Justin Welby, eat your heart out! [UPDATED]

Photo Credit: Kevin Kallsen

George Conger, reporting for Anglican Ink from tonight's investiture service for Archbishop Foley Beach:

[Atlanta, GA] Pope Francis has communicated his personal greetings and blessings for the ministry of the Most Rev. Foley Beach, Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America [ACNA].

Speaking to the congregation of over 1500 gathered at the Church of the Apostles in Atlanta on 9 Oct 2014 for the installation of Archbishop Beach as leader of the ACNA, the Anglican Bishop of Argentina, the Rt. Rev. Gregory Venables stated that he had received a telephone call last week from "Fr Jorge", the former Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Bergoloio -- now Pope Francis. Bishop Venables noted that he had long had a warm personal relationship with Pope Francis from his days as leader of the Argentine Catholic Church, and added Anglicans should rejoice in the current occupant of the chair of St Peter as he was a "Bible-believing, born again Christian."

Pope Francis had telephoned Bishop Venables and asked him to convey his "personal greetings and congratulations as he leads his church in the very important job of revival ..." to Archbishop Beach.

Before the service, the Most Rev. Wilton Gregory, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Atlanta presented Archbishop Beach with a crozier as a mark of his esteem for the new Anglican archbishop.

The personal accolades of Pope Francis were greeted warmly by the congregation, and harkened to the words of support read out at the 2003 Plano Conference for conservative American Anglicans from the then Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI.

It should be noted that Archbishop Beach also acknowledged personal greetings from the Archbishop of Canterbury but such a courtesy hardly covers for the damage done by Justin Welby's statements from last week.

UPDATE: More from George Conger on last night's service and a significant statement made by the Primates participating in the investiture.

The Anglican Church in North America is Anglican and its primate is an archbishop of the Anglican Communion, declared seven archbishops last night.

At the close of the prayer of investitute of the Most Rev. Foley Beach at the Church of the Apostles on 9 Oct 2014, the primates of Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda, Myanmar, Jerusalem and the Middle East and South America, and bishops representing the primates of the Congo, Sudan and South East Asia laid hands on Archbishop Beach. Giving him their primatial blessing, they also acknowledged him by word and through laying on of hands to be a fellow primate of the Anglican Communion.

The archbishops' act comes one week after the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby told the Church of Ireland Gazette the ACNA was an ecumenical partner of the Anglican Communion and was not Anglican.

In their formal statements of greeting delivered to the 1500 people attending the service at the Anglican megachurch led by Dr. Michael Youseff in suburban Atlanta, the primates offered greetings and congratulations to the new archbishop and expressed the fellowship of their churches with the ACNA, but declined to press home their statement that Archbishop Foley was a primate of the Anglican Communion.

After the service, those primates approached by Anglican Ink declined to be drawn on this issue. A leader of the ACNA familiar with the deliberations of the primates said the manner in which their endorsement of Archbishop Beach was given had been formulated to express their views on his status, while avoiding a direct confrontation with Archbishop Welby at this time.

Since 2008 the GAFCON primates have affirmed their fellowship with the ACNA. Last night saw primates of the Global South Coalition -- conservative church leaders outside the Gafcon movement and seen as closer to Canterbury -- join their African colleagues in validating publically the ACNA's Anglican credentials.

The signficance of the statement, said one highly placed source who asked not to be identified as he was not authorized to speak for his peers, was that the 10 churches had made their positions quite clear to Archbishop Welby. If, as he told the BBC last Sunday, he would be guided by the mind of the primates in deciding issues of Anglican ecclesiology (such as the time of the primates meeting and structure and timing of the Lambeth Conferences), then he must now know that archbishops representing the majority of Anglicans worshipping today were in solidarity with the ACNA -- and citing Daniel 6:15 said there was no turning back. (“Know, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no injunction or ordinance that the king establishes can be changed.”)

Justin and Francis meet in Rome

From Archbishop of Canterbury's website:

In their first meeting, Archbishop Justin and Pope Francis both spoke this morning of the bonds of "friendship" and "love" between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion.

The two leaders agreed that the fruits of this dialogue and relationship have the potential to empower Christians around the world to demonstrate the love of Christ.

The Archbishop and the Pope agreed on the need to build an economic system which promotes "the common good" to help those suffering in poverty.

Archbishop Justin said that Christians must reflect "the self-giving love of Christ" by offering love and hospitality to the poor, and "love above all those tossed aside" by present crises around the world.

The Pope said those with the least in society "must not be abandoned to the laws of an economy that seems at times to treat people as mere consumers".

They also agreed on the need for Christians to act as peacemakers around the world, which they acknowledged could only be done if Christians "live and and work together in harmony," the Pope said.

Archbishop Justin, who has been deeply influenced by Catholic social teaching and intends to focus on healing divisions in church and society as part of his ministry, told the Pope: "I pray that the nearness of our two inaugurations may serve the reconciliation of the world and the Church."

