Opinion: The sweet Sistine
The votes are in and the winner is announced. People spent the last few weeks filling in their brackets and making predictions. No, not basketball; all this hype has been over the election of the new pope. It’s a lot of buildup, but not completely unnecessary.Pope Benedict XVI was the first pope to step down from the position since Gregory XII in 1415. The 115 cardinals had to choose a new pope to lead the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics at a time of turmoil in the church. The Catholic Church is facing threats of secularism, a corrupt bureaucracy, outrage of sexual abuse scandals in the clergy and accusations of financial corruption. With all of this serious damage, the hope is that the new pope can begin to heal and rebuild the Church.During the first two conclaves, the Sistine Chapel released black smoke, meaning that the 115 cardinals did not reach a decision on who to elect as the next pope. Theoretically, all of the 115 cardinals were candidates. There was no front-runner before the votes were decided, and the seat of the pope was wide open to all.White smoke emerged from the Vatican around 2:00 p.m. today, signaling that the conclave had made a decision. Soon after, Cardinal Jean-Louis Pierre Tauran stepped onto the balcony over St. Peter’s Square to announce the name of the 266th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. The new pope is Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio from Buenos Aires, Argentina.The 76-year-old is the first pope from outside of Europe elected in over a millennium, not a surprise considering that Latin and South America have the fastest growing populations of Catholics in the world. Bergoglio has chosen Pope Francis as his papal name, which is the first completely new pope name since Pope Lando in 913—another historical aspect to Pope Francis’s election.The process of the election itself is quite unusual with the secret election hidden away in the Vatican and the smoke signals to tell the world of their decision. But the scene outside of the church is important. The thousands of people gathered in St. Peter’s Square and the numerous flags flying in the front of the Vatican demonstrate unity between all of the Catholic countries in the world, something not seen too often today.Now that a decision has been reached, hopefully Pope Francis will be able to correct and strengthen the Church and provide faithful leadership for Catholics everywhere.