To the delight of many Catholics (includ­ing this one!) the one hun­dred and fif­teen car­di­nals who par­tic­i­pat­ed in this year’s just-con­clud­ed papal con­clave in Vat­i­can City have, at long last, giv­en the Church its first pon­tiff from the New World.

Car­di­nal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the arch­bish­op of Buenos Aires, Argenti­na, has just been intro­duced to the world as the next Bish­op of Rome. He is, as men­tioned, the first pope to have been born in the Amer­i­c­as; he is also the first Jesuit pope. (The Soci­ety of Jesus, whose mem­bers are known as Jesuits, is a well-known Catholic reli­gious order. A num­ber of the Unit­ed States’ best- known uni­ver­si­ties were found­ed by Jesuit priests and remain affil­i­at­ed with the Soci­ety, includ­ing Seat­tle Uni­ver­si­ty and Gon­za­ga Uni­ver­si­ty here in Wash­ing­ton State).

Begoglio has tak­en the name Fran­cis­co, or Fran­cis in English.

He is the first pope to take that name.

The new Pope, Fran­cis I, waves from a bal­cony to crowds assem­bled in St. Peter’s Square. (Pho­to: Vat­i­can News Ser­vice)

At a cer­e­mo­ny in Vat­i­can City an hour ago (8:23 PM Vat­i­can Time), Begoglio gave his first pub­lic remarks as pon­tiff. He asked the cheer­ing crowds to pray for the pope emer­i­tus (Bene­dict) and also for him as he assumes his new respon­si­bil­i­ties. He then blessed the assem­bled mul­ti­tude before head­ing back inside St. Peter’s Basil­i­ca, flanked by sev­er­al smil­ing cardinals.

The Vat­i­can Radio ser­vice has begun broad­cast­ing a short biog­ra­phy of the new pope. Here is the tran­script:

The man elect­ed to be the 265th Suc­ces­sor of Saint Peter in the con­clave, is Car­di­nal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, S.J., Arch­bish­op of Buenos Aires, Argenti­na, Ordi­nary for East­ern-rite faith­ful in Argenti­na who lack an Ordi­nary of their own rite. He was born on 17 Decem­ber 1936 in Buenos Aires. He was ordained for the Jesuits on 13 Decem­ber 1969 dur­ing his the­o­log­i­cal stud­ies at the The­o­log­i­cal Fac­ul­ty of San Miguel.

He was novice mas­ter in San Miguel, where he also taught the­ol­o­gy. He was Provin­cial for Argenti­na (1973–1979) and rec­tor of the Philo­soph­i­cal and The­o­log­i­cal Fac­ul­ty of San Miguel (1980–1986). After com­plet­ing his doc­tor­al dis­ser­ta­tion in Ger­many, he served as a con­fes­sor and spir­i­tu­al direc­tor in Córdoba.On 20 May 1992 he was appoint­ed tit­u­lar Bish­op of Auca and Aux­il­iary of Buenos Aires, receiv­ing epis­co­pal con­se­cra­tion on 27 June. On 3 June 1997 was appoint­ed Coad­ju­tor Arch­bish­op of Buenos Aires and suc­ceed­ed Car­di­nal Anto­nio Quar­ra­ci­no on 28 Feb­ru­ary 1998. He is also Ordi­nary for East­ern-rite faith­ful in Argenti­na who lack an Ordi­nary of their own rite.
Adjunct Rela­tor Gen­er­al of the 10^th Ordi­nary Gen­er­al Assem­bly of the Syn­od of Bish­ops, Octo­ber 2001.

He served as Pres­i­dent of the Bish­ops’ Con­fer­ence of Argenti­na from 8 Novem­ber 2005 until 8 Novem­ber 2011. Cre­at­ed and pro­claimed Car­di­nal by the Bl. John Paul II in the con­sis­to­ry of 21 Feb­ru­ary 2001, of the Title of S. Rober­to Bel­larmi­no (St. Robert Bellarmine).

The Catholic News Ser­vice report on Fran­cis’ elec­tion notes that as the leader of the Buenos Aires dio­cese, he was very much a peo­ple’s bishop:

Since 1998, he has been arch­bish­op of Buenos Aires, where his style is low-key and close to the people.

He rides the bus, vis­its the poor, lives in a sim­ple apart­ment and cooks his own meals. To many in Buenos Aires, he is known sim­ply as “Father Jorge.”

