Not even 12 hours on the job, the new Pope, Jorge Bergoglio, now named Pope Francis, started his first day on the job praying for guidance as he looks for a way to navigate a Roman Catholic Church mired in intrigue, scandal and in recent years, sex abuse by priests, into a new age of simplicity and humility.
Speaking to the crowd gathered in St. Peter's Squareon Wednesday evening, he made it clear that he would take the role as leader seriously and to prove that his words are golden, he visited one of the Italian capital's most important churches.
While in Rome, the 76-year-old Pope, went to city's 5th-century Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore; there he prayed before a famed icon of Mary, the mother of Jesus, which is known as the Salus Populi Romani, or Protectress of the Roman People.
"He spoke to us cordially, like a father," said Father Ludovico Melo, a priest who prayed with the new pontiff. "We were given 10 minutes' advance notice that the pope was coming."
For Pope Francis, the Argentinian cardinal who has become the first pope born outside Europe in 1,300 years, transitioning into the role as Pontiff hasn't been that difficult, but he did visit his predecessor, Emeritus Pope Benedict, who last month became the first pontiff in 600 years to step down, saying that at 85 he was too frail to tackle all the problems of the Church.
According to Chicago Tribune, His appointment answered some fundamental questions about the direction of the Church in the coming years.
"After more than a millennium of European leadership, the cardinal-electors looked to Latin America, where 42 percent of the world's Catholics live. The continent is more focused on poverty and the rise of evangelical churches than questions of materialism and sexual abuse, which dominate in the West."
They also chose a man with long pastoral experience, rather than an academic and Vatican insider like Benedict XVI.
"It seems that this pope will be more aware of what life is all about," Italian theologian Massimo Faggioli told Reuters.
Only time will tell what the legacy of this new Pope will be and if He will be successful taking the Church into a new direction.
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