Argentina's Bergoglio Elected As New Pope Francis

1 of 18. Newly elected Pope Francis, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina appears on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica after being elected by the conclave of cardinals, at the Vatican, March 13, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Dylan Martinez

By Philip Pullella and Barry Moody

VATICAN CITY |
Wed Mar 13, 2013 7:48pm EDT
 

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - 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.")

Francis has became the 266th pontiff in the Church's 2,000-year history at a time of great crisis, with the church under fire over a child sex abuse scandal and torn by infighting in the Vatican bureaucracy.

Although a conservative theologically, Francis 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.

He immediately showed the difference from his predecessor Benedict, an aloof theologian, with a gesture of humility, asking the waiting crowd to bless him before he blessed them.

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, travelling 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.

Francis has spoken out strongly against gay marriage, denouncing it in 2010 as "an attempt to destroy God's plan".

ARGENTINES JUBILANT

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.

"I hope he changes all the luxury that exists in the Vatican, that he steers the church in a more humble direction, something closer to the gospel," said Jorge Andres Lobato, a 73-year-old retired state prosecutor.
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.

Francis was not among the small group of front runners identified before the election. The Jesuit order to which he belongs was founded in the 16th century to serve the pope. It is best known for its work in education and the intellectual prowess of its members.

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.

Italian theologian Massimo Faggioli told Reuters: "I don't expect him to change on doctrine, but he is a more pastoral person. It seems that this pope will be more aware of what life is all about."

Faggioli, a professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, added: "He will have more room to make his message heard than Benedict did. The papacy needs to have an audience more open to listen to what the pope says. He is not an outsider. He didn't present himself as a reformer with hatchet in hand."
Bergoglio was born into a middle-class family of seven, his father an Italian immigrant railway worker and his mother a housewife.

Replacing Pope Benedict, who resigned last month, he overturned one of the main assumptions before the election, that the new pope would be relatively young.

Bergoglio is the oldest of most of the possible candidates and was barely mentioned in feverish speculation about the top contenders before the conclave.

He is the first non-European pope since Syrian-born Gregory III in the eighth century, and the third successive non-Italian pontiff.

The Vatican said his inaugural mass would be on March 19.
U.S. President Barack Obama said the election of Francis "speaks to the strength and vitality of a region that is increasingly shaping our world."

"PRAY FOR BENEDICT"

In brief remarks from the balcony of St. Peter's, Francis called on the faithful to pray for Benedict and said the Church was setting off on a "journey of fraternity, of love, of trust".

It seemed the cardinal electors "went to the end of the world" to find him, he said.

The Vatican said Francis would visit Benedict soon at his temporary home in the summer papal residence outside Rome.

Thousands of people sheltering from heavy rain under a sea of umbrellas had occupied the square all day to await the decision and the crowd swelled as soon as the white smoke emerged.

They cheered wildly and raced towards the basilica as the smoke billowed from a narrow makeshift chimney and St Peter's bells rang.

The tens of thousands in the square cheered even more loudly when Francis appeared, the first pontiff to take that name. "Viva il Papa (pope)," they chanted.

Front runners at the conclave had included Brazilian Odilo Scherer, and Italy's Angelo Scola, who would have returned the papacy to traditional Italian hands after 35 years of the German Benedict XVI and Polish John Paul II.

The decision by cardinal electors sequestered in a secret conclave in the Sistine Chapel came sooner than many experts expected because there were several front runners before the vote to replace Pope Benedict.
The cardinals faced a thorny task in finding a leader capable of overcoming crises caused by priestly child abuse and a leak of secret papal documents that uncovered corruption and rivalry inside the Church government or Curia.

Francis will head a Church also shaken by rivalry from other churches, the advance of secularism, especially in its European heartland, and allegations of scandal at the Vatican bank.

The series of crises is thought to have contributed to Benedict's decision to become the first pontiff in 600 years to abdicate.

RIVAL TO RATZINGER IN 2005

Bergoglio was a moderate rival candidate at the 2005 conclave to the conservative Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who went on to become Benedict.

Italian media say he impressed cardinals in pre-conclave meetings where they discussed the Church's problems.

Reserved and humble, Francis does not fit the profile of an active preacher that many cardinals had previously said they were seeking. He studied chemistry before joining the priesthood nearly a decade after losing a lung to respiratory illness.

The secret conclave began on Tuesday night with a first ballot and four ballots were held on Wednesday. Francis obtained the required two thirds majority in the fifth ballot.

