Our new pope

[goldent]

Thought I'd start a thread for those who would like to comment, without all the hubbub from the non-stamp collectors who take great interest in stamps

I for one am really enjoying reading all of the press coverage about Pope Francis (by the way, will he only be known as Pope Francis I when the 2nd one comes around?). While I don't really expect big things, he does sound like one who could shake things up. Clearly his first day or two has been fascinating and impressive. I think he is going to be good.

[Kingofalldems]

1. I found out this AM in reading the W. Post

he named himself after Francis of Assisi, not Xavier.

[mykpart]

2. Some of the press coverage is laughable.

I wish the media would go to more trouble to learn about the Church if they are going to report on it. Makes me wonder how accurate their coverage of Muslim leaders is. Or any religious leaders, for that matter.

[Tumbulu]

3. Good point nt

[goldent]

5. This is the nature of the press

Every time I see a press article on something for which I have expert knowledge, it nearly always contains incorrect or very confusing facts. I just got used to it, which is maybe why I am happy with the press coverage.

BTW, if the author's email is listed, do not hesitate to write a polite non-judgmental email stating that you read their article, and believe there are some errors (and ideally where they would find accurate information). I would say most "proper" reporters want to be accurate, but are pressured by time to get something out and don't have the time to do sufficient research, and would welcome feedback.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

6. I do that every so often

I sometimes get some rather nice responses, including a very gracious letter from Stephen Jay Gould and a letter from one author thanking me for my feedback and saying that she would incorporate it if she wrote a second edition (and would mention me in the introduction).

I will say that in the late 1980s, I wrote a longish letter to Henry Ledgard and John Tauer, who had written a book on standards for the C computer programming language, C With Excellence: Programming Proverbs, on why I really hated their book. They did not write back. I started writing my own book on the subject, until I came across another book on C standards that was extremely good -- and the author of that one thanked Ledgard and Tauer for inspiring him to write.

[goldent]

9. Why didn't you like Programming Proverbs?

I have used C and C++ many years but have never gotten any of those programming tips books. I guess I think the language manuals (e.g. K&R) had enough tips. Everyone develops their own style, and probably if I looked at those books, I'd think they solved the problems is a non-intuitive way

[goldent]

4. You might be tired of these "interesting facts" lists, but I found this one interesting, esp. 5-7

1. Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born Dec 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, one of five children born to an Italian railway worker and his wife.

2. His father, Mario Jorge, emigrated to Argentina from the Piedmont region of Italy.

3. He speaks Italian, German and Spanish fluently, in addition to a smattering of English, French and Portuguese. He can also speak a bit of the Piedmontaise dialect too.

4. He lost part of his lung to infection as a youth.

5. He is a fan of the tango. "I love tango and I used to dance when I was young," he told Francesca Ambrogetti and Sergio Rubin, thee authors of his 2010 biography El Jesuita.

6. He had a girlfriend. "She was one of a group of friends I went dancing with. But then I discovered my religious vocation," he said to Ambrogetti and Rubin.

7. He worked as a bouncer in a Buenos Aires bar to earn money as a student.

8. He is a passionate fan of San Lorenzo Football Club, his local team. They were the first Argentine team to win the domestic double, in 1972.

9. His favourite painting is The White Crucifixion, painted by Marc Chagall in 1938. The painting shows Jesus being crucified on the cross, wearing a prayer shawl as a symbol that he is Jewish. The painting originally showed a soldier with a swastika on his armband burning down a synagogue.

10. His favourite film is Babette's Feast, a 1987 Danish drama directed by Gabriel Axel.

11. He studied philosophy at the Catholic University of Buenos Aires and also has a master's degree in Chemistry from the University of Buenos Aires.

12. He was a teacher of literature, psychology, philosophy and theology before becoming the Archbishop of Buenos Aires.

13. He is the co-author of "Sobre el Cielo y la Tierra (On Heaven and Earth)", which can be purchased for Kindle.

14. He was previously Archbishop of Buenos Aires, from 1998 to 2013. He was known during this time to try and set an example for others, eschewing the extravagant robes of his position for the humble robes of a simple priest.

