We love you Holy Father!
I feel incredibly grateful for improvements in technology nd new media which have allowed me to follow events today despite being away from home running errands. I'm writing this from my van in a shopping center car park. Last time I had to rely on BBC radio which was galling as the coverage was so hostile.
I know little about former Cardinal Bergoglio, now our Holy Father Pope Francis I, other than the headlines that he's Argentinian and that he's a Jesuit. I'm assuming thst he's an old-style Jesuit rsther than the modern sort, and that he won't be requesting that Britain hand the Falklands over to Argentina.
More to the point, I was moved by his humility in asking the crowds to pray for him and with him before he gave his urbi et orbi blessing: "Before I bless you all as the new Pope... I ask that you pray to The Lord to bless me". Didn't Pope Emeritis Benedict XVI do this as well? I also loved the fact that he gave the Apostolic blessing with plenary indulgence to anyone following through media as well as to those physically there: a genuine spiritual benefit of technological advance! It was wonderful to pray along with our new Holy Father and the crowds in St Peter's Square.
Oh - and when I phoned home to tell the children the news, I could barely hear a thing over the ringing of the ship's bell outside our back door. I'm reliably informed that the flag was hoisted and suitably pro-Papa songs and hymns sung a haute voix outside. Several marches around the garden to Full in the Panting Heart of Rome ("God Bless Our Pope!") and Faith of Our Fathers. Anyone within a mile or so's radius will have been made aware of the good news.
Habemus Papam! It feels like we waited ages to hear those words: God bless Pope Francis!
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