We have a Pope! With these simple Latin words
the Proto Deacon, French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran last week, emerged on the
balcony outside the Papal apartments and announced to a crowd of over 100,000 in
St. Peter’s Square and billions more watching on television, that the Roman
Catholic Church of 1.2 billion souls had a new leader and his name was
Francis.
Pope Francis was Cardinal Arch Bishop of Buenos
Aries Argentina Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a humble Jesuit who is the first Pontiff
from the “new world”, the first Jesuit to be Pope, the first to take the name
of St. Francis of Assisi, and the first Pope in over a thousand years not to
come from Europe.
By all accounts he is a man devoted to the poor
who actually works with them and does not just talk about them, he is a
traditionalist, a believer in the sanctity of life and traditional marriage.
He appears to be an ascetic man who eschews the pomp and the bling that has
become unfortunately associated with the magisterium. This makes him
dangerous. It did not take long for the secular progressives to begin their
attack.
The attack in reality however had begun prior to
the conclave with the leftwing press bellowing about how the church had to
change to become in effect more like the Democratic Party. Many of these
commentators were self proclaimed Catholics.