i planned on staying late to witness the white
smoke from the sistine chapel, which of course signifies that the world’s 1.2
billion catholics have a new pope. but of course, that didn’t happen. i fell
asleep and around 5:30 am today, i woke up to the news that a cardinal from
buenos aires had been elected to become the 266th pope. clips of the
“habemus papam” announcement and interviews with priests and scholars of the
religion were shown in both cnn and bbc.
jorge mario cardinal bergoglio, the archbishop of
buenos aires, is the new vicar of christ. he chose the name francis, in honor
of st. francis of assisi. he’s the first non-european pope since st. gregory
iii who reigned from 731 to 741. a native of buenos aires, pope francis is a
son of italian immigrants. according to sources, the then cardinal bergoglio
actually garnered the second highest vote in the 2005 papal conclave which
elected cardinal ratzinger as pope benedict xvi.
a moderate conservative, pope francis is seen as a
humble and media-shy personality, who shunned living in an archbishop’s palace
and having a chauffeur. he is said to have always traveled by bus and cooks for
himself. seeing him on tv, he seems to have that fatherly gaze, looks very
gentle and kind. pope francis would of course need to deal with scandals and
abuses by the members of the clergy, and the subsequent cover ups, which
undermined the entire institution. many have said that this is one of the very
reasons why a huge chunk of the population in many countries are moving to
evangelic churches. some even say that the church’s older than medieval ages
doctrine are out of touch in today’s modern world.
while i agree that the church would have benefited
from a more charismatic and evangelical pope, the election of pope francis
allows for a head-on tackling of critical issues, as well as some sort of house
cleaning in the roman curia. considered an outsider, pope francis seems
unlikely to turn away from dealing with sensitive topics. viva il papa.
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