ROME — The surprise
selection on Wednesday of an Argentine, Cardinal 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.
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 fromArgentina, 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.
Reporting was contributed by Rachel Donadio, Gaia Pianigiani and Daniel J. Wakin from Vatican City; Elisabetta Povoledo from Rome; Jennifer Medina from Los Angeles; Fernanda Santos from Phoenix; and Randal C. Archibold from Mexico City.
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