The Archbishop, who was accompanied by his wife, Caroline, visited the tomb of St Peter beneath the Basilica before praying at the tomb of Pope John Paul II. He was also joined by Archbishop Vincent Nichols, as well as Archbishop David Moxon, his representative to the Holy See.

After meeting Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the Archbishop met the Pope at the Apostolic Palace. The pair held a private conversation, before giving public addresses and attending a service of midday prayer together.

The Pope told Archbishop Justin that the closeness of their inaugurations meant "we will always have a particular reason to support one another in prayer".

* * * * * 

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Address to His Holiness Pope Francis on the occasion of the Archbishop’s first fraternal visit to Rome
Apostolic Palace, Vatican City, 14 June 2013

Your Holiness,

Dear Friends:

I am full of love and gratitude to be here. In the last few days we have been remembering the death of Blessed Pope John XXIII in the midst of the Second Vatican Council. At the Requiem said at Lambeth Palace fifty years ago this weekend by Archbishop Michael Ramsey, my much-loved predecessor said of him: ‘Pope John has shown us again the power of being, by being a man who touches human hearts with charity. So there has come to many a new longing for the unity of all Christians, and a new knowledge that however long the road may be, charity already makes all the difference to it.’

Having for many years found inspiration in the great corpus of Catholic social teaching, and worked on its implications with Catholic groups; having spent retreats in new orders of the Church in France, and being accompanied by the Prior of another new order; I do indeed feel that I am (in the words of Pope Paul VI to Archbishop Michael) coming to a place where I can feel myself at home.

Your Holiness, we are called by the Holy Spirit of God, through our fraternal love, to continue the work that has been the precious gift to popes and archbishops of Canterbury for these past fifty years, and of which this famous ring is the enduring token. I pray that the nearness of our two inaugurations may serve the reconciliation of the world and the Church.

As you have stressed, we must promote the fruits of our dialogue; and, with our fellow bishops, we must give expression to our unity in faith through prayer and evangelisation. It is only as the world sees Christians growing visibly in unity that it will accept through us the divine message of peace and reconciliation.

However, the journey is testing and we cannot be unaware that differences exist about how we bring the Christian faith to bear on the challenges thrown up by modern society. But our ‘goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey’ (Benedict XVI, Spe salvi 1), and we can trust in the prayer of Christ, ‘ut omnes unum sint’ (Jn 17.21). A firm foundation of friendship will enable us to be hopeful in speaking to one another about those differences, to bear one another’s burdens, and to be open to sharing the discernment of a way forward that is faithful to the mind of Christ pressed upon us as disciples.

That way forward must reflect the self-giving love of Christ, our bearing of his Cross, and our dying to ourselves so as to live with Christ, which will show itself in hospitality and love for the poor. We must love those who seek to oppose us, and love above all those tossed aside—even whole nations—by the present crises around the world. Also, even as we speak, our brothers and sisters in Christ suffer terribly from violence, oppression and war, from bad government and unjust economic systems. If we are not their advocates in the name of Christ, who will be?

Your Holiness, dear brother, I assure you of the love, respect and prayer of the bishops, clergy and people of the Anglican Communion.


His Holiness Pope Francis' Address to the Archbishop of Canterbury on the occasion of the Archbishop’s first fraternal visit to Rome
Apostolic Palace, Vatican City, 14 June 2013

Your Grace, Dear Friends,

Paul VI, when he addressed Archbishop Michael Ramsey during his historic visit in 1966: “Your steps have not brought you to a foreign dwelling ... we are pleased to open the doors to you, and with the doors, our heart, pleased and honoured as we are ... to welcome you ‘not as a guest or a stranger, but as a fellow citizen of the Saints and the Family of God’” (cf. Eph 2:19-20).

I know that during Your Grace’s installation in Canterbury Cathedral you remembered in prayer the new Bishop of Rome. I am deeply grateful to you – and since we began our respective ministries within days of each other, I think we will always have a particular reason to support one another in prayer.

The history of relations between the Church of England and the Catholic Church is long and complex, and not without pain. Recent decades, however, have been marked by a journey of rapprochement and fraternity, and for this we give heartfelt thanks to God. This journey has been brought about both via theological dialogue, through the work of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, and via the growth of cordial relations at every level through shared daily lives in a spirit of profound mutual respect and sincere cooperation. In this regard, I am very pleased to welcome alongside you Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster. These firm bonds of friendship have enabled us to remain on course even when difficulties have arisen in our theological dialogue that were greater than we could have foreseen at the start of our journey.

I am grateful, too, for the sincere efforts the Church of England has made to understand the reasons that led my Predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, to provide a canonical structure able to respond to the wishes of those groups of Anglicans who have asked to be received collectively into the Catholic Church: I am sure this will enable the spiritual, liturgical and pastoral traditions that form the Anglican patrimony to be better known and appreciated in the Catholic world.

