(Vatican City) – Argentine Jorge Bergoglio has been elected pope, the first ever from the Americas and the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium. He chose the name Pope Francis. Pope Francis appeared on the balcony over St. Peter’s Square to wild cheers from the crowd below. Known until Wednesday as Jorge Bergoglio, the 76-year-old is known as a humble man who came close to becoming pope last time, reportedly gaining the second-highest vote total in several rounds of voting before he bowed out of the running in the conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI.
Pope Francis—the first Jesuit pope—has spent nearly his entire career at home in Argentina. He has long specialized in the kind of pastoral work—overseeing churches and priests—that some say is an essential skill for a pope. In a lifetime of teaching and leading priests in Latin America, which has the largest share of the world’s Catholics, the former Bergoglio has shown a keen political sensibility as well as a self-effacing humility.