The previous four popes were all elected within two or three days.

In preparatory meetings before the conclave, the cardinals seemed divided between those who believe the new pontiff must be a strong manager to get the dysfunctional bureaucracy under control and others who are looking more for a proven pastoral figure to revitalize their faith across the globe.

Apart from Brazil's Scherer and Italy's Scola, a host of other candidates from numerous nations had also been mentioned as potential popes - including U.S. cardinals Timothy Dolan and Sean O'Malley, Canada's Marc Ouellet and Argentina's Leonardo Sandri.

But the front runners' list never mentioned Bergoglio.

(Additional reporting by Naomi O'Leary, Catherine Hornby, Crispian Balmer and Tom Heneghan in Rome, Dave Graham in Mexico City, Ana Flor in Brasilia, Nicolas Misculin and Juliana Castilla in Buenos Aires; Writing by Barry Moody; Editing by Keith Weir, Alastair Macdonald and Giles Elgood)

Frail Pope, in a Break With Tradition, Says He Will Resign

*Source: The New York Times

• 

VATICAN CITY — The decision, delivered in Latin and in unemotional tones by Pope Benedict XVI to a gathering of cardinals on Monday, came “like a bolt out of the blue,” one of the participants said, and it soon ricocheted around the world.

During what was supposed to be a routine meeting to discuss the canonization of three potential saints, Benedict read a statement that said, in part, that after examining his conscience “before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise” of leading the world’s one billion Roman Catholics. He was resigning on Feb. 28, he said, becoming the first pope to do so in six centuries. 

“In today’s world,” Benedict said in his announcement, “subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of St. Peter and proclaim the gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.” 

Within minutes, #Pontifexit was trending on Twitter. Later, during an evening thunderstorm, a lightning bolt struck the dome of St. Peter’s, though the meaning, if any, was not immediately clear.

In recent months, Benedict, 85, had been showing signs of age. He often seemed tired and even appeared to doze off during Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, after being taken to the altar of Saint Peter’s on a wheeled platform. But few expected the pope to resign so suddenly, even though he had said in the past that he would consider the option. 

“The pope took us by surprise,” said the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, expounding on one of the most dramatic moments in centuries of Vatican history. He appeared at a hastily called news conference on Monday, where he sat alone at a table, with an unopened bottle of mineral water and a dog-eared copy of a Canon Law guide before him. 

Father Lombardi said the pope did not display strong emotions as he made his announcement, but spoke with “great dignity, great concentration and great understanding of the significance of the moment.”

In a statement, President Obama recalled meeting with Benedict in 2009. “I have appreciated our work together over these last four years,” the president said. “The church plays a critical role in the United States and the world, and I wish the best to those who will soon gather to choose His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI’s successor.” 

Prime Minister Mario Monti of Italy called Benedict’s decision “immense and unexpected.”

More than a few observers were struck that such a traditionalist as Benedict would make such an unconventional exit. “A departure that is paradoxically modern for a pope who was so conservative,” said Christian Terras, the founder and executive editor of Golias, a religious review near Lyon, France, that has been critical of the Catholic Church. 

Some said that Benedict’s decision to step down was one of the most dramatic acts in the history of the papacy. “This decision has been the only great reform of Benedict, and at the same time it is a revolutionary step for the Catholic Church,” said Marco Politi, a Vatican expert and author of a book on Benedict’s papacy. While in past centuries, popes had stepped down over political struggles, Mr. Politi said, “this is a clear decision and a free decision made by the pope that will set an example also for the future, setting a limit for the pontificate.” 

Benedict’s 89-year-old brother, the Rev. Georg Ratzinger, said that the pope’s weakening health had led him to step down. “His age was taking its toll,” Father Ratzinger told the German news agency dpa on Monday, adding that he had been aware of his brother’s plan for several months. 

That the resignation was long in the planning was confirmed by Giovanni Maria Vian, the editor of the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, who wrote on Monday that the pope’s decision “was taken many months ago,” after his trip to Mexico and Cuba in March 2012, “and kept with a reserve that no one could violate.”  

Father Lombardi said that the pope would retire first to his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, in the hills outside Rome, and later to a monastery in Vatican City. 

Benedict, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was elected on April 19, 2005. At the time, Benedict was a popular choice within the college of 115 cardinals who chose him as a man who shared — and at times went beyond — the conservative theology of his predecessor and mentor, John Paul II, and seemed ready to take over the job after serving beside him for more than two decades. 

