Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected as the new Pope with the necessary 77 votes from the cardinal college of 115. Bergoglio is the 266th Pontiff. He will take the name Pope Francis.
Bergoglio was considered an outsider for the job. Previously he was the Bishop of Buenos Aires.
Here’s the moment the smoke emerged from the chimney:
The papal conclave began yesterday as the 115 cardinals began the process of finding a new spiritual leader for the 1.2 billion Catholics in the world. The new Pope’s identity was announced by Cardinal Jean-Louis Pierre Tauran on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.
The white smoke emerged from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel just after 2:00 p.m. local time.
Sam Jones, reporting for The Guardian said of Pope Francis:
The archbishop of Buenos Aires is a Jesuit intellectual who travels by bus and has a practical approach to poverty: when he was appointed a cardinal, Bergoglio persuaded hundreds of Argentinians not to fly to Rome to celebrate with him but instead to give the money they would have spent on plane tickets to the poor. He was a fierce opponent of Argentina’s decision to legalise gay marriage in 2010, arguing children need to have the right to be raised and educated by a father and a mother. He was created a cardinal by John Paul II on 21 February 2001