Pope Celebrates Mass With Cardinals; Carnival Passengers Wait To Go Home
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to AROUND THE WORLD. I'm Suzanne Malveaux in D.C. today. Hey, Michael, good to see you, as always.</s>MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Good to see you, Suzanne. Looking lovely there in D.C. I'm Michael Holmes. We'd like to welcome our viewers both here in the United States, also around the world. We're going to begin in St. Maarten, which is in the Caribbean.</s>MALVEAUX: That is where a Carnival Dream ship is stuck at port, just a month after the Carnival Triumph ship was crippled at sea. Toilets are now backing up, overflowing. Miserable conditions caused by electrical problems. But these passengers much luckier than Triumph passengers were. We're going to tell you why up ahead.</s>HOLMES: President Obama is on Capitol Hill for a third straight day trying to reach a deal with the Republicans on the budget and the deficit. We're going to tell you who he's talking to today and if there's any real chance the two sides could reach a deal.</s>MALVEAUX: This is Baghdad. Smoke rising over the skyline today. Four explosions all went off about the same time. At least 18 people were killed. More than 50 others wounded. All the bombs went off near the fortified green zone. That is in central Baghdad. At least one of them was a suicide attack. No word yet on who is responsible. And it's his first full day on the job. If it isn't exciting enough, billions of people are watching his every move.</s>HOLMES: Yes, that's right. The newly elected Pope Francis is saying mass actually this hour right now in the Sistine Chapel. He takes the helm of the roman catholic church, of course, during a tumultuous time. In recent years, the church rocked by sex abuse scandals, claims of corruption and mismanagement and infighting among the church hierarchy, it's a long list.</s>MALVEAUX: But, of course, before he deals with all the problems, Pope Francis, who's beginning his time at the Vatican with prayers. He is celebrating mass with the cardinals who elected him.</s>HOLMES: Yes. Let's bring in Miguel Marquez and CNN's senior Vatican analyst John Allen. Miguel, let's begin with you. Some new details today about Pope Francis. People already expressing some concerns about his health. Not everybody knew this.</s>MIGUEL MARQUES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, it turns out in the Vatican -- this was out there already, but the Vatican has confirmed it, that he had a piece of his lung -- one of his lungs removed some years ago. But there's not a huge level of concern being expressed by the Vatican, saying he's lived with this condition for some time and his health seems to be fine.</s>MALVEAUX: Miguel, we know that the pope is known for his humility. I want you to listen. This is what Cardinal Timothy Dolan told us earlier.</s>CARDINAL TIMOTHY DOLAN, NEW YORK: Even though he's kind of shy and humble, as you've already seen, he radiates an interior strength and energy. And it's already clear to me that he's got a great sense of the power symbol (ph). Can I give you a couple of --</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please.</s>DOLAN: He -- when he came out after getting his white on, you know, so he comes out from that little dressing room and we all applaud again to see -- he's supposed to go up these steps onto a platform and sit on the white throne and then we're each supposed to come to him and kneel in front of him to give him our love and our loyalty. So as the attendants began to take him by the arm to go up there, he just said, no, I'm going to stay down here and greet each of my brothers. Now that's a powerful sign literally on our level.</s>MALVEAUX: And, Miguel, I understand he took the bus as well. There are a lot of things that are very appealing about this pope. Do we get a sense, however, because he is so traditional, that there will be major reform within the church?</s>MARQUEZ: Yes, I do not sense that there's going to be major changes. I mean he said -- he does seem like a very humble guy. He seems like a guy with a very good sense of humor. I certainly got that sense from him even in his massive outpouring last night in his first public appearance as pope. But this is not somebody who is going to embrace gay marriage or adoption by gay parents or female priests, even conception. That was an issue for him in Buenos Aires in Argentina. So I don't think we're going to see major doctrinal changes like that out of this pope, although he will probably, it seems, at least from his first few days -- or his first day in the position so far, he's going to re-focus the position of the church, at least on issues of the poor.</s>HOLMES: Yes, and that -- and I want to bring in John Allen, soon, too. But, Miguel, let's stand by. We said this mass is underway and want to give people a bit of a sense of the flavor, the atmosphere. Let's listen for a moment. Miguel Marquez and John Allen standing by there in Vatican City. You know, I understand John's having trouble hearing us so I'll put this question to you, Miguel. You know, these days the pope really needs to be part saint and part MBA to operate as a successful pontiff. He's very much a pastoral (ph), this man, not a bureaucrat. Is it a sense that he has the chops for reform? And just as importantly, to battle the internal politics?