SANTIAGO: Across Latin America, the faithful rejoiced that the new Pope Francis was one of them.
Even though some commentators said he had a reputation as being as conservative and inflexible as his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, Latin Catholics celebrated that cardinals had, in Francis’ own words, gone ‘to the end of the world’ to find him.
‘A Latino is more open to others, while a European is more closed.
A change like this, with a Latin American, will be very important for us Latin Americans … (he will be) more open, more honest,’ said 75-year-old Ana Solis, a retired hospital worker, outside Santiago’s Metropolitan Cathedral in Chile.
‘I’m happy because another European pope would be like eating the same bread every day,’ Martin Rodriguez, a 49-year-old Mexico City cab driver, said of Argentina’s Francis, the first non-European pontiff in nearly 1,300 years.
The cardinals had faced a tough task in the conclave in finding a leader capable of overcoming crises caused by priestly child abuse and a leak of secret papal documents that uncovered corruption and rivalry inside the Church government.
The new pope will take up a burden that Benedict declared in February was beyond his physical capabilities.
The reaction from Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, who two years ago accused the Vatican of hampering an inquiry into child sex abuse by Irish priests, summed up the thoughts of many.
‘We pray that he will have the strength, the good health and the spiritual guidance needed to lead the Catholic Church in the many challenges it faces,’ Kenny said.
For some, the 76-year-old son of an Italian immigrant railway worker was too elderly to lead a Church that needs to attract younger worshippers to fill emptying pews in parts of the world that had once been staunchly Catholic.
‘I think they missed an opportunity to renew themselves: they’ve picked another old guy,’ Daniel Villalpando, a 32-year-old web designer in Mexico City said. ‘Sure, he’s a Latino, but they got the most European of the Latinos.’
Home to 42 percent of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, Latin America far outweighs Europe’s 25 percent, although the Church has for years been losing ground to Protestant and evangelical rivals across the region.
Deise Cristina, 43, who attends Mass every week, hailed the Church for having broken ‘a taboo’, but said outside the cathedral in Sao Paulo, Brazil: ‘We are facing a lot of challenges now and I pray that the pope will help lead our youth back to the church.’
But the man who was widely reported to have come second to Joseph Ratzinger for the papacy in 2005 is not seen as bringing many changes to the way Church is run this time round. (Reuters)
