Jorge Mario Bergoglio, as the new pope shifted the gravity of the Roman Catholic Church from Europe to Latin America in one fell swoop, and served as an emphatic salute to the growing power of Latinos across the Americas.
At a cathedral in São Paulo, Brazil, parishioners took communion on Wednesday.
The new pope took the name Francis and is the 266th pontiff of the
church. He is the first pope from Latin America, and the first member of
the Jesuit order to lead the church.
“I would like to thank you for your embrace,” the new pope, dressed in
white, said in Italian from the balcony on St. Peter’s Basilica as
thousands cheered joyously below. “My brother cardinals have chosen one
who is from far away, but here I am.”
The selection electrified Latinos from Los Angeles to Buenos Aires, and
raised the hopes especially of those in Latin America, where 4 of every
10 of the world’s Catholics now live.
But the choice also may provide a strategic boost to the church in the
United States, where its following would have lost ground in recent
decades were it not for the influx of Latino immigrants, who have
increasingly asserted themselves as a cultural and political force, and
played a critical role in President Obama’s re-election.
The significance of the choice was not lost on church leaders. “It’s
been more than 500 years since the first evangelization, and this is the
first time that there is a pope from Latin America,” said Archbishop
Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, who is originally from Mexico.
“It’s a huge role that we never had before,” he said.
The new pope, known for his simple, pastoral ways and his connection to
the poor, is in some ways a contrast to his predecessor, Benedict XVI,
an aloof theologian who resigned the office — the first pope to do so in
598 years — saying he no longer felt up to the rigors of the job.
But Francis shares Benedict’s core doctrinal positions and is not
considered likely to push changes in positions like the church’s ban on
the ordination of women as priests or its strict opposition to abortion
and gay marriage.
The choice of Francis, who is 76, also defied some predictions that the
115 cardinals would opt for a young pope who could energize the church
at a time when it faces a shortage of priests, growing competition from
evangelical churches in the Southern Hemisphere, a sexual abuse crisis
that has undermined the church’s moral authority in the West and
difficulties governing the Vatican itself.
Pope Francis spoke by telephone with Benedict, now known as pope
emeritus, on Wednesday evening, said a Vatican spokesman, the Rev.
Federico Lombardi. He called it, “an act of great significance and
pastorality” that Francis’ first act as pope was to offer a prayer for
his predecessor.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York told reporters he had heard that
Francis would visit Benedict soon, although the Vatican did not include
the visit on the new pope’s schedule for this week. Italian news media
reported that the visit would take place in the next few days and would
be televised.
Mr. Obama was among the first world leaders to congratulate Francis in a
message that emphasized the pope’s humble roots and New World origins.
“As the first pope from the Americas,” the president said, “his
selection also speaks to the strength and vitality of a region that is
increasingly shaping our world, and alongside millions of Hispanic
Americans, those of us in the United States share the joy of this
historic day.”
The cardinals could have chosen a pope from a country in Africa or Asia
where Catholic converts are plentiful and the church is vibrant.
Instead, they selected a cardinal from Argentina, to the surprise of even those who had hoped for a non-European.
“An Argentine! I can’t believe it,” said Gaston Aquino, a seminarian
from Argentina standing in the packed crowd in St. Peter’s Square in
Rome as the name of the new pope was announced from the balcony above.
“Bergoglio, pope!” he marveled. “I think it will mean great joy” for
Argentina.
Catholics in the United States are holding steady at about a quarter of
the population, and about one-third of those are Latinos. In Latin
America, the church is confronting many of the same cultural and
political battles as it is in Europe and the United States: a rise in
acceptance of gay relationships, abortion and birth control, and a
growing tide of people abandoning the church and professing no religion.
The Rev. Luis Calero, a Jesuit priest and professor of anthropology at
Santa Clara University in California who studies the church in Central
and South America said: “A lot of Catholics are leaving the Catholic
church in Latin America to go to evangelical and Pentecostal churches.
They no longer find a home in Catholic Christianity.
“Going to a traditional parish is no longer fulfilling to them because
the parish is impersonal,” he said. “It tends to not have a sense of
community that is uplifting.”
Father Calero said the next pope might be able to turn the situation
around if he could respond to what he said were the most pressing
problems: poverty, pluralism and the shortage of priests because of the
church’s requirement of clerical celibacy.
The choice of Cardinal Bergoglio at least initially appeared to be
celebrated across the continent. There had been faint hope in Mexico
that the next pope would be Cardinal José Francisco Robles Ortega, the
archbishop of Guadalajara, who was mentioned in Italian newspapers in
the past week as a candidate gaining steam.
But many Mexican were joyous nonetheless, with newspapers playing up the
historical turn of a Latin American assuming the throne of Peter.
“It fills us with joy because he is close to the Latin American people,”
Msgr. Eugenio Lira, the secretary general of the Mexican Conference of
Bishops, told reporters. “He could be sensitive to economic conditions
and the suffering, joys and hope of people in these lands.”
The choice also points to challenges faced by the church in some parts
of Latin America, like Portuguese-speaking Brazil, the country with the
world’s largest concentration of Catholics, where evangelical churches
have made big inroads in recent decades. In Argentina itself, a nation
historically seen as more Europeanized than its neighbors, the church is
grappling with a declining number of Catholics who regularly attend
mass.
Cardinal Dolan said in an interview after the conclave that “Catholic is
part of their DNA” in Argentina. With Cardinal Bergoglio as pope, he
said, “think of the electricity that is going to send.”
But he said that country of origin was not the main factor for the cardinals who elected him.
“Most cardinals just want to choose the right man,” he said. The pope
should be a good pastor, governor and communicator. “He fills those
bills. Where he comes from is gravy. And we’ve got a lot of good gravy.”
Enrique Krauze, a Mexican historian and political analyst, said there
would be an expectation in Latin America for a pope from the region to
promote democracy and human rights.
“If the church plays a role in favor of democracy and human rights as it
played in Chile during the Pinochet regime, then the pope will be a
factor in civic progress in these countries,” he said. “If the church
takes up the banner of freedom it would be a great benefit in this
continent that is the reservoir of Catholicism in the world.”
Outside St. Matthew Catholic School in West Phoenix, where she had gone
to pick up her children, Deana Silva, 27, said, “I didn’t really connect
with the other pope,” but “Papa Francisco,” or Pope Francis, “is
different.” He is “more like us, you know, Latino,” Ms. Silva said.
Her mother, Donna Reyes, 46, said she was “very excited.” “We had been
watching and waiting,” said Ms. Reyes, whose parents were immigrants
from Mexico. “There are a lot of us Latinos in the Catholic Church. It
was nice that the Church finally recognized it.”
As the children lined up to leave school, someone said a prayer and made
an announcement about Lent over the loudspeakers, then, in Spanish,
greeted the new pope, “el primer Papa de las Americas,” the first pope
from the Americas.
culled from www.newyorktimes.com
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