A pope for austerity
He's been hailed a humble champion of the poor, but the pressure is on for Pope Francis to lead the Catholic church out of crisis.
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Rome: Pope Francis, who took his name to honour the simplicity and humility of St Francis of Assisi, began his reign by sharing a bus with cardinals after his election, mingling with worshippers in a church the next morning and making an unscheduled stop to pay his hotel bill because "bishops should set a good example".
Vatican spokesman Tom Rosica said the new pope's "spontaneity indicated a new way of doing things that we will have to get used to" - and so would his security guards.
Father Rosica said that after the pope's appearance on the balcony of St Peter's Basilica at the announcement of his election, Francis dismissed the papal limousine with the numberplate 1 and shared a minibus back to the Vatican hotel. At dinner he gently joked to the cardinals, "may God forgive you for what you have done to me."
Newly elected Pope Francis I, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, leads a a mass with cardinals at the Sistine Chapel. Photo: REUTERS TV
Buenos Aires Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 76, was elected the 266th pope of the Roman Catholic Church on the second day of voting at the conclave in Rome on Wednesday, and took the papal name Francis.
The next morning he visited St Mary Major, the great basilica dedicated to the Virgin Mary, where he prayed in both side chapels and at the main altar, which purportedly has relics of the manger in which Jesus Christ was born. There he mingled with worshippers, one of whom was Cardinal Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston who resigned in 2002 over public revulsion at his handling of clergy sex abuse and until recently archpriest of the basilica.
On the way back to the Vatican, he made an unscheduled stop at the hotel for priests where he had been staying for some weeks, to pick up his bags - which he carried himself - and settle his account. "He was concerned about giving a good example for what priests and bishops should do," Father Rosica said at the daily briefing on Thursday afternoon.
On Thursday afternoon he celebrated his first Mass as pope with the 114 other cardinal-electors in the Sistine Chapel, the closing event of the conclave.
Australia's only elector, Sydney Archbishop George Pell, said in a statement he was delighted with the new Holy Father, a pope of acknowledged piety and proven orthodoxy who had shown an ability to take hard decisions.
"He is a man of wide pastoral experience who has lived through very difficult times in Argentina during periods of military rule and financial turmoil," Cardinal Pell said.
"He will support national hierarchies in the struggle against sexual abuse, giving priority to victims and one of his first tasks will be to examine the 300-page report on the workings of the Vatican by the three cardinals." The report, which some speculated help Benedict XVI decide to resign, reportedly contains a devastating account of mismanagement and sexual misconduct leaving some prelates open to blackmail.
Cardinal Pell told journalists Francis would be a formidable pope who would deal with the Vatican bureaucrats "appropriately and justly". "Argentina is a tough school, and he's done well there."
He hoped the Pope would visit Asia, especially China where, he said, Christianity was spreading as it did through the Roman empire in the first centuries AD.
Meanwhile, a Vatican spokesman has said the papal name is Pope Francis. He will not become Francis I until there is a Francis II.
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