Habemus Papam!!

What a joy it brings to the Catholic Church that we now have a new Holy Father, Pope Francis I! Awe yes, I remember it like it was yesterday… Oh wait, it was! 

This is another moment in history when one can say, "I was [here] when this happened." For myself, I was working with my headphones on and my iPhone turned onto EWTN. After hearing black smoke on the last vote, I had looked away for sometime. Not long after, I turned it on again to find a chimney with white smoke bellowing out of the top of it. Habemus Papam!!! My heart began to beat really fast. Who was it? Who did the Holy Ghost pick?? The wait seemed like forever as I was also trying to keep busy at my cubical. Soon the doors opened and the Cardinal came out to announce, "Habemus Papam!" Then he said the name of the chosen Cardinal in Latin. I along with many of my other traditional friends were expecting to maybe hear a "Raymond Burke" announced. But suddenly I heard a name I didn't recognize. Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio? Who is he? I knew nothing about this man who had been elected Pope. Soon the curtains opened and he came out. Immediately I began to love him. He was humble. Truly a man who wanted nothing of himself. And as he prayed with everyone for Pope Emeritus Benedict, and later asked everyone to pray for him, I was awed by his desire and promotion of prayer. 

I wanted to learn more about him. I wanted to know why God had chosen him? A man from Latin America… A Jesuit, none the less! After going through a Jesuit college, I have been a bit jaded by the Jesuits and their lack of reverence and tradition on most topics regarding the faith. Yet right away I learned that when most Jesuits were teaching about liberation theology, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio stayed with the traditions of St. Ignatius. Which is good!! Plus he was said to be a doctrine conservative - another plus!! And the fact that he was made a Cardinal by Blessed John Paul II, I knew that this man must have some very good qualities to be our new Holy Father. And I trusted in my heart that the Holy Ghost made the right choice.

As I continued to research him and look for more information, I was soon appalled at what some were beginning to say in some traditional and orthodox circles. I discovered many of the Traditional organizations I was apart on Facebook begin to bash the new Holy Father, saying he was an enemy to the Latin Mass… And that it was time for us all to be ready to go "back into the catacombs!" This was horrible to me! How dare they say such things about our Holy Father? A man who so humbly asked us all to pray for him! I highly doubt that the Holy Father who has so much love for our faith and for the Church would be so against it's traditions, especially the age old Traditional Latin Mass? There must be some misunderstanding on this issue. All I know is that whether his views are more modern than conservative, or not… He has been chosen as our Holy Father and therefore we must respect him and lend him our prayers. It would be wrong of us to judge him so quickly! I remember even St. Padre Pio saying to a man who was rebuking a Bishop that we "do not cast away Satan with Satan's ways!" Plus I also hear that supposedly Pius IX was a Freemason prior to his election. So I would venture to say that, whatever a man's views are before they are Pope, they are often changed once they are Pope!

Maybe God's plan is to promote prayer and humility? It would certainly fit with a name like "Francis" chosen. I even remember thinking to myself before I heard the news of how humbled I would be after years of being jaded by liberal Jesuits, to hear that a Jesuit would be our next Pope! And here I am… Humbled.
Another thing I learned about Pope Francis is that when he was a Cardinal he was also a member of the Pontifical Council for the Family. Maybe God's looking at the world from a different perspective? Maybe He wishes to start from the basics of building up the family and prayer, and from there renew the Church from within. If the traditional family is growing, so will the traditional Church!I am not worried about what our new Holy Father brings to the table, since I know that he was chosen by God and has a purpose for our Church in this time in history. I believe after all my writings on Papal Prophecies and the end times, that the end is still near… But we still have some "soul-saving" and "house cleaning" to do before the tribulations come. I believe that with this Pope, God is using him to continue to build His army to fight the Devil in the end. And who knows, maybe He is using this Jesuit Pontiff to fix up the other Jesuits who were at once great solders for Christ!!

I pray too for an increased humility and understanding that God's ways are not our ways. And that we can all fall in love with this Pope as we did with both Blessed John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. I truly would love to develop a prayerful relationship with this Pope. I wish to love him in all the things he does and pray for him in the things he may struggle to do. The world is a nasty place, and he can use all the prayers and help he can get.

Viva il Papa!!