Today’s meeting is an opportunity to remind ourselves that the search for unity among Christians is prompted not by practical considerations, but by the will of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who made us his brothers and sisters, children of the One Father. Hence the prayer that we make today is of fundamental importance.

This prayer gives a fresh impulse to our daily efforts to grow towards unity, which are concretely expressed in our cooperation in various areas of daily life. Particularly important among these is our witness to the reference to God and the promotion of Christian values in a world that seems at times to call into question some of the foundations of society, such as respect for the sacredness of human life or the importance of the institution of the family built on marriage, a value that you yourself have had occasion to recall recently.

Then there is the effort to achieve greater social justice, to build an economic system that is at the service of man and promotes the common good. Among our tasks as witnesses to the love of Christ is that of giving a voice to the cry of the poor, so that they are not abandoned to the laws of an economy that seems at times to treat people as mere consumers.

I know that Your Grace is especially sensitive to all these questions, in which we share many ideas, and I am also aware of your commitment to foster reconciliation and resolution of conflicts between nations. In this regard, together with Archbishop Nichols, you have urged the authorities to find a peaceful solution to the Syrian conflict such as would guarantee the security of the entire population, including the minorities, not least among whom are the ancient local Christian communities. As you yourself have observed, we Christians bring peace and grace as a treasure to be offered to the world, but these gifts can bear fruit only when Christians live and work together in harmony. This makes it easier to contribute to building relations of respect and peaceful coexistence with those who belong to other religious traditions, and with non-believers.

The unity we so earnestly long for is a gift that comes from above and it is rooted in our communion of love with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. As Christ himself promised, “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt 18:20). Let us travel the path towards unity, fraternally united in charity and with Jesus Christ as our constant point of reference. In our worship of Jesus Christ we will find the foundation and raison d’être of our journey. May the merciful Father hear and grant the prayers that we make to him together. Let us place all our hope in him who “is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Eph 3:20).

Pope Francis to hold global pro-life conference, mass June 16

The Vatican (CFAM/LifeNews) –Pro-lifers held their breath the day the world received a new Pope. They did not question his pro-life credentials but wondered if he would speak forcefully.

An old quote soon surfaced and concerns faded. “Defend the unborn against abortion even if they persecute you, calumniate you, set traps for you, take you to court or kill you. No child should be deprived of the right to be born, the right to be fed, the right to go to school.”

This June the Pope also will play a central role in the Vatican’s annual celebration of the Gospel of Life, the papal teaching published by Pope John Paul II in 1995. His successor, Benedict XVI, started the annual celebration a few years ago that features a papal mass for pro-life leaders. The new Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, established by Benedict to encourage a reawakening of the faith in traditionally Christian countries, leads an expanded celebration this year.

This year’s three-day celebration begins with a conference funded by C-FAM and led by its chairman, Douglas A. Sylva. Cardinal Raymond Burke will deliver the keynote address on the Gospel of Life and the New Evangelization. Dr. Robert Royal of the Faith and Reason Institute and Dr. Francis Beckwith of Baylor University will answer Burke’s keynote address.

Unlike Protestant and even Evangelical denominations, the Catholic Church has not waivered on the question of abortion or other life issues. The Church sees an inextricable link between its central evangelical mission and the life.

On Saturday morning pro-life pilgrims will gather around Rome and proceed to the tomb of St. Peter. Churches near the Vatican will host an afternoon of Eucharistic adoration followed by a prayer vigil and candlelight procession led by American Archbishop Augustine DeNoia, head of the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship. The procession ends near the Vatican where some think Pope Francis will greet the crowd. Surprising many, Francis visited the Roman March for Life.

On Sunday, June 16, Pope Francis will celebrate a Mass for Life in St. Peter’s Square.

A number of Americans have helped plan this event including representatives from Priests for Life, the Pro-Life Secretariat of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Alliance Defending Freedom, Susan B. Anthony List, Students for Life of America, LiveAction, and Americans United for Life.

Besides the conference for English speakers, there will be events in other languages with many attendees expected from Europe.

The Pope’s commitment to life issues cannot be underestimated. He sets the tone of the church and while many bishops and priests shy from the life issues, they find that more difficult if the Pope assertively leads the way.

Pope Francis continues to express strong pro-life views. Besides appearing unexpectedly at the Rome March for Life, he tweeted this week: ”It is God who gives life. Let us respect and love human life, especially vulnerable life in a mother’s womb.”

Pope Francis: Priests must go out among the people

Pope observes Maundy Thursday by washing the feet of 12 minors at detention center

No words are necessary.

Francis the unexalted

The new pope continues to impress with the simplest, yet most profound, gestures.

