.
BROWN: There is for you and your colleagues serious work ahead, important decisions to make in the next few weeks. Have you started to think about not maybe the individual who should be, but the qualities, what the church needs now? Because it's a complicated church, the church has, in Africa, has in Latin America, has different needs I think than perhaps the church in the United States or in Europe does. Have you started to think about that?
RIGALI: Well, you know, just reflecting on the life of Pope John Paul II and what he did and who he was for the church brings all of this forward to our minds, you know, just how important it is that the pope be this person.
However, for the moment now, we're very concentrated on the first aspect, which is his death and burial and also to make sure that we render homage to his memory, that we commemorate his life and that we recall him. In a second moment, we will begin to concentrate -- after the days of mourning, we'll begin to concentrate on the process of the selection of his successor.
BROWN: We've heard, for example, from cardinals, and I think some of us have thought, surprisingly openly, about there needs to be some thought given to how centralized the church is and whether it needs to be decentralized, for example, how much power is held at the Vatican, how much -- are those the sorts of issues that ultimately will be discussed when that time is right?
RIGALI: Well, actually, you know, the Catholic Church is what it is. And it's a communion of individual churches throughout the world. And there's been no one like Pope John Paul II to emphasize the value of individual cultures and individual contributions in the whole communion of the church. But the faith of all is one in the same faith.
BROWN: It's nice to meet you.
I -- the generosity of you and others in helping us, all of us, understand these days is enormously appreciated. So, thank you.
RIGALI: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, with us yesterday here.
Still to come on a special edition of NEWSNIGHT, we'll leave Rome and head for Texas, the story of an escaped prisoner who is a convicted killer living on the run for 10 years with the wife of the prison's deputy warden. No kidding.
From Rome, this is NEWSNIGHT. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: To say that we're about to deal with more earthly matters is to understate. Yet, how do we resist this? A couple weeks ago here, we told you the story of the poet in Chicago who was an escaped killer from Boston. This story is like that, only 10 times weirder.
From Texas tonight, CNN's Ed Lavandera.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Randolph Dial's story reads more like outlandish fiction than real life. He was a chicken farming killer on the run with self-proclaimed mob connections and a flair for painting and sculpting in his spare time. And after his headline-grabbing arrest, it is clear the man likes to put on a show.
RANDOLPH DIAL, DEFENDANT: Well, boys and girls, it's Howdy Doody time.
LAVANDERA: Randolph Dial first made headlines when he escaped from this Oklahoma prison 10 years ago. He says he forced the deputy warden's wife, Bobbi Parker, into a car to escape.
DIAL: I was armed only with a knife against her carotid artery in her leg.
LAVANDERA: Dial was a prison trustee, which means he had more freedom than most convicts. He convinced prison authorities to let him start an inmate pottery program. That's how he met Bobbi Parker, who helped out with the class.
DIAL: I had worked on her for about a year trying to get her mind right. And I convinced her that the friend was the enemy and the enemy was the friend.
LAVANDERA: Nearly 11 years ago, Dial and Mrs. Parker disappeared. Her husband and two daughters feared she'd been killed, but the bad news never came. Then Monday afternoon, a tip was phoned in to the TV show "America's Most Wanted." Bobbi Parker was mowing a grass field. Dial was watching golf and cooking meat patties in their trailer when the past came knocking on the door.
MIKE TOLLETT, SHELBY COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: Went in the front door. And he was standing in the living room. And he was caught completely by surprise, had no idea that we were coming.
LAVANDERA: No one around Campti, Texas, knew Randolph Dial and Bobbi Parker. To anyone who asked, they were Richard and Samantha Deahl, a couple raising chickens and living a quiet life in this trailer.
TOLLETT: Not much out here at all. It would be a good place to lay low, as you say, or to hide out. NEWTON JOHNSON, SHELBY COUNTY SHERIFF: He kept real low-keyed and stayed out of sight. And he didn't drive. He didn't have a driver's license. He didn't have a Social Security number. He didn't do anything to bring any attention to himself.
LAVANDERA (on camera): This a great place to hide. The nearest main road is six miles down this dirt path. Apparently, Randolph Dial was happy spending his days out here. He told authorities that in the five years he lived here, he only went into town a couple of times, once to go to the grocery store, once to go to the library.
(voice-over): But Bobbi Parker was often seen in town, coming to the Big M Market to cash checks and buy groceries.
TAMMY BROWN, BIG M MARKET: I don't buy her story at all. How could you be held hostage for 10 years if you are able to come and get gas? Why couldn't you just drive off?
LAVANDERA: Mrs. Parker and her family are back together. But they're not talking. Dial says he brainwashed Ms. Parker into thinking that, if she ever tried to get away, he'd kill her daughters. He says he would never have done that.
DIAL: She's a very special person and very easy to like.
LAVANDERA: Three years ago, Oklahoma writer Charles Sasser wrote a book about Dial. Investigators say Dial went to a book signing in Tulsa.
(on camera): He spoke face to face with the author?
KENT SHAFFER, SHELBY COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: And, in fact, I want to say that he actually bought the book when he was having it signed, because he said he took it home and read it.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): And, after reading it, Dial called Sasser.
