‘A huge gift for all Latin America’

Latin Americans reacted with joy, bursting into tears and cheers yesterday at news that an Argentinian cardinal has become the first pope from the hemisphere.

“It’s incredible!” said Martha Ruiz, 60, who was weeping after learning that the cardinal she knew as Jorge Mario Bergoglio will now be Pope Francis. She said she had been in many meetings with the cardinal and said: “He is a man who transmits great serenity.”

Cars honked their horns as the news spread, television announcers screamed with elation and surprise, and Catholics began flooding toward the cathedral, where Ana Maria Perez and a few dozen other women had been waiting for the announcement.

“He is going to be the pope of the street,” she said, referring to Bergoglio’s habit of taking the subways alongside working-class Argentines.

At the St Francis of Assisi church in the colonial Old San Juan district in Puerto Rico, church secretary Antonia Veloz exchanged jubilant high-fives with Jose Antonio Cruz, a Franciscan friar. Friar Cruz said he personally favoured the Brazilian candidate, but was pleased with the outcome, saying the new pope would help revitalise the Church. “It’s a huge gift for all of Latin America. We waited 20 centuries. It was worth the wait,” he said.

In Panama City, PR executive Nelsa Aponte said: “This made me cry. I had to get out my handkerchief.”

This photo of the crowd waiting for #PopeFrancis to emerge is insane! #Pope pic.twitter.com/YULczQWEkW

— Keen Eye (@MartinBerthelot) March 14, 2013

In Mexico City, paediatrician Victor De la Rosa, 64, said the decision “is going to allow Latin America to be more involved in the Church’s decisions, above all in modernising the Church”.

‘Let’s pray always for each other’

French cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the senior cardinal in the order of the deacons, stepped onto the balcony of St Peter’s yesterday to announce, “habemus papam,” Latin for “we have a pope.”

He then revealed the pontiff’s birth name and the name he had chosen for himself as pope.

The new leader of the Catholic Church, Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, stepped onto the Vatican balcony to address the roaring crowd in St Peter’s Square where he humbly asked for the peoples’ prayers.

“Let’s pray always for each other. Let’s pray for the whole world. May there be a great brotherhood,” Pope Francis said in Italian.

He wished that the “voyage with the Church that we begin today” be “successful in spreading the gospel”.

A hush fell over the crowd when the pope said, “Let us pray silently in this prayer for me,” and bowed his head.

Pope Francis recited the Lords’ Prayer and the Hail Mary before making the sign of the cross to bless the crowd estimated to be more than 100,000 people.

“Brothers and sisters, I leave you. Thank you so much for the warm welcome. Pray for me and we’ll see each other soon. Tomorrow I want to go pray to the Madonna. And I want to wish to all of Rome goodnight and good rest,” Pope Francis said with a laugh and a wave before leaving the balcony among cheers and bells ringing.

The cardinals who elected the new pope looked out from surrounding balconies above the elated crowd.