New pontiff offers hope for the poor

The eyes of the world, of believers and nonbelievers alike, turned to Vatican City the moment white smoke plumed from the chimney atop the Sistine Chapel, the ancient signal amplified instantly by myriad forms of digital communication. From Rome to Hawaii — where Catholicism occupies a dominant role in faith, social service and cultural spheres — the news reverberated strongly.

Why all this attention on the selection of Pope Francis? To start with, there is always a fascination with firsts. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio is the first Argentinian — the first from the Americas, in fact — to be elected head of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. He is the first member of the Jesuit order of priests, and the first to adopt the name of Francis.

But beyond such important symbols, the fact is that Pope Francis is assuming the helm of the world’s largest Christian denomination at a time when that institution is deeply divided and troubled. Growing numbers of the world’s poor suffer from a lack of truly basic needs; meanwhile the church has struggled ineffectively with its own internal failings.

Most non-Catholics would acknowledge that the papacy holds tremendous international influence and that a course correction here would be a development of global significance. The "pope emeritus," Benedict XVI, watched the proceedings in privacy, having abdicated a position that, he rightly observed, required someone of more robust health and energy than he now possessed.

The church desperately hopes that, despite being age 76, Bergoglio can meet the challenges. The members need a sign of resolve from its leaders that they will no longer be mired in secrecy and indecisiveness about the corruption and pedophilia scandals that have rocked the institution in recent decades. There is still time to hope that Pope Francis will send such a message, and the sooner it comes, the better.

And there is still reason to hope. In selecting his formal name, the former cardinal of Buenos Aires decided to pay homage to Francis of Assisi, the saint known for his devotion to the poor and embrace of the simple life. Bergoglio served as a model for this ideal in his own life, maintaining a modest apartment, taking public transportation and cooking his own meals. He has supported the Latin American social justice ethos and is seen as a strong advocate for the poor.

As a Jesuit, he is among the intellectual scholars of the church, but his selection may disappoint the more socially liberal segment in that religious order. His staunch conservatism on the social issues — abortion, same-sex marriage, contraception — means there likely will be no radical shifts on those tenets anytime soon.

But few realistic assessments of the church would have predicted big near-term changes on those grounds, anyway. If the new pope really means to follow through on his emulation of St. Francis — and people in Hawaii are familiar with that tradition of outreach through exemplars such as St. Marianne of Molokai, a Franciscan nun — it should mean a refocusing on service, a return to what’s most essential in Christian beliefs.

And that would be a great development in a church that could be doing more, at the pulpit and with its resources, to ease the suffering of millions.