Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio elected Pope Francis

THE Catholic Church has elected the first Pope from the developing world.

Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio from Buenos Aires in Argentina, the first ever to come from South America, who has taken the name Francis.

The 76-year-old was announced to the crowd waiting in St Peter’s Square from the vast balcony that runs across the front of St Peter’s basilica.

Addressing the crowds, the first non-European pontiff for more than a millenium said: “As you know, the duty of the conclave was to appoint a bishop of Rome. It seems to me that my brother cardinals have chosen one who is from far away, but here I am.

“I would like to thank you for your embrace, also to … the bishops, thank you very much. The world should set off on a path of love and fraternity.”

As Cardinal Bergoglio, he strongly opposed homsexuality and gay marriage and also clash with the Argentian government over the issue.

Earlier, white smoke had flowed from the chimney above the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, signalling that one of the candidates for the pontificate had obtained the necessary two-thirds majority for election.

The smoke arrived after five ballots on the second day of voting.

In 2005, Cardinal Bergoglio was runner-up to Cardinal Ratzinger.

The emergency of the white smoke – beamed around the world live on television – was greeted with cries of delight and applause from the crowd below.

Soon afterwards, the bells of St Peter’s rang out, confirming that the 266th pope had taken over the spiritual leadership of the world’s 1.2 billion baptised Catholics.

Inside the Sistine Chapel, after the final vote was cast, the most junior of the cardinals, James Harvey, called in the secretary of the college of cardinals, Monsignor Lorenzo Baldisseri, and the master of papal liturgical ceremonies, Monsignor Guido Marini, to witness the new pope’s acceptance of one of the most daunting jobs on earth.

The most senior of the electors, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, approached the pope-to-be and – in accordance with time-honoured tradition – asked him, in Latin: “Do you accept your canonical election as supreme pontiff?”

Having obtained his consent, he will have asked him: “By what name do you wish to be called?”

Cardinal Bergoglio replied: “Francis.”

The master of ceremonies, acting as a notary, will then have summoned two of his staff to act as witnesses, and prepared the document that certifies the new pope’s acceptance.

Newly elected popes are taken to be robed in the so-called Room of Tears, its name an indication of the reluctance with which most approach the task for which they have been chosen.

The last holder of the office, Benedict XVI, introduced a change into the ritual that allows for the new pope to pray before he is announced to the world.

Benedict abdicated on 28 February, saying that he was no longer able to cope with the burden of his office. He was the first pontiff to resign voluntarily since Celestine V in 1294.

The world’s Catholics will be looking to his successor to provide not only spiritual inspiration but also firm leadership.

The new pope was chosen against a background of turbulence and strife unprecedented in modern times.

Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio elected Pope

He takes on the leadership of a church whose faithful have been shocked by a proliferation of clerical sex abuse scandals throughout the rich world and dismayed by events in and around the Vatican.

The day for the 115 cardinal-electors began at about 6.30am local time in the Casa Santa Marta, their simple but comfortable – and highly protected – residence in the walled city state. After breakfast, they made their way to the Apostolic Palace, the home of the popes, for morning mass in the Pauline Chapel. By about 9.30am, they had settled themselves into the Sistine Chapel for prayers and the resumption of voting.

Benedict’s startling decision to resign came after years of mounting tension and discreet but venomous infighting in the Roman Curia, the central administration of the Catholic church. Last year, some of the pope’s correspondence, pointing to bitter rivalries and maladministration – or worse – in the Vatican was published in book form.

Benedict’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, was tried and imprisoned for leaking the documents, but the journalist to whom the papers were passed has said that his source was part of a much broader network of disaffected Vatican employees and officials. Gabriele’s arrest coincided with a renewed controversy over the Vatican bank, whose chairman was summarily dismissed last May.

The scandals – and a string of controversies over the pope’s own declarations – distracted attention from what was expected to be the central theme of his papacy. Benedict came to the leadership of the Catholic church as the pope who would begin the process of re-evangelising an increasingly secular western world.

That too will be an important challenge for his successor. In the approach to the conclave several cardinals said they wanted a great pastor for the world’s biggest Christian denomination.

No indication of how or why the new pope was chosen was expected to emerge. On Tuesday, before the start of the conclave, the cardinal-electors took an oath of secrecy, as had those Vatican employees and officials involved in the election.

Additional precautions included a sweep of the Sistine Chapel to ensure that no listening devices had been planted inside and the use of electronic jamming techniques.