CHARLES SASSER, AUTHOR: And he says, I have read your book "At Large" 12 times. My, what a great fan I've got here, 12 times, the same book. And he says, you weren't always complimentarily to me, but I love the book because you were fair.
LAVANDERA: The story of Randolph Dial and Bobbi Parker isn't over yet. What's unfolded in the last few days has added new twists to a bizarre tale.
Ed Lavandera, CNN, Shelby County, Texas.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: A bizarre tale, indeed.
Ahead on this special edition of NEWSNIGHT, we'll check the latest headlines of the day. And, as we take you to break, we'll show you the scene behind us, as the pilgrims of Rome, perhaps as many as four million, file in again past the body of John Paul, now Thursday morning, one day before his funeral here. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: In a moment, life after the Olympics for one young gymnast who brought home the gold, memorably so.
But first, at about a quarter to the hour, time to look at some of the other stories that made news today.
Erica Hill joins us again in Atlanta -- Erica.
HILL: Hello again, Aaron.
We begin with what is the deadliest military crash in Afghanistan since U.S. troops were deployed there in 2001. And bad weather is reportedly to blame. At least 16 people are dead, mostly Americans. Two others on board have not been found. The U.S. military says the U.S. helicopter was on a routine mission southwest of Kabul.
Jury selection has begun in the case against alleged serial bomber Eric Rudolph. Hundreds of jurors filled out questionnaires. Rudolph is accused of killing a police officer and seriously injuring a nurse during the bombing of a Birmingham women's clinic seven years ago. He is also charged with the 1996 Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta.
Avowed white supremacist Matthew Hale has gotten now 40 years in prison for trying to have a federal judge killed. The judge, Joan Lefkow, is the same judge whose husband and mother were murdered five weeks ago. Last year, Hale was convicted of soliciting an FBI undercover agent to murder Judge Lefkow.
NASA is gearing up for its first launch since the Columbia tragedy two years ago. On Wednesday, the space shuttle Discovery's rollout to the launchpad was briefly delayed when a crack in the fuel tank's insulation was found. But NASA officials say it was just a minor flaw that didn't need to be fixed. The launch is set for May 15.
She captivated audiences with her talent and her energy. And, Tonight, as part of CNN's anniversary series "Then & Now," we take a look at Olympic gymnast Dominique Dawes.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Dominique Dawes tumbled into the spotlight during the 1996 Olympics as part of the Magnificent Seven gold-medal winning gymnastic teams. Awesome Dawson became the first African-American to win an individual gymnastics medal, with the bronze in the floor exercise.
DOMINIQUE DAWES, OLYMPIC GYMNAST: It just meant a lot to do it for the country, my team and myself.
HEMMER: After the games in Atlanta, Dawes turned heads on Broadway, dabbled in acting and modeling, and cartwheeled her way through a Prince music video.
She hung up her leotard in 1998 and started class at the University of Maryland, but soon realized that gymnastics was not quite out of her system. Dawes participated in her third Olympic Games in 2000, in what she calls a once in a lifetime experience.
Dawes is now 28, is completely retired from gymnastics, and splits her time between coaching and motivational speaking.
DAWES: It's really going out there and teaching young girls what being fit is all about.
HEMMER: She's also president of the Women's Sports foundation, and has recently launched a new project called Go Girl, Go.
DAWES: I feel like I do have to inspire and empower others, and that's why, you know, I've found these different platforms, these different venues that I feel like I've been able to touch lives in.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: OK, time to check very few morning papers we have picked up over the past couple of days.
"The Daily Mail." With all that's going on in the world, here is the lead in "The Daily Mail." "Can Anything Else Possibly Go Wrong?" and a picture of Charles and his intended. In fact, that's a big story. Take that, OK?
"Camilla's" -- whoops -- "The Daily Express." It's hard to do. "Camilla's Big Day Is Jinxed." Not the most flattering picture either.
And "USA Today" leads with what I think is the most interesting story going. "Chasm Widens Between Vatican, U.S. Catholics." That's really the challenge for the church as it looks to the United States. It's a serious and important question we've tried to take a look at some this week.
I'm sure there's weather in Chicago. I can tell you, the weather in Rome tonight is cold.
We'll wrap it up in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: That's it for us tonight. We'll see you tomorrow.
We turn now to a recap of the day's events here in Rome, the sights and sounds. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired April 6, 2005 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone from Rome.
By this time on Friday, officials estimate that as many as five million people will have come to this city to pay their respects to Pope John Paul II. How they figure these things out is a mystery to me but we can tell you that each day Rome feels smaller. The crowds grow larger.
Today, the mayor of the city suggested that Romans open their homes to pilgrims who need a place to stay. Needless to say, there is not a hotel room to be had. As the people of power now replace the ordinary pilgrims, the city, the Vatican has changed.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): It was the flood that would not stop. By the hundreds of thousands for the third full day they wound through the streets of Rome waiting hours to spend seconds near the body of Pope John Paul II.
Inside the Vatican, the cardinals move forward with plans for Friday's funeral and what comes after that. They answered one of the questions that is on almost everyone's mind.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): The beginning of the conclave will be on Monday 18th of April in the morning.
