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American Morning

Have You Lost Faith in Your Religion?

Aired April 16, 2002 - 09:41   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Our "Big Question" at this hour, have you lost faith in your religion? There is a good deal of anger among Catholics over how the church has handled the priest sex scandal and hasn't handled it. Some don't even want to give money to the church anymore. And we wondered if the current Middle East conflict and the war on terror have affected the way people view their own religion so we asked people at churches, synagogues and mosques across the country.

Here's what some of them told us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any Catholics who can go to church and say that they still believe in the cardinal and believe in the Catholic faith, I think really need to do some soul searching.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone has their own agendas. And to be perfectly honest with you, Islam doesn't represent terrorism, period.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It just made me feel more passionate about being a Jew.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: And joining us now, Rabbi Marc Gellman and Monsignor Tom Hartman, better known as "The God Squad."

Good to see you all again -- welcome.

MONSIGNOR TOM HARTMAN, "THE GOD SQUAD": It's been a while.

RABBI MARC GELLMAN, "THE GOD SQUAD": It has. Good to see you, Paula.

ZAHN: It has been a while, way too long.

We're going to be taking some of the questions from e-mails this morning from our audience and your phone calls at 212-643-0077. Once again, 212-643-0077.

Let's get straight to our first e-mail. This one comes from Diane, and she writes, "Should we question our faith? No. I feel the present scandal in the Catholic Church is another example of God cleaning up His church as He did with Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart in the '80s."

GELLMAN: It's great to have questions that aren't questions.

ZAHN: Comments are OK. We'll take just about anything, all right.

HARTMAN: You know this particular one...

ZAHN: Let's not get picky here.

HARTMAN: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the church. It reminds me when Betty Ford came out and said that she was an alcoholic, it really helped the cause of alcoholism in a great way.

The -- any priest who is worth his salt, who is working with his people, has known this problem of sexual abuse, I've had about 10 people over the years come to me, never a priest, but it doesn't matter, if it just happens to anyone's life, it's usually a mother or a father, a coach, a teacher, a trusted person, and there's been such a conspiracy of silence. What is happening is exposing the idea of something that's terrible, should change, should be dealt with, and people in the church have a right to be angry about it and insist that we change our approach. And those of us in the church want to make sure that we're communicating to others that we feel for the pain that people have gone through who have been the victims of sexual abuse.

ZAHN: Let's go to our first phone call, this one comes from Eduardo (ph) in California. Boy, it's early there this morning, Eduardo, good morning.

EDUARDO KHAN (ph): Yes, it is. Thank you. I hope I'll have a moment to say this. I think it's very important. My name is Eduardo Khan, I'm Jewish, but what I saw yesterday with you know my fellow Jews booing...

GELLMAN: Yes.

KHAN: ... when it was mentioned that Palestinian civilians were suffering made me -- confirmed something that I felt for a while that Zionism is having a very adverse effect on Jewish values. And by blindly defending these horrible policies that Israel is carrying out, Jews are at best becoming good Germans and at worst supporting the kind of Jewish nazism that is represented by Netanyahu and Sharon.

ZAHN: All right, Eduardo, let's give Rabbi Gellman a chance to respond to this. Were you disappointed when you heard people boo in the crowd when a reference was made to the civilian deaths among Palestinians?

GELLMAN: You know I'm outraged by two things. I'm outraged that my fellow Jews would boo a member of an administration who has been terrific to Israel and who has -- who is only expressing the truth that it is a minority -- a terrible minority, a homicidal minority of Palestinians and of terrorists and of Muslims and their supporters who are attacking innocent civilians. I was outraged by the fact that when Wolfowitz mentioned that most Palestinians aren't in favor of that he was booed.

But I'm also outraged at Eduardo. I'm outraged because the 13 Israelis who were killed in Jenin were killed because they were sent room to room, house to house to avoid mass casualties. And that their deaths was the result of the Israeli army deciding not to bomb that place into rubble like we did in Dresden and like we did in Mazar-e- Sharif and like we did in Tora Bora, but to go room to room, house to house and to risk the lives of Israeli soldiers -- what country does that? And to have Israel savaged and pilloried into -- because of that is an outrage. And to compare the murder of six million men, women and children, a genocidal murder, to the defense of one's homeland against homicidal attacks that bomb people on Passover and that target...

