New pope slips out of Vatican for morning prayer visit

[onehandle]

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

[Berlin Expat]

1. Arguably, one of his

most important tasks is to clean up the Curia (the Vatican bureaucracy). That whole pedophilia scandal has seriously damaged the RCC. Whether he can affect serious changes and houseclean the institution, or whether it's all too little, too late (Benedict XVI, in my opinion, was hoping it would just go away) remains to be seen.

The RCC (and Christianity in general) is mostly growing in Africa and east Asia. What's ironic is that Islam is growing in Europe, the RCC's former stronghold. I've met scores of converts to Islam in my time here in Europe, in Germany, England.....heck, even here in the Czech Republic. Fortunately, and I have to emphasize this, the converts are by and large, pretty mellow. Sufism and variants thereof seem to be a popular choice for the recently converted - most likely as its the most tolerant branch of Islam, and the least aggressive or militant.

[glinda]

2. Thanks for that interesting observation and welcome to DU.

[elleng]

3. Nice.