BROWN: The cardinals also revealed that they have now read John Paul's will, which apparently contained no clues about the mystery cardinal so many have wondered about.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): The will of the Holy Father was read and the full text will be given tomorrow. I can confirm that the Holy Father before dying did not give a name for the cardinal.
BROWN: Beyond the inner workings of the Vatican parts of the city ground to a standstill today as Rome continued to swell with visitors. Night had fallen when President Bush and the rest of the official U.S. delegation arrived. They went directly to St. Peter's Basilica arriving here just after 10:00 and immediately went inside through a separate entrance apart from the crowd.
Outside St. Peter's Square tonight, time has now run out for many of those who had hoped to see the pope's body and to say their goodbye.\ (END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Someone told us today that at one point a million people, a million people were standing in line waiting to see Pope John Paul's body. If that is, in fact, true that is a remarkable fact.
Anderson Cooper is down below again tonight in the midst of it with time running out for those who are waiting -- Anderson, good evening again.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, Aaron.
Time is running out and you can actually really feel that here. You know we've been here for the last several nights and we've always talked about how these pilgrims are coming and the sense of community and people are friendly and that is still certainly true.
But there is a slightly different atmosphere tonight. There is a slight sense of desperation and these people are tired. They are hungry. They have not bathed. They have been here, one woman we were just talking to has been here for 15 hours slowly moving on this line.
It is so thick just for us to get through to this spot to be on camera was extraordinarily difficult and required, I mean people sort of, you know, parting the ways which they did very reluctantly.
It is probably a good thing that this is only 24 hours more left to go. The line has been closed. The last people who could be on the line are on the line but they still have a long way to go before they get inside St. Peter's Basilica.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): The line is as far as the eye can see and it's brought Rome to a standstill, hundreds of thousands of people winding their way through the streets to pay their final respects to Pope John Paul II.
They waited patiently hour after hour after hour to pass through St. Peter's Basilica where the pope lays in state. Sixty-five hundred extra police officers have been deployed to deal with crowd control but people were as respectful outside as they were inside. Fields have been turned into tent cities. Visitors who were prepared to sleep anywhere have been pleasantly surprised.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We didn't expect this. It's like a luxury.
COOPER: There were some problems, of course. Ten to 15 people an hour needed first aid at an emergency post near St. Peter's Square. Most had fainted or suffered from panic attacks.
As night fell, Rome slowed to a crawl as people continued to stream into the city. Authorities announced they would not allow anyone to join the line after 10:00 p.m., a day ahead of schedule so that the crowds could pass through St. Peter's Basilica ahead of Friday's funeral. Some were simply too late. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know when they decided to stop at ten o'clock. I don't know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, you didn't know that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So what are you going to do now?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know. What can I do? (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
COOPER: Officials now say one million people from Poland may come to Rome for the funeral and the total number of visitors could reach four million.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, Aaron, as bad as it would be to not be able to get on this line there is something actually even worse. One man who was standing just over there about four minutes ago nearly passed out. The authorities took him away. He has been standing on this line for 15 hours. He was within sight of St. Peter's Basilica and now he's not going to get in because he's now in a medical tent getting medical treatment -- Aaron.
BROWN: Anderson, that is heartbreaking. That's unimaginable. Thank you, Anderson Cooper tonight.
Down in the square around where it's essentially been empty most nights you now see much more activity than before. In those squares within the square, and I'm not sure if we can get a shot of it or not, chairs have already been laid out that will be part -- there you can see it, chairs have been laid out. They'll be part of the funeral on Friday.
Those allowed in, dignitaries and others, church officials and the rest, will be outside and there is much more activity in the square itself as preparations are being made for Friday's funeral and we still have more than 24 hours to go.
And then after that, of course, the conclave, which begins on the 18th, when cardinals begin their conclave they'll continue a tradition that dates back to the 12th Century.
The College of Cardinals itself has actually evolved over the last 1,000 years or so into its modern form. It is now and has always been though one of the most exclusive clubs, if you will, on the planet.
Cardinals alone get to choose the next pope and all but a few were appointed by John Paul, which is not to say that the pope to follow will be exactly like the one who has just died.
Here's CNN's Jim Bittermann.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's not easy to become a member of this club, the cardinals who are the pope's closest associates in life and elect his successor when he dies.
All started as priests. The Catholic Church has more than 400,000 priests. Most all cardinals also were once bishops but you can't become a bishop without the personal approval of the pope. There are more than 4,000 bishops.
And to become a cardinal you've got to be a bishop who has caught the eye of the pope in one way or another. All but three of the cardinals eligible to vote for his replacement were named by Pope John Paul II but does that mean they have to share the pope's views on key issues to get the promotion? The cardinal from London thinks not.
CARDINAL CORMAC MURPHY-O'CONNOR, ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER: So there is a lot we have in common but we're different kind of characters and that's the great thing. The church is united and yet this great diversity both in the characters that inhabit it.
BITTERMANN: The fact is the cardinals vary widely in their backgrounds, experience and their opinions. Pastoral cardinals, those who work out in the real world with its real problems, tend to see things differently from those working in the Vatican bureaucracy.
A cardinal from AIDS-stricken South Africa, for instance, always maintained the pope's line on the use of condoms but looks the other way when his flock practices so-called safe sex anyway.
