The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

GWEN IFILL: Good evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Jim Lehrer is off. On the NewsHour tonight, our summary of the news. Then, the world mourns Pope John Paul II. American Catholics discuss his impact on their lives and on their church; an encore conversation with Poet Laureate and new Pulitzer Prize winner Ted Kooser; and an update on the struggle to form a government in Iraq.

NEWS SUMMARY

GWEN IFILL: Thousands began paying final tribute today to John Paul II. His body was carried to St. Peter's Basilica from his official residence at the Vatican. He died there on Saturday. Today's solemn procession marked the beginning of four daysof public viewing. The funeral will be held on Friday, and the pope will be buried in an ancient crypt beneath the Basilica. We'll have more on all this right after this News Summary. The funeral of John Paul II is expected to draw a million or more people. That includes President Bush and at least 200 other foreign leaders. Around the world today, thousands of mourners laid flowers and lit candles at memorials in Krakow, Poland. Similar ceremonies were held in the pope's hometown of Wadowice. And in China, Catholics gathered in state-sanctioned churches. Their communist leaders said they want better relations with John Paul's successor. In Iraq today, Shiite and Kurdish leaders met to decide the remaining positions in a coalition government. Yesterday, members of the national assembly elected a Sunni politician, Hajim al-Hassani, to be the speaker of parliament. Sunnis largely boycotted the January elections. Lawmakers still have to name a president, a prime minister and a number of deputies. A suicide bomber on a tractor blew himself up today near the Abu Ghraib Prison west of Baghdad. Four Iraqis were wounded. On Saturday, dozens of insurgents attacked the prison with grenades, gunfire and a car bomb. They wounded 44 American troops, but failed to get inside. Also today, the U.S. Military announced three American troops were killed over the weekend in separate attacks. President Bush presented the nation's highest military award today to an American soldier killed in Iraq. It was the first Medal of Honor to be given in the Iraq War. Kwame Holman has our report. Here to pay tribute to a soldier whose service illustrates the highest ideals of leadership and love of our country. Kwame Holman has our report.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: We're here to pay tribute to a soldier whose service illustrates the highest ideals of leadership in love of our country.

KWAME HOLMAN: It was exactly two years after Army Sergeant First Class Paul Ray Smith's heroic action in Iraq. On April 4, 2003, Sgt. Smith was leading his unit east of the Baghdad Airport, just two weeks after the start of the war and five days before American forces would take the capital. In the battle for the airport that day, Smith and his platoon fought off an advancing Iraqi force that far outnumbered his troops. President Bush told the story of the 33-year-old soldier's actions.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: With complete disregard for his own life and under constant enemy fire, Sgt. Smith rallied his men and led a counterattack. Seeing that his wounded men were in danger of being overrun, and that enemy fire from the watchtower had pinned him down, Sgt. Smith manned a .50- caliber machine gun atop a damaged armored vehicle. From a completely exposed position, he killed as many as 50 enemy soldiers as he protected his men. Sgt. Smith continued to fire until he took a fatal round to the head. His actions in that courtyard saved the lives of more than 100 American soldiers.

KWAME HOLMAN: Sgt. Smith's 11-year-old son David accepted the award. (Applause)

KWAME HOLMAN: Sgt. Smith's Medal of Honor is only the third awarded since the end of the Vietnam War.

GWEN IFILL: A United Nations envoy today welcomed Syria's promise to withdraw all troops from Lebanon before the month is out. The Syrians made the pledge on Sunday. The final phase of the pullout, they said today, will begin Thursday. In Beirut, a top U.N. diplomat said that would satisfy a U.N. Security Council Resolution. The president of Kyrgyzstan, Askar Akayev, formally resigned today. He signed an agreement to step down at the Kyrgyz embassy in Moscow. Akayev fled to Russia two weeks ago after mass protests over disputed elections. His resignation is effective tomorrow. A new presidential election has been tentatively set for June 26. The largest anti-terror drill ever staged in the United States began today. It opened with a mock biological attack in hillside, New Jersey, and a simulated chemical weapons attack in New London, Connecticut. Federal, state and local agencies were involved, with more than 10,000 people taking part. The weeklong drill will cost $16 million. Heavy flooding forced thousands of people to leave their homes today in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. The governor of New Jersey declared a state of emergency as the Delaware River threatened the statehouse in Trenton. Elsewhere, towns on both sides of the river were flooded. There were no deaths reported, but three people were missing in eastern New York State. Two major U.S. oil companies announced plans to merge today. Chevron-Texaco, the nation's second largest, said it would buy Unocal for more than $16 billion. The combined company would be about half the size of Exxon Mobil, the largest U.S. oil company. Gasoline prices soared to a record high again last week, for the third week in a row. The Energy Department reported today the price was up more than 6 cents, to $2.21 a gallon. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained more than 16 points to close at 10,421. The NASDAQ rose six points to close at 1991. The Pulitzer Prizes for 2005 were announced today. The Los Angeles Times - the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal each won two awards, for international reporting from Russia and for public service and criticism. Two smaller papers also won big awards: Willamette Week in Portland, Oregon, for investigative reporting prize; and the Star-Ledger of Newark, New Jersey, the resignation of the for breaking news coverage of the resignation of the governor. In the arts, the prize for drama went to John Patrick Shanley for the Broadway play "Doubt" and to national poet laureate, Ted Kooser, won the poetry prize for his collection "Delights and Shadows." That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the legacy of Pope John Paul II, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and politics in Iraq.

