♪ coming up, kim lawton reports from rome on the selection of pope francis. and deborah potter has the final report in our series on the large and growing number of americans who say they have no

religious affiliation. what effect might these unaffiliated have on all organized religion? major funding of religion and ethics news weekly is provided by -- welcome. i'm bob abernethy. it's good to have you with us. man catholics around the world this week welcomed their new leader amid many expectations and questions about what the papacy of pope francis may hold.

cardinal jorge mario bergoglio of buenos aires was elected pope wednesday, choosing the name francis in reference, the vatican said, to st. francis of assisi. he is the first pope to take that name. he is also the first jesuit to become pope and the first pope from south america. francis is known for his advocacy on the part of the poor and for his humility. in argentina, he lived simply in a small apartment, often cooked for himself, and took the bus or subway every day instead of a chauffeured car. he is also a staunch social conservative, who strongly opposes abortion and protested vigorously against his country's legalization of same-sex marriage. this week, francis celebrated mass with the cardinals. earlier, he prayed at rome's basilica of santa maria maggiore, dedicated to the virgin mary.

our managing editor kim lawton has this report from rome on the selection of the new pope. >> reporter: there were jubilant shouts in an array of languages as catholics from around the globe gathered in st. peter's square to meet their new pope. many here say electing pope francis has brought catholics together. >> we all operate in different countries. we all operate in different idioms and different ways, but we come together for our faith and this is a real moment of unity. >> reporter: the fact that cardinal jorge mario bergoglio - - pope francis -- hails from argentina has generated much excitement. >> you talk about a booster shock to the church in the americas. this is going to be a real blessing. >> reporter: but it's more than where he comes from that's unique. david gibson of religion news service says pope francis's simple lifestyle is something new to the papacy. >> he also has spoken against the clerical privileges in the church, and the kind of puffery that can often infect the

hierarchy and the cardinals themselves. he's spoken really powerfully against this. if he puts into action the words that he's spoken against this kind of clerical and ecclesiastical privilege, he could be a revolutionary figure for the church. >> reporter: many americans came to rome to be part of the momentous occasion of electing a new pope. kim daniels and ashley mcguire say they wanted to support the church in prayer. before the conclave started, they worshiped at a mass led by washington cardinal donald wuerl in his titular church. every cardinal is assigned a congregation in rome, which in effect gives him the right to vote for the next bishop of rome, the pope. wuerl's church is san pietro in vincoli, which claims to have ancient chains that held st. peter captive. daniels and mcguire went to st. peter's square every time the white smoke might appear. >> the election of a new pope has only taken place a few hundred times over the past

2,000 years, so even to be alive during is something, to actually be here is truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. and i think, you know, for many catholics, it's a sort of spiritual pilgrimage to be here and to receive the first blessing from the pope. >> reporter: daniels says she couldn't be more excited about the selection of pope francis. she is confident he will work to renew the church. >> to have a pope, to have a leader means that we speak in a clear voice, and i think that's "%pcatholicism is that we speak a clear voice. >> reporter: matthew niggemeyer and michael dion are both studying theology at the prestigious pontifical north american college he in hopes of being ordained as priests. they too say they're thrilled with the election of the new pope. >> what he does is gives us an overall vision to say, to lead us to see who jesus christ is,

and obvious every pope is going to do that in a different way. and so that will be his gift to the church is how does he help us at the ground level see who jesus is? >> i think it's both an historical moment for the church but also a beautiful moment. with every papacy, there's a new opportunity and a new chapter unfolds in the life of the church. what that chapter hos i don't really know and i don't really want to speculate, but i'm excited to see what will come. >> reporter: for some, a new pope means an opportunity for new directions in the church. >> in a monarchy, the monarch has extraordinary power. >> reporter: representatives of snap, the survivors network of those abused by priests, were in rome to push for stronger measures to prevent clergy sex abuse of children. the group released a list of 20 suggested actions for the first 100 days of the papacy. they said this is an opportunity for significant change. >> we're a single issue group -- this sounds probably dreadfully self-serving to say, but we really do believe that there's