The cardinal from Belgium believes it's time for another church wide council like Vatican II to look at all sorts of issues that have cropped up since. The cardinal from Vienna thinks the church needs to look again at issues like the role of women in the church and celibacy. Everyone is coming to Rome with a different agenda.
FATHER THOMAS REESE, CNN VATICAN ANALYST: Different parts of the world are coming with different issues trying to find one man who can fulfill this whole big job description.
BITTERMANN: The man who filled it last time was himself a surprise, at least in part because he did tolerate some diversity. Some of the pope's men are more hard lined than the pope was himself.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger called homosexuality an intrinsic moral evil, whereas someone like California-based Cardinal Roger Mahony has established outreach ministries for homosexuals.
JOHN ALLEN, CNN VATICAN ANALYST: On many, many questions these people simply don't think alike. You have to remember, Jim, that the College of Cardinals is not an organism that has a single will and intellect.
BITTERMANN: And so if while they might all look alike in their red cassocks, the looks can deceive. Many cardinals have towed the line and bided their time waiting for exactly this moment. (on camera): One American priest used to say there's nothing deader than a dead pope, meaning that when a pope passes away no one feels any obligation to follow the wishes or echo the views of the previous pope when it comes to evaluating what the church may need from the next one.
Jim Bittermann, CNN, Rome.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: As we said, John Paul's funeral mass on Friday morning will be held outdoors in St. Peter's Square. He'll then be buried in a crypt underneath the basilica at St. Peter's.
We can show you where that crypt is located by using animation that starts high above the Vatican and zooms down to the square where the mass will be held, something familiar to you all by now.
During the service, the pope's coffin will sit on the steps of the basilica, afterward carried inside St. Peter's through the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to a staircase that sits just in front of the main altar.
The coffin then will be carried down the stairs and placed under the floor in an empty alcove. The tomb of Pope John XXIII used to be in that alcove until it was moved upstairs to a chapel in the main floor back in 2001. All of that Friday morning begins at 4:00 Eastern time, 10:00 here in Rome.
Ahead on the program tonight, what it meant to be Jewish and living in Rome with John Paul II.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This leader was particularly sensitive to the problems of the Jews.
BROWN (voice-over): To the Jews of Rome and beyond, a lost friend in Pope John Paul. Rome's chief rabbi on what he hopes for the pope's successor.
MEAGHAN PATTERSON, NOVICE: I don't know that I've had a specific ah-ha moment but I'm coming to be more myself.
BROWN: A young woman now training to become a nun.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boys and girls it's Howdy Doody time.
BROWN: Of more earthly matters, an escaped prisoner and a deputy warden's wife vanish for more than a decade. It's a tale that sounds like it could come from a drugstore novel but it's the real McCoy and so are we.
From around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: In just a moment a young woman who answers the call. This is a terrific story coming up.
But right now about a quarter past the hour, in our case about a quarter past 4:00 in the morning, Erica Hill is in Atlanta with some of the other headlines of the day -- Erica.
(NEWSBREAK)
BROWN: Erica, thank you.
Of the many challenges facing the next pope, bringing more foot soldiers, if you will, into the fold will be a major one. And a shortage of priests is not the only problem. Convents too are struggling as fewer young women answer the call to become nuns.
But some can't ignore the call, so here's CNN's Deborah Feyerick.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, how are you? Come on in.
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The first thing you notice about 26-year-old Meaghan Patterson is her laugh, the second thing she'd probably make a really good nun.
MEAGHAN PATTERSON: I don't know that I've had a specific ah-ha moment but I'm coming to be more myself.
FEYERICK: Meaghan is a novice, the Catholic term for a nun in training. She lives with the sisters of St. Joseph in Philadelphia, the same order as the nun who wrote "Dead Man Walking."
MEAGHAN PATTERSON: We're pretty normal. I mean, you know, we do stuff that anybody would do. We get up in the morning. We wear pajamas to bed.
FEYERICK: Meaghan began thinking about a career in religion in college. She had boyfriends, though no one serious and she majored in English.
MEAGHAN PATTERSON: My senior seminar was on Jane Austin. I loved the British literature, love it, so I chose to look at the themes of courtship and marriage.
FEYERICK: When she's not studying Catholicism, Meaghan is working at the sister's welcoming center in the drug-ridden Kensington area. She teaches immigrants how to read and write and helps out with whatever needs doing. And, of course, there are the vows, loyalty to God, yes, money and men, no.
(on camera): Do some young women with everything that's out there, with all the images in the magazines, on television, do some women have a problem with the celibacy for example, sort of cutting themselves off from regular...
SISTER CHARLENE CIORKA, SISTERS OF SAINT JOSEPH: Sure.
FEYERICK (voice-over): Sister Charlene Diorka helps guide young women like Meaghan considering a life in the convent.
DIORKA: I'm not saying that celibacy is not a struggle, that it's not a sacrifice. All of us have to deal with that and live with that. But for some it isn't really how God is calling them.
FEYERICK: In 1960, there were 109 young women like Meaghan beginning to train for life as a nun. Meaghan was the only one in her year. Some years there aren't any. Five hundred of Meaghan's sisters are over age 70.