FOCUS - POPE JOHN PAUL II - 1920-2005

GWEN IFILL: Now, remembering John Paul II and his influence on the Church. We begin our coverage with a report on today's ceremonies at the Vatican. It comes from Bill Neely of Independent Television News.

BILL NEELY: After the long illness and one of the longest papacies, the long good-bye and a final journey from his rooms to his resting place. Through the corridors of a Vatican he dominated as few before him have, he was borne up, one of the great leaders of the last half-century and then the pope, who traveled as none before him have, emerged into the open air and the brilliant sunlight for the last time. St. Peter's Square, where he preached every week for a quarter of a century, filled with the faithful straining for a glimpse. Here he was shot at the start of his papacy, but he lived to forgive the gunman and dazzle the world. There are tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people stretching back as far as the eye can see, many in tears, here to witness the final journey of John Paul on St. Peter's Square; the man with the extraordinary common touch making one last short appearance before his people. At the top of the steps, they turned the body that has borne so much pain, and the most visible pope there's ever been was shown to the Roman crowd. (Singing) Then from the square, where just days ago he'd struggled and failed to speak, he was carried inside the quiet basilica, where he'll lie in state for three full days before his funeral, and where the world he reached out to will come to him for one last look. Deep below where the pope lay, the crypt of St. Peter's, where he'll be buried on Friday alongside more than 100 of his predecessors. He used to come here often to think. Amid a frenetic life, here he found peace, and he will again. These are the men who arranged his funeral and who will choose his successor, the cardinals who met today for the first time since his death. They are John Paul's men. He appointed virtually all of them. And one of them, perhaps this Nigerian cardinal, will be chosen by the rest later this month to be the next pope. The preparations for the funeral are already under way. Barriers to contain the two million pilgrims expected here; medical teams already assembling; police leave canceled, a security nightmare looming, with 200 heads of state and leaders on the way; the television gantries multiplying to bring the funeral and the new pope into homes across the world; in the crowd, thoughts already turning to who comes next.

MAN ON STREET: There's a danger that we may go back to the way it was before, I think. John Paul has opened doors now that has brought the whole thing. He's a man of the people, and from that point of view we hope that that continues.

BILL NEELY: There is no doubt that in life he divided Catholics more than any pope in memory. But tonight, in death, he has united them. And here he lies, the humble boy from Krakow, the unforgettable pope.

GWEN IFILL: Now, more about the events of this day, and of those to come. Earlier this evening, I spoke with John Allen, Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter and author of Conclave: The politics, Personalities, and Process of the Next Papal Election."

John Allen, welcome back. As we watched today's unfolding events, and the weekend's unfolding events in Vatican City, it seems as if everything is playing out according to some long-ordered, ancient script. How much of what we're seeing today and over the next few days is about mourning the past as we see in traditional funerals and how much it may be behind the scenes is about planning for the future?

JOHN ALLEN: I think the truth is that both things are going on at once. The liturgy of the word as was celebrated today as the pope's body was laid in state for public viewing and the nine days of mourning, the so-called Novem Vialis that will extend beyond the funeral, all of those are intended to commemorate the life and the legacy of John Paul II, the deceased pope, and obviously to send him to his final reward, which Catholics believe obviously lies in the next life. But parallel to that, as the cardinals arrive in Rome-- and roughly half of them we believe are here as of today and more will be arriving tomorrow-- as they make their way through Rome, they are also beginning to meet privately in ones and twos, tens and twenties to begin the conversations about what are the issues facing the Catholic Church, what kind of profile of a leader will be required to meet those challenges and to lead the Church forward, and ultimately who do these cardinals intend to vote for? Bear in mind that virtually all of these cardinals, 114 of the 117 who are eligible to vote for John Paul's successor, because they are under 80 years of age, have never participated in a conclave before. And they know theyare likely only to get one chance at this. And obviously it's a responsibility they take extremely seriously.

GWEN IFILL: Who are the critical players in this kind of transition, obviously the cardinals you talk about, but are there also other names that we should be listening for, people who have a big hand in deciding what comes next?

