The choice, on the second day of deliberations by a papal conclave, opened a direct connection to the Southern Hemisphere at a critical juncture when secularism and competing faiths are depleting the church’s ranks around the world and dysfunction is eroding its authority in Rome.
“The duty of the conclave was to appoint a bishop of Rome,” said Bergoglio, 76, who took the name Francis, the first pope in history to do so. “And it seems to me that my brother cardinals went to fetch him at the end of the world. But here I am.”
Bergoglio is widely believed to
have been the runner-up in the 2005 conclave, which yielded Francis’s predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. Last month, Benedict became the first pope in nearly 600 years to resign.
Shortly after his election, Francis called Benedict, now known as pope emeritus, with whom he will meet in the coming days. As the third non-Italian pope after the Polish John Paul II and the German Benedict, Francis seems to have ended the era of Italian dominance of the papacy.
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Francis, who will be officially installed in a Mass on Tuesday, is a pope of firsts. He chose a name never before used in the church’s 2,000 -year history, signaling to Vatican analysts that he wants a new beginning for the faith.
“It’s a genius move,” Marco Politi, a papal biographer and veteran Vatican watcher, said of the choice of Bergoglio. “It’s a non-Italian, non-European, not a man of the Roman government. It’s an opening to the Third World, a moderate. By taking the name Francis, it means a completely new beginning.”
“It’s highly significant for what Francis means,” said Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi, referring to Saint Francis of Assisi, who was known for his total vow of poverty. “It means that he is here to serve.”
Lombardi added that after weeks of focus on a Vatican scandal over the leaking of papal letters, and on talk about who exercises power and authority in the church, the selection of the humble Jesuit, who used to take the bus and cook for himself, amounted to a “refusal of power” and “was absolutely radical.”
But for many, it was Bergoglio’s hemisphere of origin, home to the largest percentage of Catholics in the world, that was potentially the most important “first” for the future of the church.
“We know how longed-for this was by the Catholics in Latin America,” said Lombardi. “This is a great response to this anticipation.”
That reaction was palpable in St. Peter’s Square as Bergoglio, after being introduced with an announcement of “habemus papam” (we have a pope), walked through crimson curtains and onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to address the crowed, which greeted him with cheers of “Viva il papa!”
Clad in white and surrounded by scarlet-clad cardinals, he looked over a stately book and blessed the faithful below him. Then, in a gesture that many interpreted as a greater embrace of dialogue, he asked the crowd to “pray for me, and we’ll see each other soon.” Finally, with avuncular simplicity, he bid the crowd, “Good night, and have a good rest.” washingtonpost
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