Ten minutes' drive from the convent, Meaghan's father is holding court as principal of Queen of Peace Catholic School.
MICHAEL PATTERSON, MEAGHAN'S FATHER: What do you know about the pope?
FEYERICK: He jokes that his eldest daughter should have become a doctor, lawyer or accountant so he'd get better Christmas presents but he is seriously proud of her.
MICHAEL PATTERSON: She has a good heart. Excuse me. She's a nice daughter.
FEYERICK: Growing up in Philadelphia, Meaghan always dreamed she'd one day marry and have children. That may never be but she's OK with that.
MEAGHAN PATTERSON: I don't look at it as a sacrifice that I'm not having children. I look at it as my life is called to be something else.
FEYERICK: Deborah Feyerick, CNN, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: That's a good kid. What a remarkable commitment someone willing to make.
John Allen joins us again tonight. John has helped us understand all the issues that have presented themselves over the last week. The news of tomorrow, of Thursday here in Rome, I suspect will be the pope's will. We'll get the detail. What is it you look for?
ALLEN: Well, Aaron, first of all I think it's important to understand this is not a will in the conventional sense because a pope doesn't really have property to dispose of.
BROWN: Right.
ALLEN: I mean there are a few personal effects and so forth. Traditionally, what popes have done with their personal effects is allowed family members to pick them up. Now in this case because Wojtyla has no close family, we would expect that at least some of them would go to his closest collaborator and dear friend Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz.
But really the heart of the will is a spiritual message. It's the pope's last teaching moment in a sense. Preparing for this, I went back and reread Paul VI's will, which came out in 1978 and I was struck by what a beautiful message it was.
You know Paul VI was a very refined, sensitive man, in some ways suffered very much. He was known as the Hamlet pope because he agonized over things so much and you could see some of that agony in his will. I would expect we would see the same reflection of John Paul's personality much more robust, energetic, evangelical.
BROWN: So this is an opportunity, literally a last opportunity, to underscore what the papacy, what his papacy has been?
ALLEN: I think more of what...
BROWN: Or is it move it to another point?
ALLEN: No. I think it's not so much the papacy as the man.
BROWN: The man.
ALLEN: We do know a few details already that the Vatican spokesperson gave us this morning. We know that this is a document that was written in diverse points in time, several handwritten pages, some of them just a few lines, some of them a half page of text.
Interestingly, Dr. Navarro-Valls told us today that the first page is dated 1979, which you'll remember is really just a few months after John Paul took over the papacy.
But I don't think that's at all surprising given the fact that his predecessor reigned only 33 days and I think he obviously came into the office with the understanding this could happen anytime.
BROWN: We were talking earlier today about what we in the media business, the lid is about to go on. Cardinals who have been willing to talk with us, both publicly and privately are going to become less so willing, fair enough?
ALLEN: Yes. Essentially what's happened is they've struck a gentlemen's agreement that after the funeral they're no longer going to make themselves available to the press and I think this is -- the primary motive is they're concerned that in this new world in which they live.
And bear in mind you know that of all the stories CNN has covered over the years, you know, earthquakes, wars, revolutions, you've never covered the death of a pope and the election of a new one because CNN didn't exist in 1978.
The point is that it's a new media universe and I think the fear is that if they subject themselves to this round-the-clock drumbeat of press coverage that in some sense the press will condition their conversations. The press would set the agenda. They won't be doing it.
BROWN: John thanks again for staying up with us tonight. We'll talk tomorrow, John Allen with us.
Coming up on this special edition of NEWSNIGHT, we'll talk to one of the men who will take part in choosing that next pope. Also, the chief rabbi of Rome on John Paul's relationship with the Jewish citizens of this city and the world what he hopes for, what he worries about.
We'll take a break first. From Rome and around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: The conclave to choose the new pope, as we learned today, won't begin until the 18th of April. That's nearly two weeks from now. Tonight in Rome, Pope John Paul II remains an overwhelming presence. During his life, even his strongest critics were hard pressed to deny his moral authority.
The boy who would become the pope grew into a man, a young man in Poland at one of the 20th Century's lowest points. What he did then and what he saw then would shape him just as he would leave his mark on others, reporting the story CNN's John Vause.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was January, 1945. The war in Europe was coming to a close. The Russians were driving the Nazis out of Poland.
As her guards fled, the teenage Edith, malnourished and sick, walked out of a labor camp her only thought to get home more than 100 miles away. It is difficult for her now to think of those days. Staggering through the snow and bitter cold she made it to a train station and collapsed.
EDITH ZIERER, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR (through translator): I believed this was the end. I didn't want to go anywhere. I wanted to stay sitting there. And then in the morning, a priest came along.
VAUSE: The priest was, in fact, a young seminary student. She told him she was too weak to stand.
ZIERER (through translator): He then disappeared and came back with a glass of tea for me, a glass of tea, a glass. I hadn't held a glass in my hands for three years, hot tea for me. I drank the tea and then after an hour or two I had no notion of time. He came back and brought me two slices of bread, Polish bread, round. They were huge with cheese and butter and packed in paper.
VAUSE: The Catholic seminarian and the 14-year-old Jewish girl began a remarkable journey.
