A new Pope in Rome

A new Pope was elected yesterday in Rome and there is a lot of buzz here at work about it (this is a Catholic school after all). In the last few days I learned a lot about the process of electing a pope (how many votes they do a day, for how many days etc) as well as the distribution of Catholics throughout the world (I hadn´t realized that there were so many in Africa). It has been an interesting few days while everyone was waiting for white smoke. 

 Drum roll please. Here he is Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, now Francis (or Francisco) I. He is the first non-European Pope in over 1,000 years. 


I have been lucky enough to see the last 2 Popes in person on separate visits to Rome. Once was when I went during Holy Week in 2002 and attended Easter mass at the Vatican. The second time was on my last trip to Rome when Jose, our friend Megan and I got shuffled in to an official ceremony at the Cathedral with no tickets and no idea that it was planned for that same day. 

 Since I have already been blessed by two Popes during my lifetime, I figure I can´t stop now. Jose and I will just have to go back to Rome to see the new Pope soon. You can tell I am very sad about this right?

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