Oh, my God. It’s Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, who everybody thought was past it. It’s commonly thought that he came second last time and was the popular liberal choice, only to be thwarted by Ratzinger. Is this a reaction against the papacy of Benedict?
What with him being from Argentina, the mainstream media will be quick to hope that he is a progressive. The BBC is already doing it: they will ask if he will be able to ‘move forward’ the key issues for them: gay rights, condoms, women priests etc. Of course that isn’t what he and the Cardinals who voted for him are thinking about. But there is a vital challenge: can Bergoglio overhaul the scandal-prone Curia and revive Catholicism in the face of an increasingly secular and hostile world?
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