Habemus Papam

What great joy fills us! On March 13 the cardinals of our Holy Catholic Church elected a new Pontiff. Few imagined that the man elected would be the new Pope. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was not on the lists of favorites this time. That is where we realize how the Holy Spirit acts in that very sacred moment when the cardinals, in deep recollection, ask God for light to choose the one who best suits our Church.

Many of us who watched the images that day on television shared the joy and euphoria of so many people, among them thousands of young people, who overflowed Saint Peter’s Square at the sight of the white smoke. The emotion we felt was indescribable. There were thousands of comments on Twitter when the long-awaited white smoke appeared. And the minutes that followed, waiting for the new Pope, felt endless.

When the cardinal protodeacon came out to announce “Habemus Papam,” many of us were frozen. And when he said the name, no one could believe what they were hearing: an Argentine Jesuit, a Latin American!, had been elected Pope. How moving! Those were truly moments to pray and to weep. For several hours nothing else was talked about in the media or on social networks… Catholics all over the world, of every charism there is, were united in prayer and indescribable joy for the new Pope God was giving us.

But now we cannot just hold on to the emotion of that moment, which was so beautiful and which let many of us sleep that night like “angels,” in complete Peace. Now each of us, especially lay people, must know that the new Pope is counting on each one of us. And counting on us for real, with a serious commitment: a commitment that means forming ourselves more in our faith and doctrine, keeping informed every day about what is happening in the Church (now, with the Internet, it is very easy), and knowing the needs our parishes are facing so that we are ready to help.

We also give great thanks to God for choosing Cardinal Bergoglio, who has been an extraordinary fighter in defense of life (from conception to death) and of the family. God knows that if the family is destroyed, society and the Church are destroyed. That is why we have this Pope, who has suffered firsthand, in his own country, terrible laws that attack life and the family. God does not want, and with the help of Pope Francis will not allow, laws like these to be passed in other countries of Latin America.

In the first homily of Pope Francis (who chose that name after Saint Francis of Assisi), he spoke of three movements. Walking: our life is a journey, and when we stop, something is wrong; we must always walk in the presence of the Lord, in his light, trying to live with the integrity God asked of Abraham. Building: building the Church, the Bride of Christ, with living stones anointed by the Holy Spirit, on the cornerstone that is the Lord himself. And professing: we can walk as much as we like and build many things, but if we do not profess Jesus Christ, something is wrong, and we will end up as a pitiful NGO rather than the Church, the Bride of the Lord. When we do not build on stone, he said, what happens to children building sandcastles on the beach happens to us: everything falls down. He recalled Léon Bloy’s phrase, “Whoever does not pray to the Lord prays to the devil,” and warned that when we walk without the cross, build without the cross and profess a Christ without the cross, we are not disciples of the Lord but worldly, whatever our rank. That first homily (which is on the Internet) lasted seven minutes, but it is so profound that one could meditate on it for a long time.

Another very important and striking thing about this Pope is his simplicity and his call to live poverty. Because a Christian cannot be attached to material things. A Christian has to give to those in need “until it hurts,” as Mother Teresa of Calcutta used to say, and not just what is left over. The new Pope’s appeal to Argentines who were planning to travel to Rome for his inauguration was very striking: he said he would prefer them to give that money to charity. This Pope will make us reflect seriously on how we are helping to relieve the enormous needs, spiritual and material, that our country and the whole world are experiencing at this time.

Let us carry on with great emotion and great joy, giving many thanks to God for giving us a Pope so firm in doctrine, who, God willing, will move many more people to take seriously what it means to be a Catholic committed to our Church and to those most in need.