Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s election as pope Wednesday has broken Europe’s centuries-old grip on the papacy, potentially opening the doors on a new age of simplicity and humility for the Roman Catholic Church, mired in intrigue and scandal.

New pope expected to bring fresh look to Church

JORGE MARIO BERGOGLIO of Argentina was elected in a surprise choice to be the new leader of the troubled Roman Catholic Church on Wednesday, taking the name Francis I and becoming the first non-European pontiff in nearly 1,300 years.

    Pope Francis, 76, appeared on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica just over an hour after white smoke poured from a chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel to signal 115 cardinal electors had chosen him to lead the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics.

    “Pray for me,” the new pontiff, dressed in the white robes of a pope for the first time, urged a crowd of tens of thousands of people waiting in the square below.

    The choice of Bergoglio, who is the first Latin American and first Jesuit pope, was announced by French cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran with the Latin words “Habemus Papam” [“We have a pope.”]

    Although a conservative theologically, Bergoglio is known for his concern for the poor and is expected to bring a radical change of style to the Church leadership, indicated by his choice for the first time of the name of St. Francis of Assisi, who died in 1226 after living a life of poverty and simplicity.

    Bergoglio shunned the papal limousine after his appearance on the balcony and chose to take a shuttle bus with other cardinals back to the Vatican residence where they are staying, for an evening meal.

    Bergoglio is known as a humble man who leads an austere and sober life without ostentation, traveling by public transport and living in a small apartment outside Buenos Aires.

    He is willing to challenge powerful interests and is deeply concerned about the social inequalities in Argentina and elsewhere in Latin America. He has had a sometimes difficult relationship with President Cristina Fernandez and her late husband and predecessor Nestor Kirchner.

    Jubilant Argentines poured into churches, some crying and praying, after the announcement at the Vatican. “This is a blessing for Argentina,” one woman shouted on a Buenos Aires street.

    The election was enthusiastically welcomed elsewhere in Latin America too.

    “We’re happy because we have a new pope and because the choice of a Latin American shows that the Church is opening, is now focused on the entire Church. It’s not just a church only focused on Europe,” said Leonardo Steiner, general secretary of the national conference of Brazilian bishops.

    The monks at the convent of St. Francis in Assisi were overjoyed at the election of Bergoglio and his decision to take the name Francis for a pontiff for the first time.

    “St. Francis still points to the path of humility and evangelical simplicity,” said the abbot, Father Mauro Gambetti.

    Bergoglio was born into a middle-class family of seven, his father an Italian immigrant railway worker and his mother a housewife.

    He is a solemn man, deeply attached to centuries-old Roman Catholic traditions as he showed by asking the crowd cheering his election to say the Our Father and Hail Mary prayers.

    Bergoglio is also a member of well-known Argentine soccer club San Lorenzo.

    In his rare public appearances, Bergoglio spares no harsh words for politicians and Argentine society.

    Bergoglio became a priest at 32, nearly a decade after losing a lung due to respiratory illness and quitting his chemistry studies. Despite his late start, he was leading the local Jesuit community within four years, holding the post of provincial of the Argentine Jesuits from 1973 to 1979.

    After six years as provincial, he held several academic posts and pursued further study in Germany. He was appointed auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires in 1992 and archbishop in 1998.

    Bergoglio’s career coincided with the bloody 1976-1983 military dictatorship, during which up to 30,000 suspected leftists were kidnapped and killed — which prompted sharp questions about his role.

    The most well-known episode relates to the abduction of two Jesuits whom the military government secretly jailed for their work in poor neighborhoods.

    According to “The Silence,” a book written by journalist Horacio Verbitsky, Bergoglio withdrew his order’s protection of the two men after they refused to quit visiting the slums, which ultimately paved the way for their capture.

    Verbitsky’s book is based on statements by Orlando Yorio, one of the kidnapped Jesuits, before he died of natural causes in 2000. Both of the abducted clergymen suffered five months of imprisonment.

    His actions during this period strained his relations with many brother Jesuits around the world, who tend to be more politically liberal.

    Those who defend Bergoglio say there is no proof behind these claims and, on the contrary, they say the priest helped many dissidents escape during the military junta’s rule.

    His brother bishops elected him president of the Argentine bishops conference for two terms from 2005 to 2011.

    In 2010, he challenged the Argentine Government when it backed a gay marriage bill. “Let’s not be naive. This isn’t a simple political fight, it’s an attempt to destroy God’s plan,” he wrote days before the bill was approved by Congress.

    Bergoglio has been close to the conservative Italian religious movement Communion and Liberation, which had the backing of Popes John Paul and Benedict as a way to revitalize faith among young people.

    As the new pope, Bergoglio is taking the helm at a time of great crisis, with morale among the faithful hit by a widespread child sex abuse scandal and infighting in the Vatican bureaucracy.

    His unexpected election answered some fundamental questions about the direction of the Church in the coming years.

    After more than a millennium of European leadership, the cardinal-electors looked to Latin America, where 42 percent of the world’s Catholics live. The continent is more focused on poverty and the rise of evangelical churches than questions of materialism and sexual abuse, which dominate in the West.

    They also chose a man with long pastoral experience, rather than an academic and Vatican insider like Benedict.

    “It seems that this pope will be more aware of what life is all about,” Italian theologian Massimo Faggioli said.

    (SD-Agencies)