New pope slips out of Vatican for morning prayer visit [View all]
Source: Reuters
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis, barely 12 hours after his election, quietly left the Vatican early on Thursday to pray for guidance as he looks to usher a Roman Catholic Church mired in intrigue and scandal into a new age of simplicity and humility.
Francis, the Argentinian cardinal who has become the first pope born outside Europe in 1,300 years, went to Rome's 5th-century Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore; there he prayed before a famed icon of Mary, the mother of Jesus, which is known as the Salus Populi Romani, or Protectress of the Roman People.
"He spoke to us cordially, like a father," said Father Ludovico Melo, a priest who prayed with the new pontiff. "We were given 10 minutes' advance notice that the pope was coming."
The first leader of the church to come from the Americas, home to nearly half the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, Francis also takes the title of bishop of Rome.
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/pope-promises-bring-look-church-040421643.html
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