</s>MARQUEZ: Yes. I think, John, are you hearing that question? I mean he's talking about the internal politics and does this -- does this pope have --</s>JOHN ALLEN, CNN SENIOR VATICAN ANALYST: Does he have the steel and the spine to pull it off? Listen, Michael, I will tell you, that is the central question. And I think there is no doubt that the 114 cardinals who elected Pope Francis wanted a reformer. They want someone who can get his hands around the bureaucracy of the Vatican and shake the place up. Part of the reason -- part of his appeal was that he's an outsider to that environment. Never worked in the Vatican a day in his life. He has run a conquest institution in the archdiocese of Sal Palo in Argentina. But I think, in a way, this is a roll of the dice. I mean they have taken someone who is an outsider to this environment, who does not know where the bodies are buried, and, of course, is 76 years old and they're hoping that that's going to be the guy who is going to bring a new broom in and sweep clean. I think it's going to remain to be seen how well that's going to play out. I will say that although we've only seen five minutes really of the pope in public last night, he is certainly off to a promising start, particularly with the choice of his name, the name Francis, that in the catholic imagination in an instant, in a flash, summons images of a different kind of church. Humbler, simpler and closer to the poor. That's the idea. If that becomes his program of governance, if that becomes his style of business management, Michael, we could be in for some very interesting days ahead.</s>HOLMES: He certainly started off in a humble way, as we were saying, catching the bus today instead of a papal vehicle and all the rest. John Allen, our senior Vatican analyst. Miguel Marquez. Thanks so much to both of you.</s>MALVEAUX: Now to the Caribbean island of St. Maarten. This is where thousands of folks of Carnival Cruise ship passengers, they are waiting to be flown back home. It was just a month after Carnival's Triumph ship lost power, stranding passengers in just horrible conditions. The Carnival Dream cruise, it also got stuck. The boat's emergency generator has failed, preventing the boat from leaving port in St. Maarten. Now, passengers, they're going to be flown back to Florida, but they have been on the boat now for hours. Some pretty bad conditions.</s>GREGG STARK, CARNIVAL DREAM PASSENGER (voice-over): The bathrooms are not working. They're backing up. There's human waste all over the floor in some of the bathrooms. We spoke to somebody at the front desk and asked them if we could just disembark the ship and go stay at a hotel and then, you know, provide our own transportation back home and they would not allow us to do that.</s>HOLMES: Cristina Puig is at Carnival Cruise headquarters in Miami. Cristina, Carnival flying them back to Orlando, we hear. There's worse places to be stuck than St. Maarten. Are they being allowed off the boat right now?</s>CRISTINA PUIG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're not allowed off the boat just yet. This has become -- this Carnival Dream cruise has become another nightmare for the cruise line. As you mentioned, after what happened with the Triumph just barely a month ago. We're not quite sure how many passengers are on the ship. They say they can carry as many as 5,000 passengers. But what we do know is that Carnival released a statement regarding the transfer of passengers. They say that they're flying all passengers home on charter flights to Florida. They're giving passengers a three-day refund, plus 50 percent off future cruises. Also, they announced the cancellation of the next scheduled cruise that was scheduled to leave this Saturday from Port Canaveral. They too will receive 25 percent discount additionally to that cruise that they were supposed to take. Now, that's the information that they're releasing right now, although they do say that the ship is fully operational.</s>MALVEAUX: Huh. Cristina, can you tell us why it was they didn't allow the passengers off the boat after the generator first went down? We saw in the last go-round that at least for the other one, Triumph, that they were on that ship for about a week or so.</s>PUIG: That's right, Suzanne. This boat happened -- this ship happened to be at dock in St. Maarten. And the reason Carnival is saying that they didn't allow any of the passengers to get off because they were on the last leg of the ship and they feared that some of the passengers might be left behind and therefore complicating matters to get them back here stateside. Suzanne.</s>HOLMES: Yes, and, of course, no one forgets those images just a month ago with that Carnival Triumph stuck, as Suzanne said, at sea for almost a week. You know, you've got to imagine, it's all about perception in that industry, that's for sure. What kind of PR hit is the cruise line taking?</s>PUIG: Well, this is certainly not boding well for the cruise line. They just announced, as a matter of fact, two days ago that they were going to do a complete revision overhaul of its 23 cruise ships. So obviously there is something happening there and they're trying to be proactive now in order to avoid something like this from happening again.</s>HOLMES: All right. Appreciate that. Thanks so much for being with us and updating us on all this. What a story, I've got to say.</s>MALVEAUX: Michael, do you take cruises? Do you like --</s>HOLMES: No, I've never been on one. Never. And</s>I -- MALVEAUX: I've been on one and I'll never do it again. I'm not a big cruise person.</s>HOLMES: I don't think I'm in a hurry now.</s>MALVEAUX: I'm telling you, enough nightmare stories about this. Stay on land. Stay dry.</s>HOLMES: Exactly.</s>MALVEAUX: It's a good place to be. Here's more of what we're working on for AROUND THE WORLD. First, kids as young as eight delivering bombs in Pakistan. Doing it for as little as $25.</s>HOLMES: Extraordinary story. Also this. Venezuela's acting president wanted to put Hugo Chavez's body on permanent display, but they forgot some crucial steps that would make that possible.</s>MALVEAUX: And rhinos killed for their horns. Now U.S. special forces are getting involved to save them. That is right. Green beret and retired Navy SEALs on the hunt for poachers.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Team leader. We're not afraid to go after the --