New Pope elected - Pope Francis I

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio a Jesuit of Argentina, who will be known as Pope Francis, has been selected as Pope of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics.

He is the first Pope from the Americas and the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium. The Pope likely took his name after St. Francis Xavier. Francis Xavier was the first Jesuit missionary. Francis devoted much of his life to missions in Asia, after being requested by King John III of Portugal to travel to Portuguese India, where the king believed that Christian values were eroding among the Portuguese. After successive appeals to the Pope asking for missionaries for the East Indies under the Padroado agreement, John III was encouraged by Diogo de Gouveia, rector of the Collège Sainte-Barbe, to recruit the newly graduated youngsters that would establish the Society of Jesus.

Francis Xavier moved mainly in four centers: Malacca, Amboina and Ternate, Japan, and China. His growing information about new places indicated to him that he had to go to what he understood were centers of influence for the whole region. China loomed large from his days in India. Japan was particularly attractive because of its culture. For him, these areas were interconnected; they could not be evangelized separately.

Pope Francis I

Earlier, white smoke had flowed from the chimney above the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, signalling that one of the candidates for the pontificate had obtained the necessary two-thirds majority for election. The fumata bianca– the white smoke signal that marks the successful conclusion of a papal conclave – arrived after five ballots on the second day of voting.

The new pope wasted little time in issuing his first tweet: "HABEMUS PAPAM FRANCISCUM," which roughly translates to: "We have Pope Francis." The message on Twitter came within 30 mins or so of Pope Francis I being named, and to show the power of social media, it was retweeted 25,000 times within 10 minutes....

GLAAD President Herndon Graddick:

"For decades the Catholic hierarchy has been in need of desperate reform. In his life, Jesus condemned gays zero times. In Pope Benedict's short time in the papacy, he made a priority of condemning gay people routinely. This, in spite of the fact, that the Catholic hierarchy had been in collusion to cover up the widespread abuse of children within its care. We hope this Pope will trade in his red shoes for a pair of sandals and spend a lot less time condemning and a lot more time foot-washing."

Let's hope (we can try) that Pope Francis will be more progressive. Good luck to the first pope from the Americas!