pope francis

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 266^th 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.