Tag: Pope Francis

Written by Johnathon Goodenow. Media by Kayla Morton. Five years ago, a civil war erupted between the Syrian government and citizens who rejected some of...

Written by Becca Oldham. Media by Andrea Martin. Pope Francis began his first trip to the United States on Sept. 22 when he arrived...

Written by Andrea Martin, Media by Jack Wang Last week Pope Francis made comments on the topic of evolution and creationism, declaring that the Big...

Written by Andrea Martin, Media by Jack Wang Catholic Bishops could not come to an agreement after the end of a two-week summit on how...

In the short seven months that Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pope Francis) has been the Pope of the Catholic church, he has already made a large positive impact in his position.

After the shocking resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, the new Bishop of Rome has been chosen, and it’s none other than former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, who has taken on the title of Pope Francis. While the world’s Catholics rejoiced at the announcement, others also saw Francis’ appointment as a possibility for exciting change and progress in the Vatican. Though he’s hardly been in power for more than a week, many people are already enjoying the way Francis is handling the papacy. He’s often wandering into crowds to interact with the people of Rome (worrying his security detail, of course) and displaying views on world issues much different than those of previous recent Popes. There is some confusion as to his views on certain issues -- his stance on gay rights isn’t clear, for example, as his public statements seem to denounce gay marriage even more so than his predecessor, Benedict, but he also reportedly tried to convince the Argentinian government to implement civil unions for gay couples, leading some to think he’s a supporter of gay rights, which would be a major step in a new direction for the Church -- and it will of course take a while for Catholics to get used to a new face leading the Vatican. It looks, however, as though the excitement that started with the conclave to elect Francis has carried over into his early days as Pope.