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Catholic React to Pope's Comments on Gays; Apple Launches Newest iPhones; House Votes on Government Shutdown; Joe Flacco, Father and Football Star; Storm System Moves East; Dairy Queen Manager an "Inspiration"
Aired September 20, 2013 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: The GOP and the government shutdown fight getting ugly.
REP. PETER KING (R), NEW YORK: We as House Republicans should stop letting Ted Cruz set our agenda for us.
COSTELLO: On Twitter, Wendy Davis has more beep than Ted Cruz and wave white flag and surrender.
Also the unintended party.
BRIAN HOLLOWAY, FORMER NEW ENGLAND PATRIOT OFFENSIVE TACKLE: We started listening to these tweets. I can't believe we're in the house.
COSTELLO: Three 300 teenagers in New England Patriot Brian Holloway's house. Twenty grand in damages.
HOLLOWAY: This window was just replaced today.
COSTELLO: Now parents of the teens turning on the football star.
HOLLOWAY: You're upset with me posting the picture that he posted on Twitter.
COSTELLO: Plus Miss South Carolina, yes, that one.
BROOKE MOSTELLER, MISS SOUTH CAROLINA: From a state where 20 percent of our homes are mobile because that's how we roll. I'm Brooke Mosteller. Miss South Carolina.
COSTELLO: She's back, enough said.
And Billy Ray Cyrus breaking his silence.
BILLY RAY CYRUS, MILEY CYRUS' FATHER: Miley is smart enough to know that -- to come out of the shadows of Hannah Montana, it really takes something extremely drastic.
COSTELLO: On Miley. And her music.
You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: We'll tell you what Billy Cyrus had to say in just a bit. But first good morning to all of you. I'm Carol Costello. We start with Pope Francis because he has shocked Catholics around the world with harsh criticism of some of the Catholic Church's top priorities and this morning his words are rocking the American conservative catholic community.
The new pontiff telling reporters the church he now leads is, quote, "obsessed with abortion, homosexuality, contraception and other social issues." This morning on "NEW DAY" the conservative president of the Catholic League Bill Donohue sat down with Chris Cuomo.
Donohue was clearly not happy with how the Pope's remarks on homosexuality are being characterized.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL DONOHUE, PRESIDENT, THE CATHOLIC LEAGUE: I will always tell the truth. If 81 percent of the --
CHRIS CUOMO, HOST, CNN'S NEW DAY: Well, that was the truth.
DONOHUE: If 81 percent of the victims are male and 100 percent of the victimizers are male.
CUOMO: Right.
DONOHUE: And if 78 percent of the victims are post pubescent, the word in the English language is not pedophilia, it's called homosexuality.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: That was just the beginning. When Chris Cuomo pressed Bill Donohue on who's to blame for the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal, the Catholic League's president didn't pull any punches.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONOHUE: When men have sex with adolescent men it's called homosexuality. It is not pedophilia. John J. College of Criminal Justice is not a conservative right-wing organization. Less than 5 percent of the priests involved in molestation of pedophiles. I will never stop telling the truth. And the pope never said we should either.
I am against gay bashing to say that because you are gay you're going to be a molester.
CUOMO: That is exactly what it sounds like.
DONOHUE: No, no, no. If most of the molesters are gay, that is not true. It is not true that most gay priests are molesters. That is a gay bashing comment.
People have to make critical distinctions. I have nothing against gay people any more than I do against straight people. I do have against -- molesters, whether they be straight or gay makes no difference to me, but I'm not going to lie about the figures.
What I just said about the figures is absolutely true, it's not negotiable.
CUOMO: Well, but that's the problem, isn't it?
DONOHUE: What?
CUOMO: Because there are so many who would say not only is it negotiable but it's irrational, what you're saying, because so many people are --
DONOHUE: Explain it to John J. then. They just made it up, I guess.
CUOMO: Do you --
DONOHUE: Do you think I made up those figures, Chris?
CUOMO: I think you're parsing them.
