POPE Francis began his first morning as pontiff by praying yesterday at Rome’s main basilica dedicated to the Virgin Mary, a day after cardinals elected him the first pope from the Latin Americas to lead the Catholic Church.
The former archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, entered the St. Mary Major basilica through a side entrance just after 8 am. He was there for about 30 minutes.
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 told cardinals he would also call on retired Pope Benedict XVI yesterday, though the Vatican said it had no information about a visit.
The main item on his agenda 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, 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 help the poor in the slums.
The new pope immediately charmed the crowd in St. Peter’s that roared when his name was first 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,” he said.
The 76-year-old cleric, 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 the past century, only Benedict, the late John Paul I (in 1978) and Pius XII (in 1939) were elected faster.
Immediately after his election, Francis spoke by phone with Benedict, who has been living at the papal retreat in Castel Gandolfo.
A visit to him 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 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.
Like many Latin American Catholics, Francis has a particular devotion to the Virgin Mary, and his visit to the basilica was a reflection of that.
He prayed before a Byzantine icon of Mary and the infant Jesus, the Protectress of the Roman People.
“He had a great devotion to this icon of Mary and every time he comes from Argentina he visits this basilica,” said one of the priests at the basilica, Rev. Elio Montenero.
“We were surprised today because he did not announce his visit,” he said.
