'This Week' Transcript: Remembering Nelson Mandela

New York, Dec. 8, 2013— -- A rush transcript of "This week with George Stephanopoulos" airing on Sunday morning, December 8 2013 on ABC News is below. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning and welcome to This Week. A monumental man.

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He no longer belongs to us. He belongs to the ages.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Nelson Mandela. Revolutionary, prisoner, president and prophet.

NELSON MANDELA, FORMER SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT: Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. Let your greatness blossom.

STEPHANOPOULOS: This morning, how he transformed our world. The lessons for our politics today. And a look back at his remarkable interview with Ted Koppel just days after leaving prison.

MANDELA: To stand there 27 years at the prime of your life is a tragedy.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Then, from Wendy's to the White House, America debates inequality, growth and fairness. We tackle it here with two key senators, plus James Carville and Mary Matalin join our powerhouse roundtable, right here this Sunday morning.

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STEPHANOPOULOS: Hello again. In South Africa today, preparations for the most massive memorial service in memory. Pope Francis, four American presidents, the Dalai Lama, dozens of world leaders will be there Tuesday to remember a giant of our time. And this morning, we're going to reflect on Nelson Mandela's legacy, his impact on America's politics, with several who knew him well and worked with him closely. First, let's go to ABC chief foreign correspondent Terry Moran just outside Mandela's former home in Soweto. Good morning, Terry. I see the rain has just started all around you.

TERRY MORAN, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: That's right, George. Right now, the rain has just opened up on this scene here, but it has not dampened the spirits here in Soweto, just up the street as you say, from Nelson Mandela's home. They call it the humble Mount Vernon of South Africa. A remarkable national celebration right across South Africa, the passing of the great man, a scene marked in song and pride and smiles, not tears or sorrow. Today, Sunday, a national day of prayer and reconciliation. We were at the Regina Mundi (ph) church here in Soweto that was a center of resistance and sanctuary during the apartheid era. There and in houses of worship across South Africa, prayers lifted up for Nelson Mandela in English, in Afrikaans, in Zulu, in Xhosa, in Tswana, in all the many tongues of this truly rainbow nation. And he was really the one who kept them together and gave them the opportunity to begin again with his courage and compassion and his remarkable capacity for forgiveness.

The Nelson Mandela family issued a statement on their behalf. They're if mourning, of course. And they said "we have lost a great man, a son of the soil whose greatness in our family was in the simplicity of his nature."

STEPHANOPOULOS: Terry, walk us through what is going to happen the rest of the week there in South Africa?

MORAN: Well, Tuesday is the big day, George, that is when President Obama and the other presidents and potentates and princes will come here to South Africa and join 90,000 South Africans in the FNB stadium, that was s the last place that the public saw Nelson Mandela at the 2010 World Cup.

He was there. And he will be there in spirit as the country says its farewell to him.