Pope Francis makes his papacy a family affair

A ‘time of great interior crisis’ early in his career turned Pope Francis into a family man and one who is determined that the Church puts the care of individuals above doctrine, writes Paul Valley

He was not what she was expecting . The man who would one day be Pope Francis had come to hold a service far from the grandeur of the great cathedral of Buenos Aires.

He had travelled by subway and then bus to arrive in one of the shanty towns, which Argentines call villas miserias — misery villages. He picked his way down crooked and chaotic alleyways, along which open sewers ran as malodorous streams when the rain came.