Eric Marapodi News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Meeting where it's almost like a get to know you. no, we're just going to have a -- we'll hang out, we'll have some prayer. >> keep in mind, pope francis comes into this position through the pastoral track in the catholic church. he was head of the jesuits in argentina and archbishop of buenas aries. as john points out, there could be a bit of a learning curve here he's still working with as he gets up to speed on geopolitics, but a lot of expectations. >> yeah. we'll be watching. eric and john allen. thank you so much to both of you. just ahead, a ship and a city both attacked by terrorists...

What are you thinking the expectations are out of this meeting? >> well, i think there are many who are quite despondent about the current state of hope for middle east peace after the failure of secretary of state john kerry's effort to restart the process. i interviewed a cardinal this morning, cardinal theodore mccarrick, former archbishop of washington and a troubleshooter. i asked him does francis risk his political credibility by creating a meeting in which people are expecting something to result from it? and there's a very realistic possibility that it might not. cardinal mccarrick's a...

One. he is widely seen as a reformer on the sex abuse issue and he's also a member of the pope's new commission for the protection of minors. so i think this is a clear indication that francis is trying to get the message out that he gets it about the need to confront the church's abuse scandals, brianna. >> eric, the pope also said something that kind of stuck out to me. he talked about the resignation of his predecessor pope benedict which was strange to us. we hadn't seen this in centuries. he said it was not an isolated case. what does he mean by this? >> he's opening the door to suggest h...

no agreement. nor is there an agreement on a house republican push for a much smaller plan made up of spending cuts alone. if all else fails, we may end up with an idea floated by the top senate republican, mitch mcconnell. we laid it out for you. three separate votes between now and the next elections to raise the nation's debt by $2.5 trillion, and there would be $1 trillion in spending cuts and a special congressional panel to shore up entitlements, and the up side supposedly for republicans is keeping the issue alive for another year and blaming the president, who, by the way, is...