SALON

Wednesday, Mar 13, 2013 7:20 PM UTC

Hello Pope Francis

UPDATED: Social justice activist Sister Simone Campbell gives the pontiff a Twitter shout out VIDEO

By

Topics: Video, The Pope, roman catholic church, ,

Hello Pope Francis (Credit: AP/Gregorio Borgia)

Updated: March 13, 5:03 p.m.

The new pope gets a shout out (and an apparent nod of approval) from social justice activist Sister Simone Campbell. We already know that Pope Francis is cool with buses, but is he down with progressive Catholic nuns speaking out on behalf of women’s rights and comprehensive health care? Fingers crossed.

Updated: March 13, 4:56 p.m.

Vice President Joe Biden to head to the Vatican, the Associated Press reports.

Updated: March 13, 4:47 p.m.

As reported by the Associated Press:

Obama says the pope serves as a champion of the poor and vulnerable and represents the love and compassion that has inspired the world throughout the Catholic Church’s history.

He says he looks forward to working with the pope to promote peace, security and dignity for people of all faiths.

Updated: March 13, 4:35 p.m.

What’s in a name, anyway? CNN’s Vatican analyst John Allen calls Pope Francis’ choice “stunning” and “precedent shattering”:

“There are cornerstone figures in Catholicism” such as St. Francis, Allen said. Figures of such stature as St. Francis seem “irrepeatable — that there can be only one Francis,” he added.

The name symbolizes “poverty, humility, simplicity and rebuilding the Catholic Church,” Allen said.

“The new pope is sending a signal that this will not be business as usual,” he said.

Updated: March 13, 4:25 p.m.

Pope Francis had dark ties to Argetina’s military junta, a journalist alleges. As reported by The Guardian:

The extent of the church’s complicity in the dark deeds was excellently set out by Horacio Verbitsky, one of Argentina’s most notable journalists, in his book El Silencio (Silence). He recounts how the Argentine navy with the connivance of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, now the Jesuit archbishop of Buenos Aires, hid from a visiting delegation of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission the dictatorship’s political prisoners. Bergoglio was hiding them in nothing less than his holiday home in an island called El Silencio in the River Plate.

Updated: March 13, 4:20 p.m.

The new pontiff makes his first appearance, and the crowd goes wild.

Updated: March 13, 3:58 p.m.

The inaugural dispatch from the reactivated papal Twitter account roughly translates to “We have Pope Francis.”

Updated: March 13, 3:54 p.m.

Let’s get to know Pope Francis a little better.

He’s a “uniter” within church ranks

According to the National Catholic Reporter, then-cardinal Bergoglio “appealed to conservatives in the College of Cardinals as a man who had held the line against liberalizing currents among the Jesuits, and to moderates as a symbol of the church’s commitment to the developing world.”

He lives “simply” and talks a good game on poverty

While Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio chose to live in a small apartment rather than the archbishop’s palace. He also opted to take the bus to work, rather than ride in the church-provided limousine.

He has also denounced poverty and human trafficking, saying “The suffering of innocent and peaceful continues to slap us, the contempt for the rights of individuals and peoples are so far away, the rule of money with his demonic effects as drugs, corruption, trafficking people, including children, along with material and moral poverty are big problems.”

And, as reported by Think Progress, upon becoming cardinal in 2001, Bergoglio “discouraged people from spending the money to fly to Rome to celebrate with him and advised that they instead donate the funds to help alleviate poverty at home.”

He is really bad on gay and reproductive rights 

The new pope has called gay marriage a “destructive attack on God’s plan” and staunchly opposes abortion and contraception. In 2010 he called gay adoption “discrimination against children.”

He is the first Latin American pope — and the first Jesuit pope

He is also the first non-European pope to be elected in 1,272 years.

He was accused of conspiracy in a priest kidnapping in 2005 

According to the National Catholic Reporter:

Three days before the 2005 conclave, a human rights lawyer in Argentina filed a complaint charging Bergoglio with complicity in the 1976 kidnapping of two liberal Jesuit priests under the country’s military regime, a charge Bergoglio flatly denied.

Updated: March 13, 3:20 p.m.

Argentine cardinal Jorge Bergoglio has been elected pope. He is the first Latin American pope, and the first to be elected from outside Europe in more than a millennium.

He chose the name Pope Francis.

 

Katie McDonough is an assistant editor for Salon, focusing on lifestyle. Follow her on Twitter @kmcdonovgh or email her at kmcdonough@salon.com. More Katie Mcdonough.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 77 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations