Papa Francesco
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papa_Francesco
Pope Francis profile: who is Argentina's Jorge Mario Bergoglio?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/the-pope/9928637/Pope-Francis-profile-who-is-Argentinas-Jorge-Mario-Bergoglio.html
The first man outside of Europe
in more than a millenium to be elected Pope, the first Jesuit, and a humble man
who cooks his own meals - who is Pope Francis? Damien McElroy and Donna Bowater
profile the Pope.
At the outset of the conclave, few Vatican
watchers were even ranking Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergogio as the top Argentine
candidate. The 76-year old had been overshadowed by his fellow countryman
Leonardo Sandri, 69, a Vatican diplomat.
But having trailed second in every ballot to Pope Benedict
XVI in 2005, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires triumphed
at the fifth ballot to chose his successor, becoming the first ever Jesuit to
ascend to the throne of St Peter as well as the first from outside Europe.
Pope Francis has been a cardinal since 2001 and has won
admirers for his humble style of life. "His own simplicity of life, I
think will be a great example to people," said Cardinal Cormac Murphy
O'Connor, the former archbishop of Westminister. "For many people this may
be a surprise election but for me it is inspired and I am very very happy, not
only for the Catholic Church, but for the world."
The son of a railway worker, the new Pope is a trained
chemist. He has reportedly become less active in recent years due to his age
and the effects of having a lung removed when he suffered an infection as a
teenager.
As archbishop of Buenos
Aires, he has spurned the trappings of the church,
living in his own apartment. The prelate has even been known to cook his own
meals.
"In favour of Bergoglio is his pastoral attitude, as
they say in the Church – his relationship with the people," said Leandro
Pastor, a friend of the new Pope for a quarter of a century who is philosophy
professor at the University
of Buenos Aires.
"He's a very simple man. He's very austere. And also, I think he's an
intelligent man and someone who is very good at communicating."
But he has also campaigned strongly against the progressive
social agenda of the Argentine government.
Like John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, he regards the
Roman Catholic Church's core values as under attack from secular society.
Monsignor Osvaldo Musto, who was at seminary with him, said
the archbishop would also be a good choice in terms of continuity.
"He's as uncompromising as Pope John Paul II, in terms
of the principles of the Church – everything it has defended regarding
euthanasia, the death penalty, abortion, the right to life, human rights,
celibacy of priests. All of this will continue if Bergoglio is made Pope."
When Argentina
became the first Latin American country to legalise same-sex marriage in 2010,
Cardinal Bergoglio waged a high-profile campaign against the policy.
The move was denounced from the pulpits as dealing a serious
injury to the family.
The prospect that
same-sex couples could adopt would deprive children "of the human growth
that God wanted them given by a father and a mother."
He said: "Here again is the envy of the devil, by which
sin entered into the world, that cunningly seeks to destroy the image of God:
man and woman who are mandated to grow, multiply and dominate land."
But the cardinal's influence stopped at the presidential
palace door after Nestor Kirchner and then his wife, Cristina Kirchner, took
over the Argentina's
government.
Sources close to Bergoglio reportedly said: "The
relationship with Kirchner is not bad: it is awful."
Father Guillermo Marco, who saw Bergoglio become a cardinal,
described his generosity, citing an example of a homeless Bolivian family, who
wrote to him about their situation, to which he responded by giving them the
money in his wallet to put them up in a house.
He failed to prevent the Argentine Supreme Court from
expanding access to legal abortions in rape cases, and when Bergoglio argued
that gay adoptions discriminate against children, Mrs Kirchner compared his
tone to "medieval times and the Inquisition."
Taking the reins of a church reeling from multiple failures
to address scandals from banking to child abuse, Pope Francis brings his own
baggage having been accused of not standing up to abuses of Argentina's
military junta.
Allegations surrounding his refusal to speak up for priests
rounded up during Argentina's 1976-1983 military dictatorship have been
described by his supporters as an "old slander".
More broadly, critics have also condemned his record of
refusing to speak out during the brutal crackdown when some 13,000 to 30,000
people died or disappeared.
Anger over the
Church's refusal to confront a regime that was kidnapping and killing thousands
of people as it sought to eliminate "subversive elements" in society
has diminished but not been vanquished during his time as cardinal. More than
two-thirds of Argentines describe themselves as Catholic, but fewer than 10 per
cent regularly attend mass.
Under Bergoglio's leadership, Argentina's bishops issued a
collective apology in October 2012 for the church's failures to protect its
followers. But the statement blamed the era's violence in roughly equal measure
on both the junta and its enemies.
His biographer Sergio Rubin, author of The Jesuit, said much
of the criticism is misplaced but Pope Francis had let many of the charges go
uncontested until the image stuck.
"Bergoglio has been very critical of human rights
violations during the dictatorship, but he has always also criticised the
leftist guerrillas; he doesn't forget that side," he said.
After taking a master's degree in chemistry at the University of Buenos Aires, he enrolled at the Jesuit
seminary of Villa Devoto as a seminarian.
He later took a liberal arts degree in Santiago before studying philosophy at
Catholic University of Buenos Aires.
He was ordained a priest in 1969, spending the next two
decades teaching in Jesuit schools and universities.
He was installed as the new archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998. The Jesuits have often
been seen as an alternative power base to the papacy in the Catholic Church.
With the election of the first Jesuit as pope, these two bases have been united
for the first time in history.
Away from politics, he instructed priests to remain open and
inclusive to groups that have suffered discrimination.
"In our ecclesiastical region there are priests who
don't baptise the children of single mothers because they weren't conceived in
the sanctity of marriage," Cardinal Bergoglio told worshippers last year.
"These are today's hypocrites. Those who clericalize
the Church. Those who separate the people of God from salvation. And this poor
girl who, rather than returning the child to sender, had the courage to carry
it into the world, must wander from parish to parish so that it's
baptised!"
Papa Francisco envía mensaje de aliento a mamá de Gustavo
Cerati
http://www.tvnotas.com.mx/2013/09/09/C-53862-papa-francisco-envia-mensaje-de-aliento-a-mama-de-gustavo-cerati.php
El líder
de la Iglesia Católica mandó una emotiva carta en la que pide por la salud del
cantante.
El Papa
Francisco mandó un mensaje de aliento a la mamá del cantante argentino Gustavo
Cerati, quien se encuentra en estado de coma por un derrame cerebral desde
2010.
A
través de una carta que fue leída en un programa de televisión en Buenos Aires, el religioso
declaró: ''Por favor, le ruego le diga a Lilian, madre de Cerati, que su
testimonio me hace bien, su valentía en ese seguir esperando y que estoy junto
a ella''.
Por su cuenta, Lilian
Clark comentó a la prensa: ''Cuando le hablo, Gustavo me escucha. Tengo fe en
que va a despertar".
''El archivista más
cruel es el olvido. Tenía razón nuestro Borges cuando decía que sólo una cosa
no se debe hallar, que es el olvido, sí, desde Dios. Pero entre nosotros el
olvido existe y es cruel. Gracias por haber soplado las brisas de un
recuerdo'', agregó el jefe de la Iglesia Católica.
"Es difícil
decir algo más frente a una situación tan sagrada, como es la relación de una madre con un hijo,
pero que acepte mi silencio hecho oración. Quedo a su disposición. Por favor,
le pido que rece por mí, que Jesús lo bendiga y que la Virgen santa lo cuide'',
finalizó la carta el Papa.
En mayo de 2010,
Cerati sufrió un accidente cerebro vascular durante un concierto en la ciudad
de Caracas y
desde entonces no ha recuperado la conciencia. Cabe recordar que el compositor
ha recibido varias visitas, entre ellos Bono, líder de la banda irlandesa U2,
los cantantes españoles Alejandro Sanz y Joaquín Sabina, así como el grupo
mexicano Maná.