After much pomp and circumstance, the former archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio is elected Pope Francis.
It’s been widely reported that Bergoglio chose the name Francis to honor St. Francis of Assisi. This puzzles me. First, he’s not a Franciscan; he’s a Jesuit. And second, I’ve always thought of the Jesuits as intellectual and elitist.
Like Francis of Assisi, Bergoglio is reported to embrace the poor, the homeless, the diseased, the disenfranchised. But unlike Francis of Assisi, who never became comfortable with the power and politics of the Roman Catholic Church, Bergoglio is now the capo di capi of this wealthy and (despite its many current challenges) influential institution.