ZIERER (through translator): Then he said, "You told me you want to go to Krakow?" "Yes" I said. He said, "Me too." Then he lifted me up but I fell back down again because my feet, I couldn't, and then he carried me on his back for quite a few miles.
VAUSE: Only after reaching Krakow did she ask the young man his name.
ZIERER (through translator): His name is Karol Wojtyla.
VAUSE: In the chaos of post-war Poland they became separated but she never forgot his name. Thirty-three years later in 1978 she would read in the newspaper that Karol Wojtyla, her savior, had been named Pope John Paul II.
ZIERER (through translator): I wrote four pages in Polish to the Holy Father. I said, "It is very difficult for me to keep living like this. I want to thank you."
VAUSE: Twenty years later, she would get that chance when they met again in Rome.
ZIERER (through translator): He said to me, "My child, speak loudly because I am an old man and I can't hear so well." He put his hand on my head and blessed me.
VAUSE: They would meet once more at Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. Edith could barely speak through the tears but recited a line from the Torah, "He who saves one life it's as if he saved an entire world."
John Vause, CNN, Jerusalem.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: And in St. Peter's now at just coming up on 4:30 in the morning, a half hour or so early, they have opened the gates again. They are leading people in. this is the last day Pope John Paul's body will be viewed. People have been waiting ten, 15 hours.
A couple of days ago the wait was six, seven hours, so it's doubled over time. As we said earlier, at one point they estimated there were a million people standing in line.
I don't know if that is exactly true or not but I can tell you that there is -- there has been an enormous crush. They make their way. It's a very brief moment they have inside. This outside area is where...
I don't know if that is exactly true or not, but I can tell you that there is -- there has been an enormous crush. They make their way. It's a very brief moment they have inside.
This outside area is where the funeral will be on Friday morning. And it's being prepared for the funeral tonight, as people take one last day to see the pope.
It's not exactly a stop on the tour bus of Rome, but tucked away in this ancient city is the Jewish Quarter, which is just a nice way to describe what used to be the ghetto here. It is a good place to see both one significant impact of John Paul's legacy and also to understand better why religious harmony in this world sounds so nice and is so hard to achieve.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): There have been Jews in Rome for 2,000 years. And for many of those years, they were forced into the ghetto of Rome, marginalized. The population was decimated during World War II. And, today, just 15,000 Jews remain in the city. They, of course, did not lose a religious leader this week, but they lost a friend.
RABBI RICCARDO DI SEGNI, CHIEF RABBI OF ROME: He was the first pope who visited a synagogue. And the first synagogue to be visited was the Synagogue of Rome. He recognized the state of Israel, the first pope who established political relations between the Vatican.
BROWN: Dr. Riccardo Di Segni is the chief rabbi of Rome, a medical doctor, as he explains it, a radiologist in the morning, a rabbi in the afternoon.
He is thoughtful with a rich sense of history and a gentle sense of humor. And he thinks he understands how it came to be that a pope born in a land long hostile to Jews became the pope most sensitive to the issues between these two religions.
DI SEGNI: This leader was particularly sensitive to the problem of the Jews, probably because he was -- he was (UNINTELLIGIBLE) at the witness of what happened to the Jews of his countries. And men who lived not far from Auschwitz may have an absolutely different conception of the problem.
BROWN (on camera): There's still controversy over the degree to which the church exercised its moral authority during World War II to save Jews and Jewish lives. Do you think that John Paul went far enough, said enough, apologized enough to end that controversy?
DI SEGNI: He asked also forgiveness for what the church has done. From our point of view, he's not guilty, and we are the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) of people who suffered. So, he must not ask for forgiveness. And we, by ourselves, cannot forgive for something for someone else.
BROWN (voice-over): There is, with religions, an inescapable conflict. Each believes they are right. How they deal with those who worship differently has been the root cause of great conflicts through the ages and still colors the relationship between this small community and the powerful church that surrounds it.
DI SEGNI: If I am talking with someone in a free dialogue and I express my opinion and he express the opinion, we can share. We can sit together. We discuss and so on.
But if I understand that the aim of the man who speaks with me is to convert me to his faith, there is no reason for me to discuss with him. So, the fundamental problem in the dialogue between Jews and Christian is the problem is -- of the suspicion: What do you want to do with us?
BROWN: So now what? Will a new pope mean better times or new difficulties?
DI SEGNI: What we have to do together, when all together Jews and Christian may give something to the world.
We are both believers. Everybody considers his belief the best one. But we understand that we have shared important values in this world. We have to be witness of these values, how to be witness of these values toward all humanity and make good things for humanity without destroying each other. We are still in an experimental age.
BROWN (on camera): All these hundreds of years later of trying to understand one another, we're still in an experimental age?
DI SEGNI: Yes, because Shoah finished 60 years ago. And we are trying to build a new world after the Shoah. We are in a world built over the ages. A million people died because of a lack of respect towards the dignity the men. So, we have a real new world to build still now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: A real new world to build now. One of the men who will take part in choosing the next pope is Justin Rigali, the cardinal of Philadelphia. He lived here at the Vatican for decades serving as the head of English translation. He traveled around the world many times with the pope. Indeed, he stood in that window across the way when John Paul first met the world 26 years ago. And he was in the square the day John Paul was shot in 1981.
