Pope Francis put his humility on display during his first day as pontiff yesterday, stopping by his hotel to pick up his luggage and pay the bill himself in a decidedly different style for the papacy usually ensconced inside the frescoed halls of the Vatican.
The break from the tradition-minded previous pontificate was evident even in Francis’ wardrobe choices: He kept the simple pectoral cross of his days as bishop and eschewed the red cape that Benedict XVI wore when he was presented to the world for the first time in 2005 — choosing instead the simple white cassock of the papacy.
The former archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, began his first day as pope making an early morning visit in a simple Vatican car to a Roman basilica dedicated to the Virgin Mary and prayed before an icon of the Madonna.
He had told a crowd of some 100,000 people packed in rain-soaked St. Peter’s Square just after his election that he intended to pray to the Madonna “that she may watch over all of Rome.”
He also told cardinals he would call on retired Pope Benedict XVI, but the Vatican said the visit wouldn’t take place for a few days.
Inaugural mass
The main item on Francis’ agenda Thursday was an inaugural afternoon Mass in the Sistine Chapel, where cardinals on Wednesday elected him leader of the 1.2 billion-strong church in an unusually quick conclave.
Francis might be expected to outline some of his priorities as pope in the homily. It was expected to be delivered in Italian, again another break from the traditional-minded Benedict whose first homily as pope was in Latin.
Francis, the first Jesuit pope and first non-European since the Middle Ages, decided to call himself Francis after St. Francis of Assisi, the humble friar who dedicated his life to helping the poor.
The new pope, known for his work with the poor in Buenos Aires’ slums, immediately charmed the crowd in St. Peter’s, which roared when his name was announced and roared again when he emerged on the loggia of the basilica with a simple and familiar: “Brothers and sisters, good evening.”
Waving shyly, he said the cardinals’ job was to find a bishop of Rome. “It seems as if my brother cardinals went to find him from the end of the earth, but here we are. Thank you for the welcome.”
FIFTH BALLOT
The 76-year-old Bergoglio, said to have finished second when Pope Benedict XVI was elected in 2005, was chosen on just the fifth ballot to replace the first pontiff to resign in 600 years.
In addressing the crowd at St. Peter’s Square, he made the unprecedented gesture of asking the people for their blessing and bowing before he gave the a papal blessing to the congregation.
Francis also urged the crowd to pray for Benedict and immediately after his election spoke by phone with the retired pope, who has been living at the papal retreat in Castel Gandolfo south of Rome. A visit to Benedict would be significant because Benedict’s resignation has raised concerns about potential power conflicts emerging from the peculiar situation of having a reigning pope and a retired one.
Benedict’s longtime aide, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, accompanied Francis to the visit yesterday morning at St. Mary Major, the ANSA news agency reported. In addition to being Benedict’s secretary, Gaenswein is also the prefect of the papal household and will be arranging the new pope’s schedule.
After the visit, Francis also stopped by a Vatican-owned residence in downtown Rome to pick up the luggage that he left behind before moving into the Vatican hotel for the conclave.
He paid the bill “to give a good example,” according to the Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi.
It was a remarkable show of simplicity and humility for a man who could easily have dispatched someone to do the job for him.
He displayed that same sense immediately after his election, shunning the special sedan that was to transport him to the hotel so he could ride on the bus with other cardinals, and refusing even an elevated platform from which he would greet them, according to U.S. Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
“He met with us on our own level,” Dolan said./AP