JOHN ALLEN: Yes. Most of the logistical work of the rights and rituals that are unfolding over these days is, of course, not being done by the cardinals. It's being done by other senior Vatican personnel. Archbishop Piero Marini, for example, who is the pope's chief liturgist, that is the chief organizer of the rituals that a pope is called upon to celebrate, is also playing the lead role in organizing the public events in these days. He actually, tomorrow at noon Rome time, will be giving a briefing to the press about what to expect in coming days. Also Bishop Renato Bacardo is playing a very important logistical role. And I think probably the most important role would be played by John Paul II's private secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, because obviously all the officials of the Church who are putting these days together want them to unfold according to the pope's wishes and in the spirit of his life. And there's no one better positioned to indicate what would be in accord with the pope's wishes than Archbishop Dziwisz.

GWEN IFILL: Obviously, John, this has been under way... the planning for this has been under way for some years, if not decades, I suppose. So what -- one of the things I find interesting -- you talked about the press briefing tomorrow -- we've watched these amazing pictures coming out of the funeral procession today. It seems as if in the 26 years since a pope was last chosen there has been huge concessions made to current-day technology and accessibility almost.

JOHN ALLEN: I think that's right. And actually I would argue that that began well before the actual death of John Paul II. In the 72 hours leading up to the pope's death, there really was a remarkable degree of transparency from the Vatican in terms of what was actually transpiring in the final stages of John Paul's illness. The old saying around here used to be that a pope is never sick until he's dead. And then the tendency was to always sort of try to very jealously guard his privacy and to minimize, downplay any reports of illness. But in those critical days, there was a twice-daily briefing from Vatican spokespersons with a remarkable level of medical detail. And of course then beginning with the death of the pope for the first time, for the very first time, televised images have been brought to us of the pope lying in repose in his own private chapel with his most intimate collaborators, the Polish clergy and the Polish nuns who took care of the papal household, paying their obviously very emotional respects to the Holy Father. And then today we saw televised images of the movement of the pope's body from inside the apostolic palace again in the Sala Clementina, on the second floor where John Paul in life held so many of his private and semi-public audiences. And for the last time, in effect, was greeting a public there. Those televised images from inside and then outside in the square, and then on into the basilica, a remarkable degree of openness. And I think in many ways that's in keeping with the spirit of John Paul's pontificate. This is a pope who took office from the beginning of the modern media revolution, the advent of twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week news cycles. And he always had aninstinctive gift for how to move in that new world. He once called modern communications the modern Areopagus, a reference there being to the place in ancient Athens where ideas would be exchanged. And so I would say in death as in life this was very much a media- savvy pontificate.

GWEN IFILL: John Allen, thank you very much.

JOHN ALLEN: You're welcome.

FOCUS - PAPAL LEGACY

GWEN IFILL: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the pope's legacy here in the United States, Pulitzer Prizewinner Ted Kooser, and political developments in Iraq. Jeffrey Kaye, of KCET-Los Angeles, begins the papal legacy story.

JEFFREY KAYE: Yesterday at the Cathedral of our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles, the faithful came to mourn the death and celebrate the life of Pope John Paul II.

MSGR. KEVIN KOSTELNIK: He upheld the greatest teachings of our Church. He always championed the dignity of the human person, opposing the culture of death and proclaiming the gospel of life, from the moment of conception to the moment of death.

JEFFREY KAYE: Many parishioners remembered the pope as a priest who successfully crossed borders and cultures.

CHRISTINE BUEHLMAIER: He reached out to anybody in the world, you know? He was not selfish or anything.

PAUL BUEHLMAIER: He was a great, great man who brought the world together.

JEFFREY KAYE: With five million Catholics, Los Angeles is the largest archdiocese in the United States. 70 percent of LA's Catholics are Latino. Manuel Valle said the pope had a special meaning for Mexican Americans like him.

MANUEL VALLE: He came to the people that were, like, here in the United States are looked down on, you know, like the Indians, the blacks, the Mexicans-- that whole thing, you know? And that just got me more respect. I already got a feeling from him already.

JEFFREY KAYE: Joso Rivas is on the cathedral's janitorial staff.

JOSO RIVAS (Translated): He was a person who tried to help the poor. He visited many Latin American countries. He was always on the side of the poor.

JEFFREY KAYE: Many here reflected on the pope's charm. In his homily, Monsignor Kevin Kostelnick remembered a brief meeting with the pontiff, when he accompanied Los Angeles archbishop, now cardinal, Roger Mahoney to the Vatican.

MSGR. KEVIN KOSTELNIK: And I said to Archbishop Mahoney, "What should I say? What if he wants to talk theology? What if he wants to ask hard questions?" And as I stood there, the Holy Father then immediately came into the room and all of us applauded. He went up to Archbishop Mahoney, and the archbishop greeted him, introduced me. The pope stepped back and looked at us, and this is what he said: "Archbishop Mahoney, how is Hollywood?" (Laughter) How wonderfully human and down to earth he was.

JEFFREY KAYE: At Delores Mission, a Jesuit church in East Los Angeles, the Reverend Sean Carroll presided over morning mass. Although he, too, honored the pope's life, Carroll hopes that the pope's death will lead to change within the Church. He'd like to see the Vatican give more autonomy to local churches and to laypeople.