15. He used public transport rather than taxis or a chauffeured car to get around and lived in a small flat with an older priest and made all his own meals, despite having access to the Archbishop's quarters and a chef.

16. He was made a Cardinal by John Paul II in 2001.

17. During the 2005 conclave in which he was runner up, he was reportedly the victim of a smear campaign by other, more liberal members of the Jesuit order, who claimed that he never smiled.

18. He travelled to the conclave in Rome on an economy flight.

19. Francis is the first non-European pope since Gregory III, who was born in modern-day Syria and elected in 731.

20. He is apparently not Francis I but Pope Francis. Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi explains: "It will become Francis I after we have a Francis II." Pope John Paul I, the last pope to affix a 'I', decided to attach it himself.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

7. Know who else has an advanced degree in Chemistry?

Margaret Thatcher.

[Catherina]

8. Opponent of globalization, neoliberalism and the IMF

Crossposting this from a thread in the Latin America forum

“We live in the most unequal part of the world, which has grown the most yet reduced misery the least. The unjust distribution of goods persists, creating a situation of social sin that cries out to Heaven and limits the possibilities of a fuller life for so many of our brothers.”

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/papabile-day-men-who-could-be-pope-13

His huge dispute with Christina goes back to when her husband was President and he attacked former President Nestor Kirchner’s government as “immoral, illegitimate, and unjust” for not taking strong enough measures to support the nation’s poor.

Whatever his role in that chapter of Argentine history, his political role in a country polarized between President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s government and a beleaguered opposition became a central theme here a day after Bergoglio was named pope. Bergoglio, observers say, has not been shy about energetically taking on the president or her predecessor and late husband, Néstor Kirchner.

“It was never a good relation,” said Oscar Aguad, a deputy in Argentina’s congress from the opposition Radical party. “There were scraps between Bergoglio and the Kirchner governments, to the point where Nestor Kirchner even said that Bergoglio was the head of the opposition.”

Tensions between Bergoglio and the Kirchners increased during the 2000s as the couple began to guide Argentina out of an economic collapse. The Kirchners rode a wave of popularity, which critics say they used to intervene in the economy and adopt a take-no-prisoners approach to the opposition and the press. Eventually, they tussled with the Roman Catholic Church.

Observers in Argentina said Bergoglio did not act in opposition to the Kirchners’ stated goal of reducing poverty; in fact, Bergoglio emerged during the peak of the Argentine economic crisis of 2000 as a fierce critic of globalization. Rather, he was simply not shy about exposing what some critics of the government call its mendacity in reporting economic data. The church waded into this thicket not with a direct attack but by issuing its own poverty figures showing that the number of poor people was much higher than the Kirchners asserted.

“When Bergoglio talked of extreme poverty, or of the kids who are among the army of drug addicts, the government felt it was under attack because they’re in charge of anti-narcotics efforts, social programs and health care,” said Oscar Raúl Aguad, a lawmaker who opposed the Kirchners’ programs.

...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/bergoglio-challenged-moral-authority-of-argentinas-elected-leaders/2013/03/14/95db94f6-8ce7-11e2-b63f-f53fb9f2fcb4_story.html

The secular clergy of his diocese, however, love their archbishop. As auxiliary bishop in Buenos Aires in the 1990s, he managed always to be with his priests, keeping them company through crises and difficulties and showing his great capacity for listening sympathetically (I have heard many stories of Bergoglio spending hours with elderly sick priests.) He also continued to show his option for the poor by encouraging priests to step out into the deep in intellectual and artistic areas: Bergoglio has never hidden a passion for literature.

Ironically, it is the same Bergoglio who, as Jesuit provincial, demanded absolute obedience and political neutrality, as the Archbishop of Buenos Aires wants his priests to be “out on the frontiers”, as he puts it. 

Cardinal Bergoglio regularly travels to the furthest ends of his three million-strong diocese to visit the poor. He wants them in the neediest barrios, in the hospitals accompanying Aids sufferers, in the popular kitchens for children.

To take one example: when, last year, a number of young people died in a fire in a rock club tragedy, Bergoglio went to their aid in the middle of the night, arriving before the police and fire service, and long before the city authorities. Since the tragedy, one of his auxiliaries has a ministry to the family and friends of the victims, and has not been backward in criticising the government for its response to the tragedy.

