As white smoke billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel in Rome on Wednesday evening and thousands of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics hurried into Saint Peter's Square to greet their new pope, the world held its breath to see who the new man would be. If his election were just the concern of Roman Catholics, the world's press would not have been camping out in Rome for the last month to see who would succeed the recently retired Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. There would not have been feverish speculation over the last weeks as to who the chosen successor would be if his choice were just a matter of leading one religious group out of many. The Pope is, of course, primarily the leader of the Roman Catholic Church and head of the Vatican City State, but when he speaks the whole world listens. People may disagree with what he says, but the Pope's voice is still listened to. This is important for all people of faith, whether they are Christian or Muslim or whatever. In a world where organised religion has lost favour with millions of people and where the religious voice has been drowned out in many countries and in many societies, the Pope of Rome is still newsworthy enough for the television channels to carry his words. In recent weeks, then, the news channels have done their best to put forward this or that name as the most likely man to emerge on the balcony of Saint Peter's Basilica as the new Pope. Quite often their reporting was ridiculous, as though the Cardinals were going to choose the Chief Executive or the Managing Director of a company. The criteria put forward by the press were clearly not the criteria of the Cardinal electors. There is usually a rule to be trusted where papal elections are concerned. The favourite of the media going into the Conclave does not usually come out as the Pope. Of course, in recent years the Roman Catholic Church has gone through some difficult times, not least the scandals involving many priests and the recent theft of private papers belonging to the retired Pope Benedict. Any new pope will have a lot of mending and fixing to do, so this must have been on the minds of those choosing the new pontiff. But surely, as men of faith, they were looking for much more than this. Roman Catholics believe that the Bishop of Rome, known as the Pope, is the direct successor of Saint Peter, the fisherman who according to the Christian Gospels was one of the closest followers of Jesus Christ. In fact, according to these Gospels Peter was directly chosen by Jesus to lead the Church after he had left it. According to tradition, Peter was crucified on the Vatican hill in Rome for his faith, just as the Gospels claim his Master was crucified in Jerusalem. Down through the centuries, then, the popes have had very imposing shoes to fill. Some of them have acquitted their duties admirably. Others have not. In recent times, Pope John Paul II became the first non-Italian to be elected Pope for hundreds of years. This Polish Pope became loved the world over because of his charismatic personality and obvious holiness. In his last months, John Paul II suffered terribly from illness and showed to the whole world in his own body how millions of old and frail people have to live each day. John Paul was always going to be a very difficult act to follow. Upon his death, the Cardinals chose a seventy-eight year old German Cardinal to succeed him. The rather shy and bookish Benedict XVI lived his papacy very much in the shadow of the great John Paul II, but nonetheless managed to win many hearts by his quiet faith and dignity. And now the world has a new Pope, who will be listened to by communists and atheists, by conservatives and revolutionaries because he is seen to be the most obvious voice of faith in the world. Agree with him or not, the Pope has something to say. The choice of the Cardinals on Wednesday evening was a surprise choice. He certainly didn't figure on the lists of any of the news channels! Those on the inside suggest that he Jesuit Cardinal Bergoglio from Argentina, former Archbishop of Buenos Aries, was actually the runner-up to Benedict XVI in 2005. His rather advanced age of seventy-six is something of a surprise, especially since his predecessor retired citing the need for a younger man to do the job. But many are now quietly suggesting that in electing him the Cardinals have made a gentle shift in the direction the Church is going. The most obvious difference is that the new pope is the first ever to be chosen from the Americas and the first non-European for a thousand years. There is indeed some significance here. In a Church whose followers are now predominantly from outside Europe, its leaders and organisation have been staunchly Italian and then European for centuries. This man is no Roman bureaucrat, having spent most of his life in Argentina organising social outreach programmes and regulating the lives of his priests and faithful. Not many are suggesting a major shift. There is no suggestion, for instance, that the new Pope will make drastic and immediate changes to Church teaching or to the way it is run. A change, though, there most certainly will be. Aside from the man who has been elected, the name the new Pope has chosen is very significant. No Pope in history has ever taken the name Francis. This choice of name is quietly seen by many as both exciting and indicative of the new Pope's priorities. He has named himself after the poor wandering preacher and troubadour of God's love, Saint Francis of Assisi, who rejected the things of this world to embrace a life of poverty at the service of God and the Church, especially in the poor and the sick. In fact, Saint Francis did this after claiming to have had a vision in which God told him: “Go and repair my house which you see is falling down." It is said that Saint Francis at first thought that God was telling him quite literally to repair the crumbling church of San Damiano in Assisi, but that he later came to believe that God meant for him to repair and mend the whole of the Catholic Church itself. Saint Francis also famously visited Egypt in 1219 and crossed the battlefield at Damietta to meet the Sultan himself. When he offered to tell the Sultan about Christianity he was very gently told that the Sultan already had many Christian advisors in his Court. Returning from his meeting with the Muslim Sultan with lavish gifts, Saint Francis gave them all away to the poor. In his first words to the world as Pope and dressed simply in a simple white cassock rather than the elaborate robes which he could have chosen, Francis I called on all men and women to embark together on a journey of love and fraternity. Inshallah, all people of good can respond to this call. In recent years, Roman Catholics have been battered by scandal after scandal. In choosing as their new leader a simple man, a humble man who used to take the bus to his office every day and who lived in a small flat rather than a grand palace, many feel that they can take pride in their faith once more, no more having to apologise for who they are. In congratulating Roman Catholics upon the choice of their new leader, all people of good will, whether they be Christian or Muslim or of no religion at all, wish him well in his new role. It is only by working together that they will come to understand one another better. In doing so, regardless of creed, they will be able to alleviate some of the suffering and the poverty which the simple Saint Francis himself tried to do eight hundred years ago. Let us hope that here in Egypt we can learn that lesson, too. British Muslim writer, Idris Tawfiq, teaches at Al-Azhar University and is the author of nine books about Islam. You can visit his website at www.idristawfiq.com, join him on Facebook at Idris Tawfiq Page and listen to his Radio Show, “A Life in Question," on Sundays at 11pm on Radio Cairo 95.4 FM.
