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So Habemas Papam and all that.
Everything I know about Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, now Pope Francis I, is decidedly second- or third-hand: he’s an Argentinian of Italian ethnic background (which must have been useful to his ambitions), considered “unwaveringly orthodox” on the hot-button sexual issues (though he has also been conspicuously charitable towards AIDS sufferers), and although personally abstemious and sympathetic to the social needs of the poor, has also been a conservative influence on his own Society of Jesus, which he now represents as their first Pope. He’s the first non-European Pope in about twelve centuries, and the first Pope ever from a place that was not at some point part of the Roman Empire. He’s also 76 years old, and reportedly finished a fairly strong second in the conclave that elected Benedict XVI.
You can read John Allen’s profile of him from the National Catholic Register for more details, or follow all the back-and-forth on Twitter, the Tube, and the blogosphere. My own Twitter prediction just before the announcement was that the 1% of features that distinguished the winner from other prelates would get 99 times more attention than the 99% that did not. We’ll see if I’m right.
But the initial reaction doesn’t seem all that earth-shaking (though it may well be so in South America, and among Jesuits or Jesuit-haters; the blog at the liberal American Jesuit magazine America might be a good place to watch for an interesting reaction). I doubt we’ll hear anything like punk rocker Patti Smith’s statement to an audience just after the election of the short-lived John Paul I: “We have a new Pope, and he’s okay.”
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max on March 13, 2013 3:54 PM:
I doubt we’ll hear anything like punk rocker Patti Smith’s statement to an audience just after the election of the short-lived John Paul I: “We have a new Pope, and he’s okay.”
I mostly concur, but since we were most likely going to get a conservative anyways, one who ministers to the poor and isn't from Europe and whatnot strikes me as (possibly) a distinct improvement over Benedict.
max
['Mostly my thinking was that we would want to avoid the worst.']
Lance on March 13, 2013 3:56 PM:
You can't be the 'First' until somebody is the second.
We don't talk King John 'The First' of England.
Strangely, I think Fox got it right and MSNBC wrong.
DJ on March 13, 2013 4:00 PM:
Well, normally the first person who takes a particular name doesn't use the "First." But Cardinal Luciani was announced as "Ioannes Paulus Primus." So there's that.
It'll become "Pope Francis" soon enough; it's shorter to write and say.
c u n d gulag on March 13, 2013 4:25 PM:
One can't help but wonder, since he's 76, did he fight for the rights of the people during some pretty brutal regimes, or did he turn a blind eye?
Since Pope Paul VI, the ability to turn a blind eye, both for the need to further modernize the church (after the DFH¡¯s in the Church made changes in the 1960¡äs), and to the child-schtuppers, and their bosses, the child-schtupper-shufflers in the last 3+ decades, is one of the main prerequisites for the damn job.
Well, this ancient Jesus-grifter IS 76, so, though I¡¯m sure he¡¯s not an advocate for modernization, at least he¡¯s probably too old to schtupp any children ¨C though ready and willing, and hoping he¡¯s able, to keep moving the child-schtuppers, and to keep the church as free from lawsuits from the child schtuppees and their parents, as possible.
I, for one, am glad it¡¯s finally over.
I got tired of ¡°Papal View¡± on TV, 24 X 7.
And I¡¯m still laughing that he chose the name Pope Francis, since I remember another talking jackass with the name Francis.
Maybe he's a closet Liberal, but I wouldn't bet a penny on it.
Sgt. Gym Bunny on March 13, 2013 4:28 PM:
Pope Francis or Pope Francis I, at least I won't have to decipher those pesky roman numerals. Anything above III, and I won't bother to figure it out. (Don't even ask me what number Super Bowl just passed. Haven't the foggiest...)
Brenda Johnson on March 13, 2013 4:34 PM:
I think the Jesuit blog is crashed.