REV. SEAN CARROLL: I think in this country, an important and crucial movement is the empowerment of our laypeople, in ministry and in terms of the leadership that they bring to the church.

JEFFREY KAYE: Carroll believes more local autonomy will help the Church better deal with sexual abuse scandals and internal debates over abortion, homosexuality, and birth control. Carroll says that it is also time for the church to talk more seriously about a wider role for women, including ordination.

REV. SEAN CARROLL: I think it's important to discuss that question and to talk about it. You know, I think if we're all given a baptismal call, you know, then it's important for us as a church, really, to reflect on what is the role of women, and ordination, you know, certainly a discussion of the possibility of ordination, I think would be part of that.

JEFFREY KAYE: But many Catholics believe that little change is necessary.

LAURIE HICKS: I don't need to be ordained, and I live an extremely spiritual life. And I don't... and I don't think that priests need to be married. I think it's important, actually, that they remain celibate, and I hope those are important things to keep as they are.

SUSANNAH KLOEPFER: I personally would like to see a more conservative pope. I would like to see someone who has strong values and wants to uphold our Church's teachings.

JEFFREY KAYE:: But yesterday, most congregants put Church politics aside and instead focused their feelings on the pope and his death.

ROSALINDA ALCANTARA: It's sadness, but also we know that he's still looking down on us, and I know he'll always be there. We can pray to him. (Singing)

GWEN IFILL: Ray Suarez has more.

RAY SUAREZ: What was Pope John Paul II's impact on the American Church? And what do we know about the state of U.S. Catholicism in the wake of the pope's death? To assess that, we turn to the Very Reverend David O'Connell, the president of Catholic University; Margaret Steinfels, co-director of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture, and former editor of Commonweal, a Catholic opinion magazine; and Jim Davidson, sociology professor at Purdue University, and author of "The Search for Common Ground: What Unites and Divides Catholic Americans."

Professor Davidson, the Roman Catholic Church in the United States represents the largest single religious group in the country. In what condition does Pope John Paul II leave that church?

JIM DAVIDSON: The Church is a growing church in the United States, largely due to the immigration of Hispanic people as well as Asians, so the population is growing. Within the Church itself there's a mixed condition with a lot of good news of lay people assuming leadership roles and participating in the Church and yet there is bad news with regard to trends having to do with things such as Mass attendance and the number of priests and religious leaders.

RAY SUAREZ: Margaret Steinfels how would you take the measure of the U.S. Roman Catholic Church in 2005?

MARGARET O'BRIEN STEINFELS: Well, I think Jim has put his finger on the main problems or at least some of the main issues we're going to have to face up to. One is of course the growing Church and the other is the declining number of clergy. I guess I would add to that something that we tend to overlook, which is the radically declined number of women religious who were once the backbone of the educational, healthcare, and social service institutions that the Church carries on with laypeople in charge.

And of course that is a very good thing. But I think there is a kind of gap here between people really prepared to be fully Catholic in their roles as educators, health caregivers, and social service workers and the professional work they do. And, I mean, this is often described as the problem of Catholic identity. And I think it's something we all work at and try to bridge that gap. But I think it is an enormous gap and one that the Church has probably not fully come to grips with.

RAY SUAREZ: And when you speak of women religious, just to be clear for those who don't know that term, that's nuns entering orders, correct?

MARGARET O'BRIEN STEINFELS: Right. Those are religious sisters who took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. And so in that sense we're like the clergy who gave themselves and gave their lives completely to the care of and education of other people.

RAY SUAREZ: Father O'Connell, how do you size up the American Church at the close of this pontificate?

VERY REVEREND DAVID O'CONNELL: Well I see real validity in some of the comments that have been made already. I take a lot of my sense of things, the pulse of things from the students on the campus at Catholic University and from other campuses with which I've been associated. There's a great deal of enthusiasm and energy among the young people, among the next generation of Catholics. And part of it really has to do with this man who has occupied the chair of Peter for the last 26 years. There is a great sense of relationship with John Paul, personal relationship. And it's not just a matter of his charisma; it's some things that he has said that have anchored these young people that have really caused them to think about the world in which they live. The one comment that was made earlier about the immigrant populations, however, this I think is a serious concern. We have vast numbers of immigrants moving to the United States, especially those who are of Latino descent or Asian descent. And I fear that the Church is not reaching out to them in substantial ways. I think we're losing that population who ordinarily would be Catholic to more Pentecostal or more evangelical groups. I think this is something we're going to have to face in this country and it will be an issue that will come up on the new pope's agenda.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, Father O'Connell you referred to the pope as and his personal popularity with these large numbers of Catholic-Americans. But did that extend beyond the personal link to actually affect, move, change, influence the way they thought about their lives as 21st century people and as Christians at the same time?