The church’s 265th pope, Benedict was the first German to hold the title in half a millennium, and his election was a milestone toward Germany’s spiritual renewal 60 years after World War II and the Holocaust. At 78, he was also the oldest pope to be elected since 1730. 

But Benedict was seen as a weak manager, and his papacy was troubled by debilitating scandals, most recently “Vatileaks,” in which his butler was convicted by a Vatican court in October of aggravated theft after he admitted stealing confidential documents, many of which wound up in a tell-all book that showed behind-the-scenes Vatican intrigue. 

Benedict “centered his papacy on giving faith to Christians, focusing on the essence of what it means to be a Christian, and he managed to do it in spite of the fact that his communicative capacities weren’t so brilliant,” Sandro Magister, a Vatican expert, said. “Most common people, I don’t mean intellectuals, saw him as a disinterested man who spent all his life for a high cause, which was to revive the faith.” 

At first blush, criticism was muted for a pope with a controversial term, marred by child-abuse scandals and growing discord over conservative stances on issues like divorce and women in the clergy. 

Hans Küng, a theologian and former colleague of Benedict’s who is now one of his most articulate critics, called his decision to step down “understandable for many reasons,” according to the dpa news service, but added that so many conservative cardinals had been named during his tenure, it would be difficult to find someone “who could lead the church out of its multifaceted crisis.” 

The strongest criticism came from the victims of clerical sexual abuse, who faulted Benedict for failing to take stronger steps or, in some eyes, any steps at all. 

“This pope had a great opportunity to finally address the decades of abuse in the church, but at the end of the day he did nothing but promise everything and in the end he ultimately delivered nothing,” John Kelly, of the support group Survivors of Child Abuse, told Agence France-Presse. 

Tom Cronin of Irish Survivors of Institutional Abuse International said that while age and infirmity were given as reasons for the pope’s resignation, he believed the ongoing clerical abuse scandal had played a part.

“I don’t think he has been able to deal with it, and it was probably the straw that broke his back,” Mr. Cronin said. “Every day we still get revelations about this priest or that bishop, and maybe he wasn’t young enough to confront it and perhaps, too, he hasn’t been getting the right advice. Whatever the reason, the church hierarchy just hasn’t faced up to the atrocities and their denials and inaction continue to damage them.”In Rome, where souvenir shops often carry more postcards of John Paul than of Benedict, news of Benedict’s resignation was met with surprise and some sadness. “Anyone could tell that he was old and sick, and that such a complicated situation like the one he has to face is a lot, but I had never heard that a pope could quit,” said Simonetta Piersanti, 52, a cleaning woman in a residence run by nuns. 

She mentioned a common Roman saying, “When a pope dies, they just elect another,” which captures the lack of excitement with which Italians greet historic events. “We’ll have to do it even without the death part,” she added.

Priest Claims Schoolgirl Emanuela Orlandi Was Kidnapped For Vatican Sex Parties.

*Source: Belfast Telegraph

Italian teenager Emanuela Orlandi is believed to have been kidnapped after a music lesson in Rome on June 22, 1983 when she was 15 (AP)

A Catholic priest has claimed a missing schoolgirl was kidnapped for Vatican sex parties and has implicated diplomatic staff and members of the Holy See.

Italian priest Gabriel Amorth, 85, said girls were recruited for parties at the Vatican and said the death of 15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi, last seen alive in 1983, “was a crime with a sexual motive”.

The priest spoke out last week as investigators broke into the grave of a known gang boss in Rome following an anonymous tip that the key to Emanuala’s disappearance would be “found there”.

But so far bones which do not belong to mobster Enrico De Pedis, have not be positively identified as the girl’s.

In an interview with La Stampa newspaper, Father Amorth said: “It has already previously been stated by (deceased) monsignor Simeone Duca, an archivist at the Vatican, who was asked to recruit girls for parties with the help of the Vatican gendarmes.

"The network involved diplomatic personnel from a foreign embassy to the Holy See. I believe Emanuela ended up a victim of this circle,"

Father Gabriele Amorth was appointed by the late John Paul II as the Vatican's chief exorcist.

Emanuela Orlandi disappeared after leaving her family's Vatican City apartment to go to a music lesson in Rome. Her father was a lay employee of the Holy See.

Four years ago, Italian news reports quoted the dead mobster's former lover as telling Rome prosecutors that criminals from the city's crime syndicate, known as the Magliana gang, had kidnapped the girl and had her body dumped in a cement mixer near a beach outside the capital.