DONOHUE: No, I didn't parse them.
CUOMO: I think you're cherry picking them.
DONOHUE: No.
CUOMO: And I think that the most important part is your motivation. You just heard what the Pope said.
DONOHUE: The Pope didn't say --
CUOMO: Why wouldn't you try to move past this parsing rhetoric and try to be what your church is supposed to be about?
DONOHUE: This is the problem with the left. They're trying to take what he says and then run with it like "The New York Times" said. Said the bishops are on the defensive now because they're concerned about abortion, contraception -- and gay right or gay marriage.
No, no, no. The Obama administration is the one who's hoisting this on the bishops. The bishops are reacting. They -- there is nothing that Pope Francis has said that would give any relief to these people who are saying all of the sudden now the conservatives should shut up.
We're not going to shut up because we're in -- compliance with what the Pope says.
CUOMO: He's saying the word Catholic means universe.
DONOHUE: Yes, that's right.
CUOMO: He says the rule of the religion is love.
DONOHUE: That's right.
CUOMO: Not to cherry pick statistics and try to blame homosexuals for being pedophiles.
DONOHUE: Whoever said that?
CUOMO: Look, even if --
DONOHUE: Who said that homosexuals are pedophiles?
CUOMO: Here is what --
DONOHUE: Did I say that?
CUOMO: The suggestion is that all of this was consensual because of the age of the victims.
DONOHUE: Consensual, when people get raped it's not consensual. Look, I -- as far I'm concerned the Catholic Church didn't handle this right. I would have put these guys in the slammer a long time ago. Instead they just think they could reform them, they send them off to the psychiatrist. That's plain stupidity. No, I'm --
CUOMO: There are very few who can disagree with that. I mean, the way the church handle the situation is a large part of the stain on the church now.
DONOHUE: Right.
CUOMO: But it is the discussion of homosexuality and the blame of them as somehow predatory that is --
(CROSSTALK)
DONOHUE: I'll say it again --
CUOMO: Your Pope is telling you not --
DONOHUE: I'll say it again.
CUOMO: It's not about what I think. This is what your Pope is telling you.
DONOHUE: Most of the -- most of the molesting priests were gay and most gay priests are not molesters.
CUOMO: Good.
DONOHUE: I think people --
CUOMO: Stop there.
DONOHUE: That's all I've ever said.
CUOMO: No, but -- who says that the molesters were gay?
DONOHUE: I'm telling you, most --
CUOMO: Who says the molesters were gay?
DONOHUE: They weren't girls and they weren't --
CUOMO: Who says the molesters were gay?
DONOHUE: Well, if a man has sex with a man, what would you call that?
CUOMO: He could be a deviant pedophile and a sick person. He could be a rapist.
DONOHUE: Not if the kid is 18, 17, 16 years of age. A rapist could be straight or gay, I'll give you that much.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: Being homosexuals (INAUDIBLE) predator.
DONOHUE: You're running away -- look, you're trying to say that anybody who points out the obvious that the Catholic Church had a homosexual scandal, therefore you're anti-gay, this is absurd.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: It was heated, wasn't it? So what exactly did Pope Francis mean? We're going to talk more about what could be a split within the Catholic community, and what the Pope's remarks might mean for other religious leaders. It'll come your way at 10:30 Eastern. Stick around.
On Capitol Hill this morning, deadlines and battle lines with only 10 days until a possible government shutdown. Lawmakers in the House, they're just a couple of hours away from approving the money to keep the government running but the measure also strips all money from Obamacare. It's a poisoned pill that not only makes for a House divided but a party divided.
Listen to the squabbling going on among fellow Republicans.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: Tomorrow we'll pass a plan to protect the American people from the president's health care law, while keeping the rest of government up and running. The law is a train wreck.
REP. TOM COLE (R), OKLAHOMA: I don't think we will have a government shutdown. That's certainly not our intention.
SEN. TOM COBURN (R), OKLAHOMA: To stop it would to be totally reverse it. We don't have the votes to do that.
