Pope Francis

Pope Francis

Yesterday was such a thrilling day!  The Holy Spirit has answered our prayers!  All of us who prayed for our cardinals to heed the Holy Spirit's whispering guidance will now be  offering a prayer in thanksgiving.  We  have a very humble holy father who apparently is very strong when it comes to defending the Church and her teachings.  He is also very concerned about all her people.  He sees Christ in each one of us as the photo below shows.  He took the name of a man so humble he did not think himself worthy of even being a priest.  St. Francis of Assisi.  He is the first Jesuit to become a pope.  This surprised the world since (with all due respect to all the Jesuit priests) humility is not the first word one thinks of when we hear the word Jesuit.  To paraphrase Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, that is all gravy on the meat.  He was chosen because of his strength and his inner peace.  He is what the Church needs at this time.

Kissing the feet of an AIDS patient.  Source: his facebook page

Personally, it is very exciting having a pope from South America!  What pride for all Latin America!  It is also encouraging since South America has been losing many of Catholics to evangelical Protestantism or to the secular world.  The election of Pope Francis is just what Latin American needs to bring many Catholics back home to Rome.