Welcome Pope Francis

Good day all. As I was writing yesterday’s post, a column of white smoke was seen rising above the Vatican announcing the appointment of a new pope for the Catholic Church. Soon after the smoke was spotted, the new pope, formally Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergligoo of Argentina appeared and became known as Pope Francis.

Unusually, the previous Pope, Benedict XVI, stepped down from the papacy. This is the first time this has happened in 600 years. Normally, when someone assumes the papacy, it’s for life. Pope Benedict XVI announced that he was physically unable to continue in office and rather then leave the church uncertain about his mental and physical health, announced he would step down. This allowed for a far more orderly transition then is usually the case.

Once Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation took affect, the normal process began to elect a new pope. All the cardinals came to Rome for the conclave, and after 5 ballots, the selection was made. Most people were a bit surprised at the choice of Cardinal Bergligoo, but it seems that he was the second choice for Pope when Benedict XVI was selected.

Now that Cardinal Bergligoo has become Pope Francis, what do we know about him? He is Argentinian, a Jesuit ((Society of Jesus)), and apparently a real pain in the neck to Argentinian President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner ((Cristina Fernández de Kirchner)). Here are a few details from the Guardian.

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who has become the Catholic church’s 266th pope, is the choice of humility, a Jesuit intellectual who travels by bus and has a practical approach to poverty: when he was appointed a cardinal, Bergoglio persuaded hundreds of Argentinians not to fly to Rome to celebrate with him but instead to give the money they would have spent on plane tickets to the poor.

Everything I’ve read about Pope Francis is that he takes the vow of poverty to heart. Once he ascended to the papacy he went to his hotel to check out and pick up his luggage. From Reuters:

Earlier, Pope Francis had quietly slipped out of the Vatican to pray for guidance at one of Rome’s great basilicas before returning briefly to a Rome hostel, where he had left his bags before entering the secret conclave on Tuesday.

Francis, who has a reputation for frugality and an understated lifestyle, insisted on paying the bill. “He was concerned about giving a good example of what priests and bishops should do,” a Vatican spokesman said.

To say he gave his security team a combination heart attack and stroke would be a bit of an understatement. I suspect they went bughouse nuts when they found out he had slipped out to go get his bags, pay his bill and stop at one of Rome’s Basilica’s to pray for guidance. As I mentioned earlier, as a Cardinal in Argentina, he annoyed the current and previous Presidential administrations. Back to the Guardian:

In 2009 Bergoglio made headlines when he criticised the government of Néstor Kirchner, husband of current Argentinian president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, claiming it was “immoral, illegitimate and unjust” to allow inequality in the country to grow. “Rather than preventing that, it seems they have opted for making inequalities even greater,” he said. “Human rights are not only violated by terrorism, repression or assassination, but also by unfair economic structures that creates huge inequalities,” he said at the time.

A shrinking violet he is not. As you might expect the usual suspects began their hit pieces on the new Pope. Here’s a little gem from the Democrat Party’s original propaganda organization, NPR:

While the new pontiff is not without some political baggage, including questions over his role during a military dictatorship in Argentina in the 1970s, the selection of the 76-year-old Bergoglio reflected a series of history-making decisions by fellow cardinals who seemed determined to offer a suggestion of renewal to a church under pressures on many fronts.

In case you aren’t aware, in the 70’s, Argentina was under the dictatorial rule of a military junta and they were engaged in the usual oppressions and murders of dissenters. Now why would NPR say this? Simple, really. He isn’t a screaming communist. Pope Francis does not support gay marriage, (or homosexuality), Liberation theology, women priests and all the other garbage we have come to expect from the Progressive Liberal Democrats. Interestingly, I suspect most of them aren’t even Catholics, lapsed or practicing.

Pope Francis is 75 years old and has only one lung. (The other was removed when he was a teenager due to an illness). There has been some concern about his age and general health, but it seems he is in good shape. Now, for some due diligence. I am Catholic, although the last time I was in a church was for my late father’s funeral. Still, this is a rather important event. After all, Pope John-Paul II was one of three people who collapsed the Soviet Union without firing a shot. We all wish Pope Francis a successful Papacy.

Thatisall

~The Angry Webmaster~

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