ROME
GlobalPost
Jason Berry
ROME — Under blue skies, Pope Francis at his investiture Mass today at St. Peter’s Square called on international state officials there to be “protectors of one another and of the environment…We must not be afraid of goodness or even tenderness.”
An estimated 200,000 people packed the square and streets surrounding the basilica.
The pope’s sermon, amid the beauty and solemnity of a Latin Mass, spoke specifically to representatives of governments seated aside the altar, from US Vice President Joe Biden to Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe.
“I would ask to all of those who have positions of responsibility in economic, political and social life, and all men and women of goodwill,” he said. “Let us be ‘protectors’ of creation, protectors of God’s plan inscribed in nature…keeping watch over our emotions, over our hearts.”
Yet in the unfolding narrative of a pope calling on the world’s Catholics to focus on the poor and marginalized, Francis was trailed again by news coverage from Argentina that put him in a negative light in his response to clergy sex abuse.
“During most of the 14 years that Bergoglio served as archbishop of Buenos Aires, rights advocates say, he did not take decisive action to protect children or act swiftly when molestation charges surfaced,” wrote Nick Miroff in a piece published yesterday in the Washington Post, “nor did he extend apologies to the victims of abusive priests after their misconduct came to light.”
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