UNITED STATES
Huffington Post
Jaweed Kaleem
jaweed.kaleem@huffingtonpost.com
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires has been elected the 266th pope of the Catholic Church, taking the name Pope Francis.
He is the first Latin American pope to lead the church, as well as the first Jesuit priest.
Francis, 76, appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica on Wednesday more than an hour after white smoke was released from the Sistine Chapel chimney at 2:05 EDT (7:05 p.m. CET) to signal that a new pope had been selected. Speaking from the balcony, he gave his first address as pope, the traditional Urbi et Orbi (to the “City and the World”), as crowds waved, cried and cheered for the new leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics. …
Judy Jones, an American who is associate director the Survivors Network for Those Abused By Priests, said the group is keeping a close eye on Francis and wants him to “show the world that the sexual abuse of children and cover-up of abuse will not be tolerated.” Ahead of the conclave, SNAP released two lists of 15 cardinals it was “most worried about becoming the next pope.” Francis was not on the list and Jones said the she knows “very little about this pope.”
Terence McKiernan, the president of BishopAccountability.org, an organization that tracks bishops’ records on clergy abuse, had more pointed words about Francis.
“There is some evidence that Bergoglio is well aware that rebuilding the church will entail much more work on the abuse crisis than was done by Pope Benedict. For example, last year Bergoglio was outspoken regarding the case of accused (Argentine) priest Justo José Ilarraz,” McKiernan said.
But while “Pope Francis’ meetings with survivors of sexual abuse will be less formal than Pope Benedict’s pioneering encounters,” McKiernan said Francis “encountered many cases of sexual abuse in the years when he was an auxiliary bishop and then the archbishop of Buenos Aires. Yet he has been content for the most part to remain silent.”
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