VERY REVEREND DAVID O'CONNELL: I think so. I think the interesting thing is that these young people are products of their generation and products of their time. But they're searching for something. They're looking for a moral anchor. They're looking for answers. They're looking for truth in a world that doesn't always present it so easily or so facilely. And I think the words, the clarity with which the pope has spoken over these years has meant a lot to them in terms of their own personal faith development and their moral development so I would feel that way. And I hear it often from students.

RAY SUAREZ: Professor Davidson, the archbishop of Washington, Cardinal McCarrick, summed up his conversations with a lot of people in the last couple of days this way: I'm not sure I agree with him, but o, I love the Holy Father. Is there a paradoxical relationship, large numbers of people who disagreed with him on pretty fundamental issues but still had a very personal admiration for him, the man?

JIM DAVIDSON: I think that people really do accept the core teachings of the Catholic Church. All the surveys that we have done suggest that Catholics not only believe that issues such as the real presence of Jesus in the sacraments, Mary as the Mother of God, and the concern for the poor are things that are important to Catholic identity. And they agree with those matters. Much of the dissent that we hear about and the disagreement between the Vatican, the pope and the American people is around issues that the laypeople in this country tend to think of as being more peripheral or optional to their faith. So, for example, with regard to the Church's stance on unions or its views with regard to celibacy and the ordination of priests, most laypeople would say that is not as central as believing in the resurrection or believing in the incarnation of Christ or the real presence of Jesus in the sacraments. So there's a tendency for many people to exaggerate the differences or to feel that the differences are on core teachings when in fact I don't think the laity see it that way at all.

RAY SUAREZ: Margaret Steinfels, do you agree with those definitions of core and peripheral as Professor Davidson just put them?

MARGARET O'BRIEN STEINFELS: He's the pollster. And I'll accept his data. I think what might be missing a little bit from the polling data is the current and I think continuing crisis that has followed the sex abuse scandal. I think that in many ways the American bishops are stymied or paralyzed or are still in their own diocese working very hard to deal with the victims, deal with the cases, deal with the money problems that that has created. AND I guess as someone who grew up and was a young adult in the '60s, I feel the Church, despite its growth and despite, no doubt, its vibrancy, it is drifting and I think it is drifting because it lacks leadership that has real authority and I think laypeople could have real authority in the Church; they don't. And I think the diminishing number of clergy and I think bishops more beholden to the Vatican than to their own people has created this sense of drift and sense that no one is really looking at the issues on the ground.

RAY SUAREZ: Father O'Connell, you just heard Margaret Steinfels refer to a sense of drift. At pew level, did the life of American Catholics, did they see what was changing about the way the Church was governed as this pope tried to reestablish authority from Rome, reestablish a kind of not "go your own way" kind of governance policy for the Church?

VERY REVEREND DAVID O'CONNELL: I really don't believe that at the pew level that this was a really significant issue. I'm thinking of my own parents and my parents' generation who were used to a different style and also lived through the second Vatican Council to a new and different approach to Church life and Church governance. I don't think this is a burning issue. It's an issue, I find, within the academic world and in some circles of the clergy and more educated members of the laity. But I think in general, as you say, at the pew level, I don't think it's that significant an issue.

RAY SUAREZ: And what about the after-effects, the shadows left by the clergy abuse scandal?

VERY REVEREND DAVID O'CONNELL: The clergy abuse scandal, no question, has been a horrific chapter in our experience here in the Church in the United States. And I think it left people reeling. And I think we'll continue to feel the effects of this scandal for sometime to come. But there are signs of hope and signs that the... that we're ready to start to move beyond, to move toward healing. The situation was so terribly horrific and so different than anything any one of us could have imagined or all of us could have imagined, but I think now that the shock is over, it's time for us to heal. I think people have that sense and have that feeling and have that desire.

RAY SUAREZ: Do you think the pope recognized the magnitude of the problem?

VERY REVEREND DAVID O'CONNELL: Two things I think as far as that's concerned: Number one, we have to recall that this pope, given his Polish background and his traditional background, had an absolute love for the priesthood so for him and in his mind, that priests could be capable of these things was an incredible thing. And I also think the pope wasn't given a great deal of the information early on. So it prevented him from responding in a way that people were waiting for and listening for. But once the information was before him, the first thing he did was summon those responsible, the cardinals of the United States to the Vatican, to ask them about the... confront them on that and to ask them to make a change in the way things are going in the United States.

RAY SUAREZ: And, Professor Davidson, in your opinion research, what part do you see the recent clergy abuse scandals playing in people's ideas about their own church?

JIM DAVIDSON: When we recently polled American Catholics, we asked them what they thought of about 12 different problems in the Church and asked them to rank them. It turned out that the sex abuse scandal was the number-one issue in their mind both the behavior of priests who abused the young children but also the way the bishops responded to the problem. And two other problems that emerged at the top of the laity's list was the priest shortage and what that means for the future of the Catholic Church, and the other one has to do with what is perceived to be as the under representation or lack of involvement of young adults in the life of the Church today.