...

Where do his political sympathies lie? Certainly not on the Left. Those who know him best would consider him on the moderate Right, close to that strand of popular
 Peronism which is hostile to liberal capitalism. In the economic crisis of 2001-2002, when Argentina defaulted on its debt, people came out on to the streets and supermarkets were looted, Bergoglio was quick to denounce the neo-liberal banking system which had left Argentina with an unpayable debt.

...

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/features/2013/03/13/quiet-thunder-in-argentina/

A little more about this fire where Bergoglio rushed to the scene. It was the 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires of a seven-story building housing the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association and the Delegation of the Argentine Jewish Association. Beroglio strongly condemned it and maintained very close ties with the Jewish Community.

Bergoglio has twice attended services at synagogues in Buenos Aires, Hier said, and he led a commemoration of the anniversary of Kristallnacht in his cathedral this past December.

Hier and other Jewish leaders were particularly encouraged by Bergoglio’s reaction to the 1994 terrorist attack on the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed more than 80 people.

“We are heartened by his profound statement of solidarity with the Jewish people and his identity with the pain that was caused by the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires,” Jewish Council for Public Affairs Chair Larry Gold said in a statement released on Wednesday.

Rabbi Sergio Bergman, who is the senior rabbi of one of the largest synagogues in Buenos Aires and has been a member of Buenos Aires’ city legislature since 2011, heralded Bergoglio’s selection on Twitter.

“Argentines and men and women of good will, as brothers, we celebrate the unity in diversity convened together for Francisco I,” Bergman tweeted in Spanish after hearing news of the selection.

...

http://www.jewishjournal.com/religion/article/jewish_leaders_groups_welcome_pope_francis

All this is encouraging because St Francis was all about mending fences and peace.

(Reuters) - Muslims in Europe see hope for better relations with Roman Catholicism after the new pope took the name Francis, recalling the 13th-century saint known for his efforts to launch Christian dialogue with Islam.

Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio chose the name after his election on Wednesday in honour of St. Francis of Assisi, who is revered for his radical poverty and humility. Francis met the sultan of Egypt in 1219 on a peace mission during the Fifth Crusade.

St. Francis crossed enemy lines unarmed to meet Sultan Malik al-Kamil and discuss war, peace and faith. He spent several days with the Muslim ruler, unsuccessfully trying to convert him, and was then returned safely to the Crusader side.

Muslim leaders in Italy, France and Germany, where St. Francis and his Franciscan order of brown-robed friars are well known, struck an upbeat tone.

"As Muslims of the West, we take as a particularly hopeful sign the reminder, in the name of the new pontiff, of the great example of sanctity and opening to the East and to Islam that St. Francis of Assisi gave," the Italian Islamic Religious Community (COREIS) said in a statement.

...

http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/03/15/pope-islam-name-idINDEE92E0DA20130315

Also this


He's made several hints to reform already and articles I read said that he reformed the Argentinian Church to focus more on the poor and evangelization. When a ton of Argentinians wanted to fly to Rome for the Conclave, he begged them not to and to give the money to the poor instead. And about his so-called *part* in Argentina's war:

“He disagreed with two Jesuits that had been taken because they wanted to take the way of violence and arms,” said Mario Aguilar, a Chilean theologian at Britain’s University of St. Andrews. “ He said that we are not going to be guerrillas or revolutionaries, because we are priests. He could not have done otherwise. The idea that he was complacent is a misunderstanding. He was under immense pressure under the military junta and the church.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/bergoglio-challenged-moral-authority-of-argentinas-elected-leaders/2013/03/14/95db94f6-8ce7-11e2-b63f-f53fb9f2fcb4_story_2.html

“There were bishops who were complicit in the dictatorship,” Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Argentine human rights activist, told the BBC’s Spanish-language service on Thursday. “But not Bergoglio.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/bergoglio-challenged-moral-authority-of-argentinas-elected-leaders/2013/03/14/95db94f6-8ce7-11e2-b63f-f53fb9f2fcb4_story.html