A Groundbreaking Choice

Pope Francis I

There is a new leader for the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, and the choice is Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a cardinal from Argentina and the first non-European Pope since the 8th century.   Taking the name Francis I serves as a powerful symbol of his connection with the impoverished from many of the world's developing nations where disparity between the incomes of rich and poor is staggering.   While this economic gap is also growing here in the USA, Catholics here and in other developed Western countries tend to focus on social issues ranging from abortion, priest celibacy, the role of women in the church, beliefs about homosexuality and the shockwaves from child molestation scandals.   This new Pope, the first from the New World, is likely to share social views of his Old World counterparts.    That may seem very out of step with more progressive Western ideologies, but Francis I represents a potential sea change for Catholics in places like Latin America and Africa where the church is growing rapidly as it declines in the USA and Europe.   After Pope John Paul II was elected in 1978, his conservative church doctrine did not get in the way of the real social change he inspired as his Polish countrymen and others behind the Iron Curtain hastened the fall of the Soviet Union and other totalitarian regimes.    While I may wish the new Pope could be more liberal on social issues, I think he brings a renewed sense of hope to the hundreds of millions who suffer in poverty while the few prosper.