RAY SUAREZ: And Margaret Steinfels, how do you work forward from this very briefly before we go?

MARGARET O'BRIEN STEINFELS: Well, obviously a new pope will have a very large impact on the Church, but of course the Church is very big and want to say something like the pope is dead, long live the pope. That gives you this sense that the Church goes on in many ways with the pope as the head and in the unifying person in the Church. And so I think Father O'Connell is certainly right to point to students who are enthused and searching for spiritual and moral values. On the other hand, I worry about all the kids we don't see in church and that don't go to Catholic University. I think the numbers of Mass attendance, of people who don't get their kids baptized is something to worry about. It's the non-attenders and the non-responders to the opinion polls that I think we need to look at. And I presume a new pope will be eager to look at them as well.

RAY SUAREZ: Guests, thank you all very much.

MARGARET O'BRIEN STEINFELS: Thank you, Ray.

FOCUS - PULITZER WINNER

GWEN IFILL: And now an encore conversation with Ted Kooser, winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize in poetry. He won for his collection of poems called "Delights & Shadows." Arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown spoke with him about that book and other works last year, when he was named America's poet laureate.

JEFFREY BROWN: Ted Kooser lives on 62 acres near the town of Garland, Nebraska. The land, and its cycles of life often find their way into his poems, as in this one, "The Last Tomato."

TED KOOSER: "It is hard for an old man not to make too much of something like this. After all it is only the last tomato -- one last live coal in the ashes of summer, nothing to get too sentimental over."

JEFFREY BROWN: Raised in Iowa, he first wrote poetry seriously as a student at Iowa State. He came to the University of Nebraska in Lincoln for graduate school, and then worked 35 years for an insurance company. He retired in 1998 after successful treatment for oral cancer.

TED KOOSER: "It seems I have come to an age at which I can't stop noticing the last of things and want to hold in my eyes their summer brightness, burning, burning."

JEFFREY BROWN: The low hills here, he writes in his memoir, "Local Wonders" are known with a wink as the Bohemian Alps. "A worn place in the carpet of grass we know as the Great Plains." Now, Kooser, 65, is the first poet laureate ever from those Great Plains, cited as a "major poetic voice for rural and small town America." He is author of ten books of poetry, the most recent "Delights & Shadows," and teaches at the University of Nebraska. We spoke recently at the Library of Congress in Washington.

TED KOOSER: In my work, I really try to look at ordinary things quite closely to see if there isn't a little bit of something special about them. I'm trying to make something as nearly perfect as I can out of words, which is an experience as if you took... you know, in a very disorderly world, you try to make one little area of order in that poem and you try to make it as perfect as possible. If it really works, you can't move a punctuation mark without diminishing the effect.

JEFFREY BROWN: The Librarian of Congress, James Billington, made much of the fact that you're the first poet laureate from the Great Plains. How important is that to you?

TED KOOSER: Being the first poet laureate from the Great Plains is very important for me. I think it's a wonderful thing. But I'm like any other writer. I write about what is under my nose. It just happens that I live there. And so, all I really know is Iowa and Nebraska, so I'm writing about those things.

JEFFREY BROWN: Why don't you read one for us? This is one that you wrote called "Father."

TED KOOSER: All right. This one begins rather inappropriately and then takes a turn for the better, I think. "Father, May 19, 1999. Today you would be 97 if you had lived, and we would all be miserable, you and your children, driving from clinic to clinic, an ancient, fearful hypochondriac and his fretful son and daughter, asking directions, trying to read the complicated, fading map of cures. But with your dignity intact you have been gone for 20 years, and I am glad for all of us, although I miss you every day, the heartbeat under your necktie, the hand cupped on the back of my neck, Old Spice in the air, your voice delighted with stories. On this day each year you loved to relate that at the moment of your birth your mother glanced out the window and saw lilacs in bloom. Well, today lilacs are blooming in side yards all over Iowa, still welcoming you."

JEFFREY BROWN: So, the Old Spice, the lilacs, these are the little things in life that you talk about.

TED KOOSER: That's right, yeah.

JEFFREY BROWN: And then when you write it, do you do a lot of revising, because you talk about this "perfection out of order"?

TED KOOSER: Oh yeah, many revisions. A poem the length of that poem about my father, I would say forty or fifty versions.

JEFFREY BROWN: Forty or fifty?

TED KOOSER: Yeah, and I'm always revising away from difficulty and toward clarity. So that, ideally, when the poem is done, it feels as fresh as if I had just dashed it off.

JEFFREY BROWN: I read that you used to show your poems or read your poems to your secretary at the insurance company where you worked to see if they were clear enough?

TED KOOSER: Oh, yeah. Well, I would bring in work in the morning when I came in. I'd write every morning very early, and then I would bring my work in and I'd say, "Joanne, does this make any sense to you?" And if she said, well, no, it doesn't," then I would try to find out where it fell down for her.