nothing on the next pope's plate that's more pressing than the safety of the most vulnerable members of his flock. >> reporter: they said without new action, the abuse crisis will continue to widen around the world. >> because this is essentially like a cancer that's eating away at the very soul of the church, we believe, and unless the pope really takes quick strong moves to turn things around, the future, especially for children in the church looks very grim. >> reporter: other advocates hope for breakthroughs on their issues as well. as pilgrims were awaiting the sight of white smoke from the sistine chapel, a coalition of women's groups raised some pink smoke above the vatican. they called for an expansion of female leadership roles in the church, including ordination in to the priesthood. >> we would like to see some dialogue. pope john paul ii closed dialogue on women's ordination, so we're hoping that the new

pope will reopen that dialogue, simply talk with us. people are ready for women priests. people are ready for women's ordination. we know the polls show that the majority of catholics want women priests, so we're here to lift up those voices. >> reporter: experts don't expect major doctrinal changes under pope francis. >> he's a man who maintains the traditional catholic line on sexual morality, abortion, gay marriage, contraception. nobody expected any pope was going to change those teachings or say anything different, but a new pope has a new style and if he stresses the social justice teachings of the church, the very counter cultural message of simplicity and poverty, that could really change things without technically changing any teachings. >> reporter: for many catholics, a top priority for the new pope will be addressing the curia -- the vatican's scandal-plagued bureaucracy in rome. >> i think that everybody knows that there is reform needed in the vatican bureaucracy, and i know that we'll see some effort

towards that end, because reform is something that is necessary so that we can move forward and kindle the faith in places where it's become something that's lukewa. >> pope francis, cardinal borgolio had no real experience in the roman curia. he speaks italian pretty well, but is he somebody who can actually come in here and clean house the way some of the cardinals want? that's a real big question. >> reporter: mcguire is hopeful the new pope will prioritize communicating the church's message in the modern world, especially to young people. she hopes francis, like his predecessor, will use social media to do that. >> when pope benedict joined twitter, for example, he got over a million followers i think within 24 hours. and so i think, you know, that's one way that he can signal to the young generation, you know, "here i am. i'm going to be talking with you. i'll meet you where you're at and be a part of your world." >> reporter: among all the priority hopes and agenda setting, some are asking if the 76-year-old new pope will be able to live up to it all. >> how much can a pope do? he's not a pastor to 1.2 billion

catholics. so much is going to depend on the men he appoints, both in the vatican and also in the dioceses around the world. what kind of bishops are we going to see coming out of the vatican in the next few years? that's really going to chart the course of the catholic church over the coming years. >> reporter: the installation mass will be tuesday here in st. peter's basilica. and then pope francis will get to work, amid all the high expectations already surrounding him. i'm kim lawton at the vatican. now, for more on pope francis, we turn to rev. james martin. he is a jesuit priest, contributing editor at "america," a national catholic magazine and author of several books including "the jesuit guide to (almost) everything." father jim, welcome, and congratulations to you and all jesuits on having one of your own become pope. does it make any difference to

the jesuit order, i mean, aside from being proud, will it make any difference, as you see it, to how life goes for you? >> i think it will. we're all very excited and very joyful to have one of our own as pope. i think it will help a lot in terms of jesuit vocations. there have more articles on the web and in print about what's a jesuit in the last few days than i think in the last five years, so it's a great shot in the arm in terms of jesuit vocations, i think. >> vocations meaning people wanting, young men wanting to become jesuits. >> that's right. you know, more interest in the jesuits means more young men will consider joining. >> what about the pope himself? what can we say about how being a jesuit might affect him as pope? >> well, i think it's very important. jesuit training, the formation program is very long. he's had a lot of different kinds of experiences in terms of working with the poor, for example, living the vows of

poverty, chastity and obedience, living in community, and we can see that by his simple lifestyle and the way that so much of his ministry already as pope has been by focusing on the poor by, for example, taking the name of francis, you know, recalling francis of assisi, so i think the jesuit spirituality and also his jesuit experience will really help inform what he does as pope. >> and what does it mean for american catholics as a whole? many of them have left the church. what can the pope do to help bring them back? >> well, i think the most important thing that the pope can do is really just preach the gospel clearly and boldly. i think, rescinding from some of the hot button topics, what brings more people back to the church is inviting them into a relationship with god and a relationship with jesus christ and so the better he can do that, the more people will come back. >> but there's no possibility as you see it of any change on

those hot button issues, like priestly celibacy and women priests, that kind of thing. >> yeah, i don't think so. not from pope francis. he is very much along the lines of pope john paul and pope benedict in adhering to all of those church traditions. >> what about giving more authority to local bishops? might that make possible, if he could do that, or if that were done, might that make possible certain things being okay in one place but not necessarily in another? >> well, it could. i think there have been some early signs by the way he's worked with the bishops and treated the cardinals. you know, when he was coming back after his election, he got in the same bus that all of the other cardinals got in. so he's very much a man of the people and that may mean a little more, what catholics call, collegiality, giving more authority to local bishops. so, it could. i think time will tell.

