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Everyone's assuming he chose his name from St Francis of Assisi, but what about St Francis Xavier?
Transcript of the new pope's first words to the world:
Brothers and sisters, good evening. You know that the duty of the conclave was to give a bishop to Rome. It seems that my brother cardinals went almost to the end of the world to get him. But here we are.
I thank you for this welcome by the diocesan community of Rome to its bishop. Thank you.
First of all, I would like to say a prayer for our bishop emeritus, Benedict XVI.Let us all pray together for him, let us all pray together for him so that the Lord my bless him and that the Madonna may protect him.
(The new pope then prayed the "Lord's Prayer", the "Hail Mary" and the "Glory Be" with the crowd in Italian).
He then continued:
And now, let us start this journey, bishop and people, bishop and people, this journey of the Church of Rome, which leads all the Churches in charity, a journey of fraternity, of love, of trust among us.
Let us always pray for us, one for the other, let us pray for the whole world, so that there may be a great fraternity. I hope that this journey of the Church that we begin today and which my cardinal vicar, who is here with me, will help me with, may be fruitful for the evangelisation of this beautiful city.
Now, I would like to give you a blessing, but first I want to ask you for a favour. Before the bishop blesses the people, I ask that you pray to the Lord so that he blesses me. This is the prayer of the people who are asking for the blessing of their bishop.
In silence, let us say this prayer of you for me.
(After a few seconds of silent prayer, he then delivered his blessing).
He then concluded:
Tomorrow I want to go to pray to the Madonna so that she protects all of Rome. Good night and have a good rest.
He certainly looks to be a good pope. Anyone who upholds the sanctity (and sacrament) of marriage, defends all unborn children, preaches the Gospel in words and demonstrates it with love in action to the poor and marginalised and believes all the historical tenets of the Christian Faith will be a faithful witness to a world that is growing both increasingly darker and lighter at the same time. I sense God's timing in his election here in New Zealand by supplanting our politicians' vote off the top story at the Herald earlier this morning. :).
ReplyDeleteI read a Life Site News article on him and a Fox News article on him here:
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/03/04/argentines-jorge-bergoglio-and-leonardo-sandri-offer-strikingly-different/#ixzz2NSk5ENo2
That second article reminded me of the Malachy prophecy. Now I know that this prophecy has been well and truly debunked (for example here: http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=50051), but one excerpt from it does coincide very well with this Pope: "who will pasture his sheep in many tribulations". According to the Fox News article, this particular pope for sure has a pastoral gift:
Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who would be the first Jesuit pope if chosen, has spent nearly his entire career at home in Argentina, overseeing churches and shoe-leather priests.
Couple that with the increase in wickedness and the ongoing persecution of many Christians in different ways throughput the world, I think we should continue to look for the signs that preceded Jesus' Second coming.
Thanks, Matthew, for your wonderful comment!
ReplyDelete"I sense God's timing in his election here in New Zealand by supplanting our politicians' vote off the top story at the Herald earlier this morning."
Yep, my thoughts as well!! LOL!
Seems like the new pope has a lot in common with the old pope.
ReplyDeletehttp://humanist.co.nz/?p=184
And will he be brave enough to do what no pope has yet done - raise the age of consent in the Vatican from 12 to 16?
LOL LRO your link goes to some odd bod thing which uses the wikipedia entry for Pope Francis I as its source.
ReplyDeleteWhat is funny about this is that page which started out as an entry for him as a cardinal has been changed big time in the past ferw hours and that all that stuff in that article wasn't there yesterday.
Some people have been busy little beavers - no?
I once help organised a protest against the vicious dictator Videla of Argentina when he visited NZ. We picketed the airport and his hotel in protest at his human rights abuses.
ReplyDeleteThere is a little more to the case of the the torture of two of Bergoglio's Jesuit priests — Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics — who were kidnapped in 1976 from the slums where they advocated liberation theology :-
Both men were freed after Bergoglio took extraordinary, behind-the-scenes action to save them — including persuading dictator Jorge Videla’s family priest to call in sick so that he could say Mass in the junta leader’s home, where he privately appealed for mercy. His intervention likely saved their lives.
Bergoglio — who ran Argentina's Jesuit order during the dictatorship — told Rubin that he regularly hid people on church property during the dictatorship, and once gave his identity papers to a man with similar features, enabling him to escape across the border.
Rubin said failing to challenge the dictators was simply pragmatic at a time when so many people were getting killed, and attributed Bergoglio's later reluctance to share his side of the story as a reflection of his humility.
I think Francis will make an excellent Pope. The more I hear about him the more I love him.
God Bless
Yes andrei, the sanitisers are out in force, aren't they?
ReplyDeleteAnd can anyone please explain why he is Francis I?
How many succeeding Francises have there been? Ever hear anyone saying "King John I"?
Rubin said failing to challenge the dictators was simply pragmatic at a time when so many people were getting killed,
Yep, time and time again the people stand up to the dictators, the priests snuggle up top them. Wouldn't do for a priest to put his own life on the line, would it?
fugley,
ReplyDeleteI would have thought that Bergoglio's regularly hiding people on church property during the dictatorship, giving his own identity papers to a man with similar features so he could escape, and intervening with dictator Videla to secure the release of political prisoners would have all put his own life on the line.
God Bless
LRO/Fugley,
ReplyDeleteUse one identity only.
As for Francis I, that's just what I and other people has written, given that he's only just been elected and no one is used to having a pope with a new name. It'll sort itself out.
Chris,
ReplyDelete" The more I hear about him the more I love him."
Same here! :)
LRO said:
ReplyDelete"And will he be brave enough to do what no pope has yet done - raise the age of consent in the Vatican from 12 to 16?"
----
I suspect you read my post that debunked this meme. For those that haven't - The laws of the Vatican were inherited from Italian laws as they were in 1929 when the Vatican State came into being. A wikipedia entry assumed that those laws were static and unchanging. Turns out, the laws stay in step with Italian law, which like many countries over the years, raised the age of consent, and so the Vatican also implicitly raised the age of consent.
This is further underscored by the fact that the Vatican has no police force, nor courts and any crime committed on the grounds (110 acres) has the accused handed over to the Italian justice system, who would try the person on Italian law.
Furthermore making this kind of accusation against the Vatican State is a somewhat silly thing to do - the Vatican is a unique State in that it is the administrative arm of the Catholic Church and location of the Holy See.
If you wish to dispute this LRO, please provide some facts, and continue the discussion on the appropriate thread: Vatican City and the Age of Consent
"And can anyone please explain why he is Francis I?"
ReplyDeleteHe isn't. He's simply Francis and will only become known as Francis 1 if a subsequent Pope takes that name.
The Guardian has amended their original story :
ReplyDelete• This article was amended on 14 March 2013. The original article, published in 2011, wrongly suggested that Argentinian journalist Horacio Verbitsky claimed that Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio connived with the Argentinian navy to hide political prisoners on an island called El Silencio during an inspection by human rights monitors. Although Verbitsky makes other allegations about Bergoglio's complicity in human rights abuses, he does not make this claim. The original article also wrongly described El Silencio as Bergoglio's "holiday home". This has been corrected.
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/jan/04/argenitina-videla-bergoglio-repentance
God Bless
Chris, thank you for that.
ReplyDeleteLooks like Chris Trotter has leapt all over that part of the story: Knocking of the gates of hell - the real pope.
Typical.