ROME
Vatican Insider
Vatican Insider takes a trip to the Church, dear to Ignatius of Loyola, where the meetings which strengthened Bergoglio’s candidacy were held
GIACOMO GALEAZZI
Vatican City
Saint Ignatius of Loyola celebrated his first mass here, on Christmas night in 1538. A stop at Saint Mary Major has always been a must during the Jesuit Bergoglio’s travels to the eternal city. Deeply devoted to the patroness of Rome (the Salus Populi Romani), he began his pontificate from the basilica which houses a relic of the Manger in Bethlehem and Bernini’s tomb. “He is very fond of this church, he came often as a cardinal,” says Fr. Elio Monteleone, one of the confessors in the West’s oldest Marian Sanctuary.
Yesterday morning, the newly elected Pope said to confessors: “Souls need you to be merciful; pray for me.” A Marian Pope like Wojtyla, who consecrated his pontificate to the Virgin Mary (Totus tuus), Francis, who had just appeared in Saint Peter’s dressed in white, announced the first appointment in his calendar: prayer to Mary. Tradition has it that it was the Virgin Mary herself who inspired the construction of her residence on the Esquiline Hill. Arriving shortly after 8:00 AM, the Pope was accompanied by the archpriest and former Nuncio in Latin America, Santos Abril y Castelló, and by Cardinal Vicar Agostino Vallini. He was welcomed by the chapter of the basilica, the priests, the lay employees, Archpriest Emeritus Bernard Law and the prefect of the Pontifical Household, Georg Gaenswein.
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