Jorge Mario Bergoglio, an Argentinian cardinal, was elected Pope
Francis I today at the Vatican, becoming the first Jesuit pontiff and
the first from the Americas.
Bergoglio, 76, was the archbishop of Buenos Aires. He is the
Argentine-born son of an Italian railway worker. Described as a
compassionate conservative, he came in second in the 2005 balloting that
elected Benedict XVI. He is said to prize simplicity and humility and
is expected to encourage priests to do shoe-leather evangelism.
The 115 cardinals who choose the pope by election are sworn to secrecy about the deliberations..
NBC had reported
Milan’s Cardinal Angelo Scola and Brazil’s Cardinal Odilo Scherer were
among the candidates to become the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion
Catholics
Others included Angelo Bagnasco, archbishop of Genoa who leads the
conference of Italian bishops; Giuseppe Betori, the archbishop of
Florence who is described as a “bridge builder;” Thomas Collins, the
archbishop of Toronto has alerted church members to the persecution from
a secular society; Timothy Dolan, New York’s archbishop who heads the
U.S. bishops conference; Dominik Duka; the Prague archbishop who worked
secretly as a priest under the nation’s previous communist rule; Willem
Eijk, the Netherlands archbishop with degrees in medicine and
philosophy; Peter Erdo; of Budapest, described as being on “the
ecclesiastical fast track;” Sean O’Malley, the Boston archbishop; John
Onaiyekan, of Abuja in Nigeria; Marc Ouellet, of Quebec; George Pell, of
Sydney; Albert Malcolm Ranjith, of Colombo, Sri Lanka; Leonardo Sandri,
Argentina; Robert Sarah, of Guinea; Christoph Schonborn, of Vienna;
Brazil; Luis Tagle, Manila; and Peter Turkson, Ghana.
Benedict, 85, stepped down from the papacy in February after saying
he did not have the strength needed to continue. The church is facing
scandals ranging from sex abuse to Vatican bank corruption.
By tradition, a plume of white smoke from the Sistine Chapel announced to the world that the cardinals had selected a new pope.
The oath the cardinals take requires them to follow the “Apostolic
Constitution of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, Universi Dominici
Gregis, published on 22 February 1996″ in making their decision.
They also affirm secrecy “regarding everything that in any way
relates to the election of the Roman Pontiff and regarding what occurs
in the place of the election, directly or indirectly related to the
results of the voting.”
The selection process this time was steeped in intrigue because a medieval prophecy recognized by many Catholics appears to indicate the man selected this time will be history’s “final pope.”
As WND reported, Tom Horn and Cris Putnam predicted in their book “Petrus Romanus: The Final Pope is Here” that Benedict would step down.
