sinatra but not necessarily in that order. now they are both francis. so, i mean so they are even more one in the same for families like yours. yeah. what are some of your italian traditions? well, of course, midnight mass, having the nativity scene up on christmas eve. you put the christ child in there. you wait until christmas eve for that and then there is a big tradition called the feast of the seven fissures that you do on christmas eve. you make a bunch of these fissures. my fishes. three of which i probably ate. the rest i couldn t go near. they were interesting. all great stuff. i think and then the midnight mass. i know your dad played a big part in your life, too. you have a special connection through the military, through your father? well, my dad and his father as well was italian immigrant who was in the u.s. infantry, got two purple hearts and oak leaf cluster. my dad is was a gunner. torpedoed in world war ii and in the water for three
word, spring and summer do. life conquers death, that is the meaning of christmas. that is lovely. how when you watch television, you see all the commercials about get this stuff for everybody in your family. you got to have a lot of stuff. stuff is good. but at the same time, it s about the stuff in here. it is not the substance, i kind of like some of the stuff, too, i like turkey stuffing. so anyway, there is a lot of good stuff out there and sometimes i m tempted to get down with all of this flurry of buying and consumerism. but i think you know what? these people out shopping are buying stuff to give to others so that sharing being generous owe their heart is in the right place, too. but we do, and this is where our buddy, hope francis, comes in. he reminds us that the temptation of getting and buying and hoarding and accumulating is
mood, the tone, how different is it this christmas with this new pope? reporter: i think there s a definite sense of excitement and hope. thousands of people here have come to rome to celebrate with this hope francis. when i talk to people, there is a rel sense of optimism that change is coming to the church and that thing are really moving in the right direction. they ve taken to him. i spoke to one pilgrim who told me this is the people s pope is what they re saying. so they re definitely excited and excited to be sharing this particular celebration with him, as well. all right. lucky assignment there. i d love to be there. really wonderful. she gets all the wonderful gigs. merry christmas to you. tune in to live coverage of the pope s first ever of christmas mass 26:00 eastern only here on cnn. 200 miles above the aerts on board the international space station or more correctly just outside it. okay, guys, we re working on
rome. the vatican has been hoping israelis and palestinians can kick start talks again. that won t have been all on the schedule as we spoke this morning. i said i would have liked to be a fly on the wall in that conversation. yes, but that conversation only went on for 25 minutes. and from the list of topics they reportedly discussed, they could couldn t have the spent too time on any one in particular. in addition to the israeli-palestinian issue which seems sometimes beyond resolution, they also spoke about the recent agreement with iran on its nuclear program and, of course, we heard yesterday prime minister netanyahu when he made an address in rome s main be synagogue blasting that agreement yet again. not missing any opportunity to criticize it. they also though spoke about the upcoming visit by hope francis to the middle east. now, we understand it s going to
the obama administration hasn t fined or prosecuted any of the companies responsible. hope francis has a new car and is raising eyebrows. the car is a used 1984 renault 4 with nearly 190,000 miles on it. it s a hand me down from northern italian priest. the vatican says the pope who values simplicity jumped in the car and drove off just like any other person would. the time now is almost 10 minutes until the top of the hour. a man clings to a wall to avoid being swept away by a raging river. the most anticipated premiers of the season. we sat down with one of the cast of home land next.