VATICAN CITY - From "the end of the earth,"
the Catholic Church found a surprising new leader Wednesday, a pioneer pope
from Argentina who took the name Francis, a pastor rather than a manager to
resurrect a church and faith in crisis. He is the first pontiff from the New
World and the first non-European since the Middle Ages.
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos
Aires who has spent nearly his entire career in Argentina, was a fast and
fitting choice for the most unpredictable papal succession - start to finish -
in at least six centuries.
He is the first pope from the Americas, the first Jesuit and
the first named Francis, after St. Francis of Assisi, the humble friar who
dedicated his life to helping the poor. The last non-European pope was Syria's
Gregory III from 731-41.
"You know that the work of the conclave is to give a
bishop to Rome," the new pontiff said as he waved shyly to the tens of
thousands who braved a cold rain in St. Peter's Square. "It seems as if my
brother cardinals went to find him from the end of the earth, but here we are.
Thank you for the welcome."
The 76-year-old Bergoglio, said to have finished second when
Pope Benedict XVI was elected in 2005, was chosen on just the fifth ballot to
replace the first pontiff to resign in 600 years. In the past century, only
Benedict, John Paul I in 1978 and Pius XII in 1939 were faster.
Francis' election elated Latin Americans, who number 40
percent of the world's Catholics but have long been underrepresented in the church
leadership. On Wednesday, drivers honked their horns in the streets of Buenos
Aires and television announcers screamed with elation at the news.
"It's a huge gift for all of Latin America. We waited
20 centuries. It was worth the wait," said Jose Antonio Cruz, a Franciscan
friar at the St. Francis of Assisi church in the colonial Old San Juan district
in Puerto Rico. "Everyone from Canada down to Patagonia is going to feel
blessed."
The new pontiff brings a common touch. The son of
middle-class Italian immigrants, he denied himself the luxuries that previous
cardinals in Buenos Aires enjoyed. He lived in a simple apartment, often rode
the bus to work, cooked his own meals and regularly visited slums that ring
Argentina's capital.
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