>> and what about his relationship with the vatican bureaucracy? many people think the curia, the bureaucracy, needs a lot of change and a lot of reform. is he tough enough to bring that about? >> i can say as a jesuit and having heard from my jesuit brothers what he was like as the provincial or regional superior of argentina, he is certainly a man who can make tough decisions. he is definitely not afraid to ruffle feathers. and so, for those people who are asking does he have a backbone, the answer is yes. so he may be the very guy to come in and reform a lot of the problems that are going on in the vatican curia right now. and that may be one thing that the cardinals saw that led to his election. >> and, very quickly, the sex abuse scandal and cover-ups seem to continue indefinitely. do you think there's something that a new pope, this pope, can do to kind of get over that?

>> well, i think that's the number one problem facing the church, frankly. we can't preach the gospel if people see us as not addressing those problems. so one of the things he can do is follow the pattern of the u.s. bishops in terms of putting in safe environment programs and really trying to just change the church, removing anyone who is credibly accused with a crime, so i really think he needs to focus on this laser like in the first few months, if not days, of his papacy. so, i'm hoping that he really focuses on that really important issue. >> father james martin. many thanks. >> my pleasure. one of the many challenges facing the new pope is the need to reach new members and to bring catholics who have left back to the church. pope francis takes over at a

time when, here in the united states, the number of americans who say they have no religious affiliation has grown dramatically -- now nearly 20% of the adult population. recently we ran a miniseries on this group, people we've been calling the nones, n-o-n-e-s, since they answer essentiay "none of the above" when asked about their religious affiliation. today, we revisit deborah potter's report on how the rise of the nones might affect traditional organized religion. >> reporter: on a saturday morning at boundless yoga, owner and instructor kim weeks is in what she calls her sacred space. >> i feel the universe. i feel energy. i feel mysterious forces working through my body and i see them in other people. >> reporter: weeks is among the 46 million americans that our poll found have no religious

affiliation, almost one in five. but they're not entirely secular. about a third describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious." >> yeah, i think that's a pretty good description. as a matter of fact, i think i say that all the time. i'm spiritual but not religious. >> i definitely don't call myself religious at all, so i would think i am spiritual, where i believe we're all connected in some way, but i'm not religious in any way. >> reporter: kim weeks has come a long way from the conservative southern methodist church of her childhood and the religious home she grew up in. >> we didn't go so far as do regular bible readings, but we weren't that far from it. i mean god was, and jesus, were both present in our daily lives, and a daily discourse. >> reporter: things began to change when she was 12. her parents divorced and she started questioning the church's teachings. >> the flaw in the organized religion that i understand, and that i was raised to believe is

that the answers are too quick, they're too easy. the sort of question marks i have to put over the thesis that there was a virgin birth. i mean just stuff like that. it's difficult for me to accept all those things and believe in something and stay contained inside of that belief based on the frankly veiled threat that i'm going to go to hell if i don't. >> reporter: religion scholar diana butler bass has studied the growth of the spiritual but not religious. in her latest book, subtitled "the end of church," she writes that they share a deep dislike for religious institutions. >> i think that the main problem that people identify with religion is, religious institutions, is hypocrisy, is that they look at these

institutions and they see people who are more concerned about politics, more concerned about money, more concerned about their own power, and that's just not what people expect out of a faith institution. they expect some level of authenticity, especially in the leadership. they would like religious institutions to practice what they preach. >> reporter: butler bass says the sex abuse scandal and cover-up in the roman catholic church and the fight over the ordination of an openly gay bishop in the episcopal church helped accelerate a long, slow decline in religious affiliation. despite that, butler bass sees in america a new spiritual awakening. >> people who are in the unaffiliated categories are engaging in spiritual practices and those run the gamut from pilgrimage to contemplative prayer, to meditation and practices that connect us more fully with god, but they tend to be doing them, sometimes in a congregation of faith, but more