And we spoke to Cardinal Rigali late yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Just before we sat down, we were standing on the balcony here looking out at the square.
And you've looked at it most of your career, the other way, from those windows that are so familiar to us. When you look at it now and you realize that someone you worked with for such a long time, much of your career, has passed away, how would you like us to see these days?
CARDINAL JUSTIN RIGALI, ARCHBISHOP OF PHILADELPHIA: Well, these days are -- I believe they're days of tremendous remembrance of this man. And the fact that they are shared by people of all faiths is a tremendous, tremendous tribute to Pope John Paul II.
And I would like everyone to see and remember the pope, first of all, in his great humanity, the gift of warmth and love that he exuded and that he manifested to people of all faiths, all different backgrounds, all races, all ethnic backgrounds. And this was the pope that reached out to people everywhere.
BROWN: There is for you and your colleagues serious work ahead, important decisions to make in the next few weeks. Have you started to think about not maybe the individual who should be, but the qualities, what the church needs now? Because it's a complicated church, the church has, in Africa, has in Latin America, has different needs I think than perhaps the church in the United States or in Europe does. Have you started to think about that?
RIGALI: Well, you know, just reflecting on the life of Pope John Paul II and what he did and who he was for the church brings all of this forward to our minds, you know, just how important it is that the pope be this person.
However, for the moment now, we're very concentrated on the first aspect, which is his death and burial and also to make sure that we render homage to his memory, that we commemorate his life and that we recall him. In a second moment, we will begin to concentrate -- after the days of mourning, we'll begin to concentrate on the process of the selection of his successor.
BROWN: We've heard, for example, from cardinals, and I think some of us have thought, surprisingly openly, about there needs to be some thought given to how centralized the church is and whether it needs to be decentralized, for example, how much power is held at the Vatican, how much -- are those the sorts of issues that ultimately will be discussed when that time is right?
RIGALI: Well, actually, you know, the Catholic Church is what it is. And it's a communion of individual churches throughout the world. And there's been no one like Pope John Paul II to emphasize the value of individual cultures and individual contributions in the whole communion of the church. But the faith of all is one in the same faith.
BROWN: It's nice to meet you.
I -- the generosity of you and others in helping us, all of us, understand these days is enormously appreciated. So, thank you.
RIGALI: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, with us yesterday here.
Still to come on a special edition of NEWSNIGHT, we'll leave Rome and head for Texas, the story of an escaped prisoner who is a convicted killer living on the run for 10 years with the wife of the prison's deputy warden. No kidding.
From Rome, this is NEWSNIGHT. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: To say that we're about to deal with more earthly matters is to understate. Yet, how do we resist this? A couple weeks ago here, we told you the story of the poet in Chicago who was an escaped killer from Boston. This story is like that, only 10 times weirder.
From Texas tonight, CNN's Ed Lavandera.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Randolph Dial's story reads more like outlandish fiction than real life. He was a chicken farming killer on the run with self-proclaimed mob connections and a flair for painting and sculpting in his spare time. And after his headline-grabbing arrest, it is clear the man likes to put on a show.
RANDOLPH DIAL, DEFENDANT: Well, boys and girls, it's Howdy Doody time.
LAVANDERA: Randolph Dial first made headlines when he escaped from this Oklahoma prison 10 years ago. He says he forced the deputy warden's wife, Bobbi Parker, into a car to escape.
DIAL: I was armed only with a knife against her carotid artery in her leg.
LAVANDERA: Dial was a prison trustee, which means he had more freedom than most convicts. He convinced prison authorities to let him start an inmate pottery program. That's how he met Bobbi Parker, who helped out with the class.
DIAL: I had worked on her for about a year trying to get her mind right. And I convinced her that the friend was the enemy and the enemy was the friend.
LAVANDERA: Nearly 11 years ago, Dial and Mrs. Parker disappeared. Her husband and two daughters feared she'd been killed, but the bad news never came. Then Monday afternoon, a tip was phoned in to the TV show "America's Most Wanted." Bobbi Parker was mowing a grass field. Dial was watching golf and cooking meat patties in their trailer when the past came knocking on the door.
MIKE TOLLETT, SHELBY COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: Went in the front door. And he was standing in the living room. And he was caught completely by surprise, had no idea that we were coming.
LAVANDERA: No one around Campti, Texas, knew Randolph Dial and Bobbi Parker. To anyone who asked, they were Richard and Samantha Deahl, a couple raising chickens and living a quiet life in this trailer.
TOLLETT: Not much out here at all. It would be a good place to lay low, as you say, or to hide out. NEWTON JOHNSON, SHELBY COUNTY SHERIFF: He kept real low-keyed and stayed out of sight. And he didn't drive. He didn't have a driver's license. He didn't have a Social Security number. He didn't do anything to bring any attention to himself.
LAVANDERA (on camera): This a great place to hide. The nearest main road is six miles down this dirt path. Apparently, Randolph Dial was happy spending his days out here. He told authorities that in the five years he lived here, he only went into town a couple of times, once to go to the grocery store, once to go to the library.