JEFFREY BROWN: You did work for an insurance company for many years. Is that because it's hard to make a living as a poet?

TED KOOSER: Absolutely, yeah. You know, you publish a poem in the very best magazine in this country and you get enough money for a sack of groceries, you know, and that's about it. So I needed some sort of a job that I could, you know, where I could continue my writing on the side and so on. So that's what I did.

JEFFREY BROWN: But how did you do it? How did you do all that writing? When did you do all that writing?

TED KOOSER: Well, I get up at... still get up at 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning and I would write till about 7:00, and then I'd have to get ready for work. And I like that period in the morning so much that, now that I've been retired for six years, I still get up at 4:30 and write until about 7:00.

JEFFREY BROWN: You retired after your bout with cancer.

TED KOOSER: Right.

JEFFREY BROWN: What role did writing play in that?

TED KOOSER: During the period when I was in surgery and going through radiation, I really didn't do any writing. But as I came up out of radiation and was trying to get myself back in some sort of physical shape, I would walk a couple of miles every morning and then find something along that route to write about. And then I'd come home and I wrote, I wrote 130 little, short poems over the course of a winter. It was very important for me to see something from each day that I could do something with and find some order in, because I was surrounded by medical chaos or health chaos of some kind.

JEFFREY BROWN: You have written a manuscript. The book is going to be published in January and it's called "The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets." Can poets be made with a manual?

TED KOOSER: I don't know that a poet can be made. A poet who is already writing in some way can be helped, I think, to write better. And that's what this book attempts to do, I think, make... give them some things to think about, and so on.

JEFFREY BROWN: So what's the number one piece of advice?

TED KOOSER: Read is the number one. You know, all art is learned by imitation and unless poets are reading poetry, they don't know... they don't have all the tools assembled and everything. I've told my students I think they ought to be writing... reading twenty or thirty poems for every one they try to write. I don't think they're doing that but...

JEFFREY BROWN: Do you recommend the life of the poet?

TED KOOSER: Well, as of right now, I really recommend it...

JEFFREY BROWN: It's looking good right now?

TED KOOSER: It's looking very good right now, yeah. No, I've enjoyed my life a great deal and poetry has become such a part of it that I couldn't do without it.

JEFFREY BROWN: Ted Kooser, thanks for talking to us.

TED KOOSER: Thank you very much for having me.

FOCUS

GWEN IFILL: We apologize that technical problems have prevented us from bringing you the discussion we planned about the political situation in Iraq. Instead a John Merrow report about a special school program in Los Angeles to counter gang influences.

JOHN MERROW: Two gang members have been shot in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles. Four blocks away from the crime scene, Breed Street Elementary School is forced to lock all its doors. Teachers and students cannot go out until police say it's safe.

SPOKESPERSON: The lockdown is officially over.

JOHN MERROW: Street violence is a part of these students' lives.

JOHN MERROW: If you've ever heard a gunshot, would you raise your hand. If you've heard a gun; how about if you've ever seen or talked to a gang member --

MARIA CASILLAS, President, Families in Schools: We have a great waste of human lives in this community. We have a about 36 organized gangs in the Boyle Heights area. And Boyle Heights is a 2.2-square mile area.

JOHN MERROW: Maria Casillas is president of Families in Schools, a civic reform organization that works with Breed Street School.

MARIA CASILLAS: If you look at this environment here, you've got about a 65 percent dropout rate by the time these kids go to high school, to the high school. It means that more than half of the kids you see here will probably drop out.

JOHN MERROW: And those students who remain in school face a culture where learning is not respected.

ROBERT CENDEJAS, 9th Grader: Kids in middle school just think that it's not cool to be smart so they just constantly make fun of you until I guess you just drop out.

JOHN MERROW: Did you get teased, "Hey, school girl? Hey, school girl?"

STUDENT: It was like that every day especially in middle school. It just gets like so intense and you just like want to cry every day. And you don't want to go to school.

JOHN MERROW: But Breed Street Elementary School in the heart of Boyle Heights is fighting back. How? With its own gang, SOS -- the leader and founder of the SOS gang is this former teacher.

JANIS HIURA: Say I am the best SOS in the world.

CHILDREN: I am the best SOS in the world.

JANIS HIURA: Thank you.

JOHN MERROW: Officially SOS stands for Society of Students.

JANIS HIURA: And who is going to open that meeting for me?

JOHN MERROW: It began a small group in her fifth grade classroom. Her objective was to change her students' attitudes toward learning by instilling confidence, teaching problem solving skills and developing social skills.

JANIS HIURA: First it starts with save our....

STUDENTS: Selves.

JANIS HIURA: And then what?

STUDENTS: Save the students.

JANIS HIURA: And then save our school. And where are we going for it?

STUDENTS: Save our society.

