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Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio is Pope Francis

7:14 PM - 13 Mar 13

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 76, from Argentina was elected as the Catholic Church's new pope Wednesday night. He is taking the name Francis.

New pope elected after two days of conclave

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Photograph: Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images

1h 22m ago

Here's Sam Jones on Bergoglio:

The archbishop of Buenos Aires is a Jesuit intellectual who travels by bus and has a practical approach to poverty: when he was appointed a cardinal, Bergoglio persuaded hundreds of Argentinians not to fly to Rome to celebrate with him but instead to give the money they would have spent on plane tickets to the poor. He was a fierce opponent of Argentina's decision to legalise gay marriage in 2010, arguing children need to have the right to be raised and educated by a father and a mother. He was created a cardinal by John Paul II on 21 February 2001.

Ewen MacAskill passes on this statement from President Obama "on His Holiness Pope Francis":

On behalf of the American people, Michelle and I offer our warm wishes to His Holiness Pope Francis as he ascends to the Chair of Saint Peter and begins his papacy. 

As a champion of the poor and the most vulnerable among us, he carries forth the message of love and compassion that has inspired the world for more than two thousand years—that in each other we see the face of God. 

As the first pope from the Americas, his selection also speaks to the strength and vitality of a region that is increasingly shaping our world, and alongside millions of Hispanic Americans, those of us in the United States share the joy of this historic day. 

Just as I appreciated our work with Pope Benedict XVI, I look forward to working with His Holiness to advance peace, security and dignity for our fellow human beings, regardless of their faith. 

We join with people around the world in offering our prayers for the Holy Father as he begins the sacred work of leading the Catholic Church in our modern world.

The Catholic Church was complicit in horrible crimes in Argentina, Hugh O'Shaughnessy wrote in the Guardian in 2011: "Yet even the execution of other men of the cloth did nothing to shake the support of senior clerics, including representatives of the Holy See, for the criminality of their leader General Jorge Rafael Videla and his minions."

Shaughnessy's indictment of the church in Argentina singles out Bergoglio:

What one did not hear from any senior member of the Argentine hierarchy was any expression of regret for the church's collaboration and in these crimes. 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. The most shaming thing for the church is that in such circumstances Bergoglio's name was allowed to go forward in the ballot to chose the successor of John Paul II. What scandal would not have ensued if the first pope ever to be elected from the continent of America had been revealed as an accessory to murder and false imprisonment

One would have thought that the Argentine bishops would have seized the opportunity to call for pardon for themselves and put on sackcloth and ashes as the sentences were announced in Córdoba but that has not so far happened.

The Guardian's Giles Tremlett points to further reporting that Bergoglio was runner-up in 2005:

Bergoglio came second in 2005 when Joseph Ratzinger became pope, according to the alleged diary of one of the cardinals who was present.

That diary was published in 2005 by Limes, a serious Italian magazine, which did not identify the cardinal. It said that Bergoglio came second by 84 votes to 26 in the final vote in 2005.

Although he is considered orthodox on doctrine, Bergoglio is apparently flexible on sexual doctrine and, in private, joked "they want to stick the whole world inside a condom".

Kind regards

Philton

Semper vigilans ("Always watchful")

"Behold... I will send forth a famine into the land: not a famine of bread, nor a thirst of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord. Then shall they wander from sea to sea... from the north to the east In search of the word of the LORD, but they shall not find it."!  - Amos 8:11-12.