ZAHN: All right.

GELLMAN: ... civilians is an outrage. Eduardo, you should know better.

ZAHN: Final thought on than, Monsignor.

HARTMAN: Well I think Marc points out that this is terrible for everyone, but we have to look into the eyes of this conflict and figure out how do we get to peace. I mean we have to get beyond the bombs, we've got to get beyond the confrontation, we've got to be able to speak to each other, otherwise we're just going to continue fighting with each other.

ZAHN: All right, please stand by, we're going to take more of your phone calls and more of your e-mails on the other side. We will continue our look at faith right after the break. Once again that phone number is 212-643-0077 and the e-mail address is am@cnn.com. Look forward to hearing from you. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are just acts of weak mortal men, and it really -- it wouldn't change my faith at all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It makes me a little -- like a little more joyful because we're going to finally -- might have peace rather than the Arabs just kicking our butt.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My faith is still strong and is stronger than ever because I have to show other people that this is not the way of Islam.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have to have faith in God because what's going on there is very terrible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: And we are back with "The God Squad" now to hear from more of you. Rabbi Marc Gellman and Monsignor Tom Hartman are here. Welcome back.

GELLMAN: Good to be here.

ZAHN: We're going to take another phone call from Jerri (ph). Jerri joins us from Connecticut this morning.

Good morning, Jerri.

JERRI: Good morning, Ms. Zahn. Good morning, Monsignor and Rabbi Gellman.

GELLMAN: Good morning, God bless you.

JERRI: Same to you.

No, my faith has not changed. It's always strong. And I think we're looking at human error in the Catholic Church. People do fall by the wayside, and true forgiveness, I think they're picked up.

HARTMAN: You know that's such a profound call. Basically we all need good priests, we all need opportunities to talk to God, to be close to God, to learn how to pray, to ask for forgiveness, to celebrate important moments in our lives, when our children are born that they be baptized, when our children want to get married that there's someone there to do it.

ZAHN: Well you need a good rabbi for that too.

GELLMAN: Yes, you do (ph).

HARTMAN: And you need a good rabbi, too, and we'll turn to him in a minute. But I think in -- just as in every family, when something goes wrong you don't abandon your family, so also in terms of faith. If you look at the essence of it, it's how am I relating to God and the person in front of me either helps me or doesn't. In most instances, I'd say they help you.

ZAHN: All right, let's move on to this e-mail from Regina and she writes...

GELLMAN: OK.

ZAHN: ... "This latest scandal has not changed my view on religion at all. Born and raised a Catholic, I married a Jew. We have three children, no religion, are living happily ever after. We teach them to respect themselves and respect others. We don't need an institution to show us how to do that.

GELLMAN: Well that's a great victory on her part. I just have in my memory Jennifer,...

HARTMAN: Yes.

GELLMAN: ... who was a little girl who was at -- Tom's sister teaches art, and she came up to us after a speech we gave to some kids in her school. And she said my name is Jennifer, and my daddy is Jewish and my mommy's Christian and they didn't raise me up to be anything. Do you know how I could get raised up to be something? And it was -- and so against this wonderful report, I remember her. And I think -- I have -- I know it's more than just a thought, it is a certain knowledge that children deserve to feel at home in a church or a synagogue as well as having warm blankets and chocolate milk.

HARTMAN: Yes, kids...

ZAHN: But there's increasing cynicism, I mean because you've heard the criticism of religious people that they're not tolerant of other folk's religious that don't necessarily practice their religion.

HARTMAN: Well just take a look at our experience. For 16 years we have been best friends and we have discovered...

GELLMAN: It'll end today, but it's been a long run.

HARTMAN: Well after the show. That could possibly be.

(LAUGHTER)

GELLMAN: Sixteen years is a long time.

HARTMAN: I wish he wouldn't say that.

No, but one of the things that we have found is friendship. It isn't just in the institutional friendship, it's a friendship that goes from your heart and soul. And more and more people are saying I need not only the institution but I need people that I can relate to in the institution. If a person just looks upon going to church as an obligation on a Sunday but they have no relationship with the people there, they're not going to grow in their faith.

ZAHN: Let's go to another phone call. This one comes from Barry (ph) in New York.

Good morning, Barry.