JOHN MERROW: Four years ago Breed Street Elementary received a grant from the Annenberg Foundation which also helps fund NewsHour education stories. With these funds the principal created a new position. She asked Hiura to leave her role as teacher and make SOS her full-time job.

JANIS HIURA, Student Leadership Coordinator: Our target is the kid that's struggling. The kid that's struggling and believes they're dumb; the kid that is so shy they don't understand and they won't ask for help.

JOHN MERROW: Whether they're members or not, all first through fifth grade students learn the SOS principles, starting with its code of behavior known as being AP.

JANIS HIURA: Okay. I need five people to show me an AP lunch line.

JOHN MERROW: AP means advanced placement, a term generally used in high schools refer to go the most challenging classes. But to Hiura, AP is a larger concept, one that includes behavior as well as academic performance. She believes that starting in first grade, students should be encouraged to strive for their best.

JANIS HIURA: You know what I like, are they pushing each other?

STUDENTS: No.

JOHN MERROW: Students learn how to pop up in class instead of raising their hands. This is called popcorn.

STUDENT: Popcorn means we don't raise our hands up. We get up and other people get up. We let them go.

JOHN MERROW: The idea behind popcorn is to teach students how to speak with confidence and listen to others.

JANIS HIURA: She's grabbing me with her what?

STUDENTS: Eyes.

JOHN MERROW: Making eye contact is an important part of what Hiura calls power greetings in which students learn to present themselves with self-assurance. Any student who wants to join SOS can. The only requirements are good effort and behavior in the classroom. Grades are not a factor.

STUDENT: I would like to present you this badge because you've been working so hard this year. I would like to present you this badge. (Applause)

JOHN MERROW: Active SOS members meet whenever time permits. They talk about upcoming projects such as developing a mentoring program as well as how to improve SOS and spread it elsewhere.

JANIS HIURA: We're going to talk about buddies, how to get the buddies that aren't SOS in SOS.

JOHN MERROW: Fifth grader Dennis Ojogo gives SOS credit for making him a more active participant in school.

JOHN MERROW: So SOS has changed you.

DENNIS OJOGO, 5th Grade Student: I had quite power. I was a bright student but I really wasn't motivated to participate. And, now, well, look at me.

STUDENT: I felt I was scared and lost when I was in an SOS but thankfully I joined.

JOHN MERROW: Fourth Grader Stephanie Sanchez used to be afraid to speak in class. Today she's comfortable in front of large audiences.

STEPHANIE SANCHEZ, 4th Grade Student: Joining SOS, I've changed a lot. Each and every day I get powerful and stronger. It changed my whole life.

JOHN MERROW: SOS members sometimes lose their way and may be asked to turn in their badges. Hiura and SOS members decide on a case- by case basis when and how a member can get back in. She relies on the buddy system to keep behavior in check.

JANIS HIURA: What have you two buddies been doing? Bringing each other.

STUDENT: Down.

JANIS HIURA: Is that what SOS is all about?

STUDENT: No.

JANIS HIURA: You knew how to bring yourself down. Now I want to see if you know how to what?

STUDENT: Bring yourself up.

JANIS HIURA: Okay. I want you to write me up a plan.

JOHN MERROW: In just four years SOS has grown from 30 Breed Street students to 400, more than half the school. In addition, four other elementary schools in the Boyle Heights neighborhood have adopted SOS in some capacity, but SOS faces significant challenges. Researchers are just starting to track whether SOS helps students academically.

JOHN MERROW: There's no real evidence that SOS improves academic performance.

JANIS HIURA: No it's all soft data.

JOHN MERROW: If in the end there's no difference, would you then get rid of S.O.S.?

JANIS HIURA: No because I know the difference. It has made. They're doing better in life. I had a student encourage their parent to go get a restraining order when their dad was victimizing them. That's worth everything.

JOHN MERROW: While some students have remained active in SOS long after Breed Street there's no official SOS program past fifth grade. Breed Street students go on to a huge middle school. After that comes the nation's fourth largest high school with about 5,000 students and a graduation rate of only 58 percent.

JOHN MERROW: Are any of you nervous about leaving this wonderful school and all of a sudden you're going to go off to this huge middle school?

STUDENT: Actually I'm not because no matter what middle school I go to I'm going to try to start it over there. I already joined a gang and it's SOS; this is our positive gang.

JOHN MERROW: Gangs I thought had like secret words or secret handshakes.

STUDENT: This gang, we do have secret handshakes, which is a really powerful handshake.But we do not have tattoos. We do not have guns, any kind of weapons. We do not have head bands, anything. But we have our uniform, our badge and our respect.

JOHN MERROW: Currently, some SOS members including a few older kids who have remained active, are working with local civic leaders, figuring out how SOS can become an effective force in a new high school due to open in 2006.

RECAP

GWEN IFILL: Again, the major development of the day: Thousands began paying final tribute to Pope John Paul II after his body was carried to St. Peter's Basilica. And the Vatican announced the funeral for John Paul will be Friday. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Thank you, and good night.