13th March, 2013
Argentina’s Jorge Mario Bergoglio is the new Pope.
He will be known as Pope Francis I.
French cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran made the announcement from the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica.
Bergoglio, 76, of Italian descent, was believed to be the runner-up to Benedict XVI at the last conclave in 2005. He has now been elected the 266th Pope, in Papal history.
The 76-year-old conservative emerged from the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica to the cry of “Habemus Papam!” (“We Have a Pope!”), as tens of thousands of pilgrims clambered over barriers and broke down in tears, overcome with emotion after suspenseful prayer vigils worldwide.
White smoke earlier billowed from the Sistine Chapel and the bells of St Peter’s Basilica rang out, signalling the election had taken place after five rounds of voting in the Vatican — one more than when Benedict XVI was elected in 2005.
Bergoglio is the first Jesuit to become pope and is believed to have been the runner-up in 2005.
The first wisps of smoke in the evening sky prompted cries of “Long live the pope!” from pilgrims clutching rosaries and waving flags in the square, where the image of the tiny copper chimney was projected onto four giant screens.
Bergoglio, who is the 266th pope in the Catholic Church’s 2,000-year history, retired to a chamber known as the “Room of Tears” immediately after the nomination to don his papal vestments and then prayed in the Pauline Chapel.
Francis called for “brotherhood” among the Church’s 1.2 billion Catholics and prayed the Hail Mary together with the crowd in St Peter’s Square.
He said he felt as if cardinals had gone to “the other end of the world” to find him — and across the Atlantic Ocean in Buenos Aires celebrations erupted.
Francis also publicly thanked his predecessor Benedict XVI, who shocked the world by resigning last month in a move unseen for seven centuries.
The historic election after 85-year-old Benedict’s abrupt resignation last month was being followed around the world on live television as well as through social media and smartphone apps — this is the first ever tweeted conclave.
The papal Twitter account @pontifex announced his name in Latin: “Habemus Papam Franciscum”.
Latin America has the highest number of Catholics in the world and there had been growing calls for the new pope to come from the southern hemisphere for the first time but Bergoglio was never considered one of the frontrunners.
“I can’t believe it! An Argentinian pope!” said Silvia Pastormerlo, a 50-year-old from Argentina in St Peter’s Square.
Also in the crowd was Julio Cesar Attaremo, a 42-year-old notary from Santa Fe, in Argentina. “We’re very happy and proud, not just for Argentina but for the whole of South America,” he said.
“Bergoglio has character. He’s very humble and he’s someone who really goes out to the people.”
The new pope is seen as austere and media-shy. He is believed to have been the runner-up at the conclave in 2005 that elected Benedict — although details of the deliberations are secret.
Bells pealed in churches across Italy to celebrate the announcement and residents of Rome raced to the floodlit 17th-century Vatican plaza, running out of their homes and cafes to reach the square in time.
Cardinals have been locked up behind the Vatican walls and cut off from the outside world since Tuesday, meeting in a sublime Renaissance chapel swept for recording devices and installed with scramblers to prevent any communication.
Benedict’s eight-year papacy was riven by scandals and the new pope will face immediate challenges — stamp his authority on the Vatican machinery and try to bring back a Catholic flock that is deserting churches across the West.
Benedict’s style was often seen as too academic and he was never as popular as his predecessor Pope John Paul II. Many of the cardinals have called for the new pope to be a better communicator, able to reach out particularly to young people.
Conclaves are usually only held after a pope dies and are sometimes decades apart — the last one was in 2005, the one before that 1978. A popular Italian expression for things that happen very rarely is “at every death of a pope”.
But the 85-year-old Benedict broke with tradition, becoming the first pontiff to resign since the Middle Ages. He has said he will retire to a former nunnery inside the Vatican — an unprecedented and delicate situation for the Church.
In one of his last acts as pope, he issued a decree allowing cardinals to bring forward the date of a conclave in the event of a pope’s resignation — a move seen by many as potentially setting a precedent for ageing pontiffs in the future.