A similar move is underway in the British Parliament. Earlier this month, more than 30 religious leaders and scholars wrote Secretary of State John Kerry asking for a meeting to discuss what's happening to Christians and other minorities. Nina Shea organized the effort.

Trump has always talked about how important in dealing with foreign leaders, how important it is to establish a good personal relationship very close to what Pope Francis says, so they may both really want to emphasize their development of a personal relationship.

Administration officials, in fact, have repeatedly condemned ISIS for its treatment of religious minorities, including Christians. But a bipartisan resolution now moving through Congress calls on the administration to go further and say ISIS is guilty of genocide.

The letter writers span the spectrum from left to right. Members say they don't want this to become a partisan political issue. In fact, there are reasons administration officials have been cautious in making a genocide declaration.

They don't want to feed an ISIS narrative that there is a religious war between Islam and the Christian West, plus genocide is carefully defined under international law.

And the pressure to clarify what exactly is happening to Christians and other minorities in the Middle East is certain to intensify in the New Year.

The collapse of the Soviet bloc ended the massive subsidies that had kept the Cuban economy afloat. The once-vaunted education and health care systems fell into disrepair. Fidel Castro's stubbornness, meanwhile, made political and economic change difficult in Cuba.