Pope Francis Is "Time's Person of the Year 2013: 12 Reasons Why He Deserved It

By Katie Zavadski
Bustle
December 12, 2013

http://www.bustle.com/articles/10219-pope-francis-is-times-person-of-the-year-2013-12-reasons-why-he-deserved-it

Marco Secchi/Getty Images News/Getty Images

For those who thought Edward Snowden had it in the bag, you were wrong: TIME magazine named Pope Francis 2013’s Person of the Year Wednesday. Egypt’s not-really-democratic leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, won the reader poll with 26.2 percent of the vote, followed by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with just over 20 percent. Miley Cyrus pulled in third, with 16.3 percent, but let’s be honest: we’d hoped TIME wouldn’t pick her even if she came in first amongst readers. But the two reader frontrunners, while surely influential men, don’t come close to Pope Francis.

Pope Francis is the man of the year, but he might also be a pope of the century. His impact will be just as fresh in 30 years as it is today, just as the reforms of the Second Vatican Council are. And though the first year on the job is usually a little too soon to judge someone’s performance, with this guy, there’s already plenty to talk about. Here are 12 reasons he rocks:

1. HE’S THE FIRST LATIN AMERICAN POPE

He was elected this year, and the whole world watched for when the men in red would send up white smoke. The cardinals decided to elect the first pope from Latin America. Felicidades, Cardinal Bergoglio!

2. HE WASHED WOMEN’S FEET

Symbolism is worth a lot when you are, of all things, the pope, so the world oohed and aahed when, in one of his first acts, he washed the feet of female and Muslim prisoners as part of a Holy Thursday ritual. In all the centuries of the Catholic Church, never before had a pope washed a woman’s feet.

3. HE LOVES TWITTER

The pope has Twitter. Love at first Tweet? We think so.