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| http://newsiswealth.blogspot.in/ |
White smoke rose to announce the new pope on March 13—habemus papam!—ending one saga and setting off a new era for the Vatican. A month earlier Pope Benedict XVI resigned from the office due to his old age, becoming the first pontiff in nearly 600 years to cede his post.
In his place the papal conclave voted for the Argentine cleric Jorge Bergoglio, who from the outset has fashioned himself a reformer of the Church and an advocate for the poor. He selected his name—the first Francis in the history of the papacy—after the champion of the poor Saint Francis of Assisi, and has since shaken things up, spearheading financial reform within the Vatican, challenging traditional Church views on homosexuality and women, and denouncing the rapacious nature of Western capitalism.