often in alternative locations. >> reporter: this meditation group in boston is about as far from organized religion as you can get. the humanist community at harvard is a home for nonbelievers, including atheists and agnostics, who do believe you don't need god to be good. >> the more important question to me, though, is not whether you can be good without god but what it means to be good in a world in which we don't have a god to tell us what to do or to help us when we need help. what it means to take care of each other, what it means to be there for one another, what it means to live an ethical life when this is the only life that we have. we're coming up with a new kind of community here to meet what is in a lot of ways a new kind of need. >> reporter: it's a need that's especially evident on campus. younger americans make up the largest group of the unaffiliated. some grew up un-churched. >> religion just wasn't a part of our lives. i was baptized, but it was more

just a reason to get the family together and after that, we never really went back. >> reporter: chris stedman found religion on his own and joined an evangelical church. but soon after, he discovered he was gay and eventually left. >> the grand irony of the situation is that i became an evangelical christian because i was looking for a community, a place to belong and i was looking for a way of making sense of injustice and suffering, of grappling with this idea of suffering. but the irony of it is that becoming an evangelical christian increased the amount of suffering in my life and also sort it sort of alienated me from others. >> reporter: the vast majority that described themselves as non religio religious, they are happy.

90% say they're not looking for a religion that would be right for them. and for churches, that's a conundrum and a challenge. as the ranks of the unaffiliated have grown, the number of americans who call themselves protestant has declined, for the first time slipping below 50%. >> i think we've got to find new ways of modeling what church looks like. you look at the biblical test, i find a hard time seeing great hierarchies, i see more disci e discipleships of people going on and we have to learn to do that within our churches. >> reporter: there's no evidence that the unafilliated tend to make think way back to church as they get older or have families. kim weeks and her husband are bringing up their two children without religion, while teaching them morality. she's willing to let them go to church with their grandmothers, one of whom is a minister, but that's it. >> i can't imagine a scenario where we would go back to church on a regular basis. i don't feel a sense of longing of not being in a church

or the church. i just don't miss it, because for a variety of reasons, it feels constricting. >> in general, i'm not worried. the people who consider themselves spiritual, but not going to church, why would i worry? they are great people. they are in their community, making a difference. >> let's go. >> i think there is a space of opportunity to do a ministry together. >> reporter: why not be optimistic, the unafilliated may not want to be within church, but they're not entire hostile to religion. in fact, they mostly agree with believers that religious organizations strengthen communities and play an important role in helping the needy -- some common ground, at least, in a changing world. for "religion & ethics newsweekly," i'm deborah potter in greensboro, north carolina. on our calendar this week,

on monday, some eastern orthodox christianobserve clean monday the beginning of great lent, the 40-day period of fasting and prayer leading up to their celebration of easter. also, this week, baha'i's celebrate their new year, nowruz, which comes at the end of 19 days of fasting. it's also new year in the zoroastrian tradition. finally, since jesus's time, one of the most revered figures in all christianity has been st. francis of assisi. for the new pope to have chosen francis as his new name may say a lot about his priorities. st. francis was born in central italy in the 12th century. there's a basilica there where francis heard jesus tell him to rebuild his church.

the opulence of that church today is just the opposite of the poverty st. francis chose for himself. he had been born rich, but gave up everything he owned, even his clothes, in order to live as he believed jesus wanted -- in poverty, caring for those jesus called "the least of these." catholics today still cite that standard, referring to "a preferential option for the poor." to francis, every living being was holy and valuable. he once kissed the hands of lepers. he loved nature and all living creatures. he preached to the birds and spoke of brother sun and sister moon. in his name many churches today bless the animals. in his most famous prayer, francis asked the lord to make him "an instrument of thy peace." he once tried to stop a battle between crusaders and muslims. peacemakers, mystics, environmentalists and champions of the poor -- all of them might well be wishing pope francis will carry on the priorities of st. francis, as well as his

name. that's our program for now. i'm bob abernethy. you can follow us on twitter and facebook and watch us anytime on the pbs app for iphones and ipads. there's much more on our website. you can comment on all of our stories and share them. audio and video podcasts are also available. join us at pbs.org. as we leave you, more scenes from pope francis' first days as spiritual leader of the roman catholic church.