(voice-over): But Bobbi Parker was often seen in town, coming to the Big M Market to cash checks and buy groceries.
TAMMY BROWN, BIG M MARKET: I don't buy her story at all. How could you be held hostage for 10 years if you are able to come and get gas? Why couldn't you just drive off?
LAVANDERA: Mrs. Parker and her family are back together. But they're not talking. Dial says he brainwashed Ms. Parker into thinking that, if she ever tried to get away, he'd kill her daughters. He says he would never have done that.
DIAL: She's a very special person and very easy to like.
LAVANDERA: Three years ago, Oklahoma writer Charles Sasser wrote a book about Dial. Investigators say Dial went to a book signing in Tulsa.
(on camera): He spoke face to face with the author?
KENT SHAFFER, SHELBY COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: And, in fact, I want to say that he actually bought the book when he was having it signed, because he said he took it home and read it.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): And, after reading it, Dial called Sasser.
CHARLES SASSER, AUTHOR: And he says, I have read your book "At Large" 12 times. My, what a great fan I've got here, 12 times, the same book. And he says, you weren't always complimentarily to me, but I love the book because you were fair.
LAVANDERA: The story of Randolph Dial and Bobbi Parker isn't over yet. What's unfolded in the last few days has added new twists to a bizarre tale.
Ed Lavandera, CNN, Shelby County, Texas.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: A bizarre tale, indeed.
Ahead on this special edition of NEWSNIGHT, we'll check the latest headlines of the day. And, as we take you to break, we'll show you the scene behind us, as the pilgrims of Rome, perhaps as many as four million, file in again past the body of John Paul, now Thursday morning, one day before his funeral here. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: In a moment, life after the Olympics for one young gymnast who brought home the gold, memorably so.
But first, at about a quarter to the hour, time to look at some of the other stories that made news today.
Erica Hill joins us again in Atlanta -- Erica.
HILL: Hello again, Aaron.
We begin with what is the deadliest military crash in Afghanistan since U.S. troops were deployed there in 2001. And bad weather is reportedly to blame. At least 16 people are dead, mostly Americans. Two others on board have not been found. The U.S. military says the U.S. helicopter was on a routine mission southwest of Kabul.
Jury selection has begun in the case against alleged serial bomber Eric Rudolph. Hundreds of jurors filled out questionnaires. Rudolph is accused of killing a police officer and seriously injuring a nurse during the bombing of a Birmingham women's clinic seven years ago. He is also charged with the 1996 Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta.
Avowed white supremacist Matthew Hale has gotten now 40 years in prison for trying to have a federal judge killed. The judge, Joan Lefkow, is the same judge whose husband and mother were murdered five weeks ago. Last year, Hale was convicted of soliciting an FBI undercover agent to murder Judge Lefkow.
NASA is gearing up for its first launch since the Columbia tragedy two years ago. On Wednesday, the space shuttle Discovery's rollout to the launchpad was briefly delayed when a crack in the fuel tank's insulation was found. But NASA officials say it was just a minor flaw that didn't need to be fixed. The launch is set for May 15.
She captivated audiences with her talent and her energy. And, Tonight, as part of CNN's anniversary series "Then & Now," we take a look at Olympic gymnast Dominique Dawes.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Dominique Dawes tumbled into the spotlight during the 1996 Olympics as part of the Magnificent Seven gold-medal winning gymnastic teams. Awesome Dawson became the first African-American to win an individual gymnastics medal, with the bronze in the floor exercise.
DOMINIQUE DAWES, OLYMPIC GYMNAST: It just meant a lot to do it for the country, my team and myself.
HEMMER: After the games in Atlanta, Dawes turned heads on Broadway, dabbled in acting and modeling, and cartwheeled her way through a Prince music video.
She hung up her leotard in 1998 and started class at the University of Maryland, but soon realized that gymnastics was not quite out of her system. Dawes participated in her third Olympic Games in 2000, in what she calls a once in a lifetime experience.
Dawes is now 28, is completely retired from gymnastics, and splits her time between coaching and motivational speaking.
DAWES: It's really going out there and teaching young girls what being fit is all about.
HEMMER: She's also president of the Women's Sports foundation, and has recently launched a new project called Go Girl, Go.
DAWES: I feel like I do have to inspire and empower others, and that's why, you know, I've found these different platforms, these different venues that I feel like I've been able to touch lives in.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: OK, time to check very few morning papers we have picked up over the past couple of days.
"The Daily Mail." With all that's going on in the world, here is the lead in "The Daily Mail." "Can Anything Else Possibly Go Wrong?" and a picture of Charles and his intended. In fact, that's a big story. Take that, OK?
"Camilla's" -- whoops -- "The Daily Express." It's hard to do. "Camilla's Big Day Is Jinxed." Not the most flattering picture either.
And "USA Today" leads with what I think is the most interesting story going. "Chasm Widens Between Vatican, U.S. Catholics." That's really the challenge for the church as it looks to the United States. It's a serious and important question we've tried to take a look at some this week.
I'm sure there's weather in Chicago. I can tell you, the weather in Rome tonight is cold.
We'll wrap it up in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: That's it for us tonight. We'll see you tomorrow.
We turn now to a recap of the day's events here in Rome, the sights and sounds. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
