by Bragatyr » Thu Mar 14, '13, 4:43 am
I was really stunned when they announced this, and I'm still excited. I'm a...former Catholic, I guess, since I was sort of nominally raised Catholic and still have a lot of interest in the church and religion in general despite basically being agnostic, but I think it's so cool that he's Latin American, Jesuit, and chose the name Francis (a lot of firsts for a pope!). That latter point is just epic. Francis of Assisi is one of my favorite saints, and I think he's one of the figures in history who can be argued to be most like the Jesus of the Gospels, so I have a lot of hope that he can prove a force for good in the world. I understand that he's pretty modest, pretty humble, and compassionate, genuinely devoting his life to the poor, so that's a cool thing.
That said, I don't agree with his more traditionalist views, from the little I know of them, but I was never going to anyway, so I guess we'll see.
But seriously, when they announced his name in the first moments, I was pretty sure I caught what seemed to be the Latin equivalent of Francis, Franciscus, and I was very stoked. I was sort of hoping for a new name in the papal line, so that was pretty cool.