Pope Francis: Revolutionary or less protocol?

March 17, 2013

While the faithful saw white smoke out of the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, the master of ceremonies for the new Pope offered the traditional red cape trimmed with ermine, which happily wore his predecessor, Benedict XVI, for ceremonial occasions.

“No thank you, Bishop,” he had said. “Gone are the days of the carnival.” A concluding phrase of the new pope style.

In the first 48 hours of pontificate, Francisco has given the world a very clear signal of how it will be, for the first time in history, a Jesuit is leading 1.200 billion Catholics worldwide.

“The most repeated word in the Vatican press conferences is “simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. That is the official character with the Vatican is presenting the new pope,” Pablo Esparza said from Rome, BBC special envoy to the Vatican.

An hour after his election on Wednesday, the new Vatican Pope slipped in a car camouflaged. He wanted to pray and thank the same Roman basilica where the founder of his order, Ignatius of Loyola, some time prayed.

After the visit asked the driver of the car that made a stop at the clerical hotel in central Rome where he had been before the conclave. He wanted to pay the bill and pick up his luggage.