Oil Costs Push Up Gold Prices
BLITZER: To our viewers, you're in THE SITUATION ROOM. Happening now, the former president, Jimmy Carter, urking the White House and angering Israel for meeting with Hamas officials during a visit to the West Bank. Carter says Hamas and its leaders in Syria would have to be part of any final Middle East peace plan. Also, a wave of deadly violence today in Iraq -- bombings in four cities killing at least 60 people and injuring more than 100. The U.S. military blames the attacks in Baghdad, Ramadi and Baquba on Al Qaeda in Iraq. And no end in sight to soaring oil prices -- now closing in on $114 a barrel. That's helping push up the price of gold, as well, closing at more than $928 an ounce, as investors seek an edge -- a hedge against oil-led inflation. I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM. By visiting the United States, Pope Benedict will have to come to grips with a sex scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church in this country. On his flight, the pope told reporters, it's a wound that needs to be healed.</s>POPE BENEDICT XVI: We are deeply ashamed and be possible that it cannot happen in the future. I think we have to act in three levels. The first is level of the political level. We have to react in this way. I won't speak at this moment about homosexuality but pedophilia what is the other thing. And we will absolutely exclude the pedophiles from the ministry. This is absolutely important, who is really guilty to be a pedophile cannot be priests.</s>BLITZER: Let's take a closer look at the impact of the pope's words and his historic visit to the United States. Joining us now on the phone is our senior Vatican analyst, John Allen. You were on that flight from Rome to Andrews Air Force Base. And I believe it was you, John, who asked him that sensitive question. Give us a little context.</s>JOHN ALLEN, CNN SENIOR VATICAN ANALYST: Yes, that's right, Wolf. Well, I think it's important to set the stage here, because this is -- the pope was not blindsided in any sense by that question. Several days ago the Vatican had asked those of us in the press corps who would be traveling to the pope to submit proposed questions. They then screened those questions and picked four and informed four of us who had submitted the questions that were chosen this morning, as we took off, that we would be asking them to the pope. So, the pope clearly knew this was coming. Secondly, when the Vatican spokesperson had actually indicated the pope would be speaking entirely in Italian today when he came back to the press compartment, but when I asked him if he would answer this question in English because of its extreme importance for the church and the people of the United States, he was immediately ready to go. So, Wolf, I think what that tells us is that the Vatican understands that the pope cannot come to the United States and not address what has been the deepest wound in the 200-plus-year history of this church, which is the sex abuse crisis.</s>BLITZER: And as you say he's going to be doing more than that on least one occasion and maybe twice while he's here over the next six days. What do we know about it?</s>ALLEN: Well on background, the Vatican officials have told us the pope will address the sex abuse crisis in his speech to the 400 American bishops tomorrow here in Washington and again during a mass that he is celebrating on Friday in New York, for priests and men and women religious at St. Patrick's cathedral. And it may well come up again in -- in at least in passing in one of his homilies at his big public masses, one in Nationals Stadium in Washington and another one at Yankees Stadium in New York. So, clearly, this is going to be an important part of the subtext of this visit. Obviously Wolf, what we mains to be seen is those most scarred by the crisis, the victims, are going to be satisfied by what they hear from the pope.</s>BLITZER: There's no indication he's going to actually meet with any of those victims, is there?</s>ALLEN: No, that's right. In fact, there were a couple of ideas floated about his itinerary. One was that he might going to Boston, which was the epicenter of this crisis at least in its early stages to tackle it head-on and in the end he passed on it. And the other was that at some point he might meet with victims and at least so far there's no indication that will happen on this trip, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: What would he like to achieve more than anything else during the course of these six days?</s>ALLEN: Well, I think basically speaking, Wolf, his task is to introduce himself to an American public that frankly doesn't know a great deal about him. The Pew Forum recently did a survey of Americans finding that 80 percent of Americans including two-thirds of the almost 70 million Catholics in the United States say that they know nothing or next to nothing about this pope. So I think job number one in a sense is for him to make his debut on what is the biggest stage in the world which is the United States. Beyond that I think he wants to offer a message of encouragement and consolation for a Catholic Church in the United States, that is very large, very dynamic. It's being buoyed by new waves of Hispanic immigrants. But at the same time obviously still reeling from this very deep blow which has been the sex abuse crisis, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: All right, John, thank you very much. Our Vatican analyst, John Allen, he flew over with the pope from Rome. He's going to be spending obviously the next several days here covering the visit. If you'd like to know more about Pope Benedict's life or see pictures and videos from his trip to the United States, go to CNN.com/pope. That's where you can get a whole lot more information. They were a turning point for the war in Iraq. Now we meet some of the soldiers behind the infamous pictures from inside the Abu Ghraib prison. That's coming up. And a high-tech camera that can see right through you. We're going to show you where it's already being used to fight terrorism. Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.