BARRY: Good morning. And good morning, Rabbi and Monsignor.

GELLMAN: Good morning, Barry.

BARRY: To answer the question, no, I have not had any diminishment of my faith in my religion. And I don't think anybody who practices their own religion would lose faith or their integrity in their religion over this matter, rather, it is an issue of human behavior and human sexuality that must be dealt with. And that, as your segment before with the cardinal and the retired priest said so eloquently, that this is a matter of an issue within the church or within any religion that needs to deal with human sexuality and deal with the concepts that as sexual beings we have different ways and different needs and we must express them and learn how to express them wholesomely and healthfully.

ZAHN: Well Barry makes a very good point there. And yet we have seen the protesters outside the Archdiocese of Boston, folks who want Cardinal Law to resign, folks who refuse to give any money to the church unless they are convinced that money won't pay off any of these priests who have been accused of crimes who haven't gone through the legal system yet.

GELLMAN: Look, I think from an outsider who's very close to the church and admires the church and whose best friend is in the church, I would say that it's simply too simplistic to say that this is just about sexuality. There are two very different issues here, one is the failure of these priests in abusing the trust and the vows that they took, but the second is the covering up of these crimes by their superiors.

ZAHN: Sure.

GELLMAN: That's a different thing all together and...

ZAHN: And the latest polls show that many Americans think that is a much larger problem for the Catholic Church than the sexual abuse that was actually committed. They think the cover up is worse than the...

HARTMAN: They're both bad.

ZAHN: ... crime of sexual abuse.

HARTMAN: They're both bad. You know one of the things that's so important is we're in the trust business, we're almost like bankers, and if people lose trust in us, then we lose our effectiveness. And every priest has to ask himself the question: in the actions that I've done, have I engendered trust or not? And it's going to cause some changes in the church.

GELLMAN: I trust you more than my banker. I want you to know that.

ZAHN: Oh, this is a very good sign.

GELLMAN: I trust you way more than my banker.

ZAHN: Before I let you go,...

HARTMAN: I've seen your (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

ZAHN: ... I've known you guys for years.

GELLMAN: I trust you more than my barber.

ZAHN: I want -- I want you to share with our audience this morning how within the context of your friendship you deal with the Jesus hurdle.

GELLMAN: We have -- we don't have a lot of Jesus talks. We don't. Actually, what we say is this.

HARTMAN: I say yes, he says no.

ZAHN: And it stops there, come on.

GELLMAN: No, no, I will -- I will...

HARTMAN: No, I just don't listen to him after that.

GELLMAN: No wait a second, I...

HARTMAN: I say read the second half of the book (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

GELLMAN: I'm happy with the original. I'm happy with the original. But I'm saying this, I might be saved by the atoning death of Jesus, I might be, and eventually we'll know. And at that point, if it is Jesus who saved us all from sin, there will be a whole bunch of Jews saying and for this I gave up lobster.

(LAUGHTER)

GELLMAN: But if it isn't Jesus -- if it isn't Jesus, because he'll be there, Jesus will be there.

HARTMAN: And that's why I stop listening.

GELLMAN: But if Jesus is like doing the carpentry work around there but he's not the man, if it's Moses checking people in, celibacy is going to be a lot worse than no lobsters, let me just say that.

ZAHN: He checked -- he checked out of this 40 seconds ago (ph).

You get the final thought, Monsignor.

GELLMAN: It's better than lobster.

ZAHN: And you got about 15 seconds this morning.

HARTMAN: Well I'll tell you, one of the great things is you hear life from a different perspective from a rabbi than a priest. He raises questions that no one in the seminary ever raised nor will ever.

ZAHN: Well it has been a delight to have both of you on, and we look forward to having you on on a regular basis.

GELLMAN: Yes.

ZAHN: Thank you for taking our e-mail questions, my questions and the phone calls.

GELLMAN: Eduardo, you should be ashamed of yourself.

HARTMAN: See, he always goes back to the Jewish question.

ZAHN: Boy, Eduardo, he's beating him up today.

GELLMAN: Oh, man.

ZAHN: All right, you two take care.

HARTMAN: God bless you.

ZAHN: Thanks again for joining us.

GELLMAN: God bless you, Paula.

ZAHN: Thank you, we all need God's blessing right now.

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