He also has cre­at­ed new parish­es, restruc­tured the admin­is­tra­tive offices, led pro-life ini­tia­tives and start­ed new pas­toral pro­grams, such as a com­mis­sion for divorcees. He co-presided over the 2001 Syn­od of Bish­ops and was elect­ed to the syn­od coun­cil, so he is well-known to the world’s bishops.

Father Jorge is now Fran­cis I — the supreme leader of the Roman Catholic Church. It is fit­ting that he is is from South Amer­i­ca, as that is the con­ti­nent where the Church has seen the most growth over the last sev­er­al hun­dred years.

This decade may well be remem­bered as the era when South Amer­i­ca came of age on the world stage. The selec­tion of Car­di­nal Bergoglio as the next pon­tiff is a mon­u­men­tal event for the world and for South Amer­i­ca. And anoth­er his­toric event will take place in three and a half years’ time when Rio de Jainero hosts the 2016 Sum­mer Olympics. (No South Amer­i­can city has ever host­ed a Games before).

As Fran­cis’ papa­cy has just begun, it is too soon to know what kind of a pope he will be like. He does, of course, have very con­ser­v­a­tive views on many issues that pro­gres­sive activists care about, such as mar­riage equal­i­ty or repro­duc­tive rights. But in oth­er respects he could be more lib­er­al or pro­gres­sive than his pre­de­ces­sors. The Catholic Church in Latin Amer­i­ca places a stronger empha­sis on social jus­tice… and that’s a good thing. This is per­haps the best out­come of the papal con­clave that pro­gres­sive Catholics could have hoped for.

Fran­cis I is two years younger than Bene­dict was when he became the Church’s leader. His papa­cy is unlike­ly to be as long as John Paul II’s, but it promis­es to be ground­break­ing in many ways.

“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,” Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma said in a state­ment released moments ago.

“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 Pres­i­dent concluded.

“The elec­tion of Car­di­nal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who has tak­en the name Fran­cis, marks a great mile­stone in our church,” said Car­di­nal Tim­o­thy Dolan of New York, the cur­rent pres­i­dent of the U.S. Con­fer­ence of Catholic Bish­ops. “As suc­ces­sor to Peter, our first pope, Pope Fran­cis stands as the fig­ure of uni­ty for all Catholics wher­ev­er they reside. The bish­ops of the Unit­ed States and the peo­ple of our 195 dio­ce­ses offer prayers for our new leader and promise alle­giance to him.”

“Intense prayer from all around the world sur­round­ed the elec­tion of Pope Fran­cis. The bish­ops of the Unit­ed States thank God for the guid­ance of the Holy Spir­it and the inspired choice of the Col­lege of Car­di­nals. With joy in our hearts, we declare Ad Mul­tos Annos! (For many years!)”

Arch­bish­op Peter J. Sar­tain, who was cho­sen by Pope Fran­cis’ pre­de­ces­sor Bene­dict XVI a few years ago as the leader of Wash­ing­ton’s largest Roman Catholic dio­cese (the Arch­dio­cese of Seat­tle) , said he wit­nessed the intro­duc­tion of the new pope on tele­vi­sion like many oth­er Catholics in the Pacif­ic Northwest.

“The elec­tion of a new pope is an act of faith on the part of the car­di­nals, because they have placed their hope in God to guide them,” Sar­tain wrote in a col­umn post­ed on the Arch­dio­ce­se’s web­site.

“For me as an arch­bish­op and for Catholics every­where, receiv­ing a new pope means that God has been once again faith­ful to his promise that he would always pro­vide a shep­herd for the church, a suc­ces­sor to St. Peter, a bish­op of Rome, the first pas­tor of the uni­ver­sal church.”

“His choice of the name Fran­cis sig­nals that he strives to be a man of humil­i­ty and love for the poor, and the fact that he asked the hun­dreds of thou­sand stand­ing before him to pray for him fur­ther under­scores his humility.”

“Not even know­ing who he would be, I began pray­ing for him weeks ago. I con­grat­u­late His Holi­ness, Pope Fran­cis, on his elec­tion to the See of Peter. I promise my obe­di­ence and my prayers.”

“As was announced at the Vat­i­can just a few hours ago, we have indeed received news of great joy in the elec­tion of Pope Francis.”