Pope Francis sends greetings to Archbishop Welby

To the Most Reverend and Right Honourable Justin Welby
Archbishop of Canterbury

"May grace and peace be multiplied to you" (1 Pet 1:2b)

I thank you for the kind words contained in your message to me at my election, and I wish in turn to offer my greetings and best wishes on the occasion of your Enthronement at Canterbury Cathedral.

The pastoral ministry is a call to walk in fidelity to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Please be assured of my prayers as you take up your new responsibilities, and I ask you to pray for me as I respond to the new call that the Lord has addressed to me.

I look forward to meeting you in the near future, and to continuing the warm fraternal relations that our predecessors enjoyed.

From the Vatican, 18 March 2013
FRANCIS

Just who is being "medieval" here?

The brief media honeymoon for Pope Francis is apparently coming to an end. LifeNews reports:

The media backlash against Pope Francis may be beginning. After relatively positive coverage last week, ABC and NBC on Monday both highlighted the Argentinean President denouncing his “medieval” views on social issues.

World News’s Ron Claiborne offered no ideological label for the country’s left-wing leader, praising, “Cristina Kirchner stands for a new view of a changing world– embracing gay marriage, sex education in schools, free contraceptives in hospitals.”

He added, “But when [the now-pope] was a cardinal in Argentina, Kirchner described his social views as medieval.” Yet, while Claiborne didn’t call Kirchner a liberal, he made sure to point out that although Francis is “enormously popular,” “what the world is just beginning to learn is how conservative he is on social issues.”

In case viewers didn’t get the point, anchor Diane Sawyer reminded that the Argentinean president “once called his views medieval.”

On NBC’s Nightly News, Anne Thompson parroted similar comments: “As Archbishop of Buenos Aires, the Pope opposed many social programs that Kirchner endorsed, including gay marriage and free contraception.”

Thompson alerted, “She, in turn, had accused him of holding positions that she said were medieval, hearkening back to the Inquisition.”

On the CBS Evening News, Bob Schieffer managed to recount the conflict without discussing Pope Francis’s “medieval” views. Instead, he remarked, “They have differed sharply on several issues in the past, including his opposition to same sex marriage and contraception.”

Consider the number of times the term "medieval" is used to describe the pope's views on "social issues" while reading this report on the trial of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell:

A medical assistant told a jury Tuesday that she snipped the spines of at least 10 babies during unorthodox late-term abortions at a West Philadelphia clinic.

Adrienne Moton's testimony as part of her guilty plea to third-degree murder, came in the capital murder trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, the clinic owner, who is on trial in the deaths of a patient and seven babies.

Prosecutors accuse him of killing late-term, viable babies after they were delivered alive, in violation of state abortion laws.

Gosnell's lawyer denies the murder charge and disputes that any babies were born alive. He also challenges the gestational age of the aborted fetuses, calling them inexact estimates.

Moton, the first employee to testify, sobbed as she recalled taking a cell phone photograph of one baby left in her work area. She thought he could have survived, given his size and pinkish color. She had measured him at nearly 30 weeks.

‘The aunt felt it was just best for her [the mother's] future,’ Moton testified.

Gosnell later joked that the baby was so big he could have walked to the bus stop, she said.

Jurors saw Moton's photograph of the baby on a large screen in the courtroom, which took on a bizarre look Tuesday as she testified near a hospital bed with stirrups and other aging obstetric equipment.

Denied the chance to bring jurors to the shuttered inner-city clinic, prosecutors are instead recreating a patient room in court.

Moton, 35, sobbed as she described her work at the clinic. She first met Gosnell through his niece, a school friend of hers, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Because of problems at home, she had moved in with Gosnell and his third wife during high school.

Later, the 35-year-old medical assistant testified that the abortion doctor helped her terminate two of her own pregnancies and she began volunteering at the clinic in January 2005 sterilizing instruments.

Not before long, the woman with no college education or medical training began administering anesthesia under the tutelage of Gosnell, whom she called 'uncle,' and then assist in abortions, including the doctor's method of 'snipping' the spinal cords of fetuses.

‘I learned it from Dr. Gosnell,’ said Moton in response to a question from Assistant District Attorney Edward Cameron.

‘I never asked why.’

‘Can you say how many you did?’ Cameron asked.

‘I could remember a good 10 times that I did it,’ Moton replied.

She earned about $10 an hour, off the books, to administer drugs, perform sonograms, help with abortions and dispose of fetal remains.

Workers got $20 bonuses for second-term abortions on Saturdays, when a half-dozen were sometimes performed.

She once had to kill a baby delivered in a toilet, cutting its neck with scissors, she said. Asked if she knew that was wrong, she said, ‘At first I didn't.’

Abortions are typically performed in utero. In Pennsylvania, abortions cannot legally be performed after the 24th week of pregnancy.

Moton has pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, which carries a 20- to 40-year term, as well as conspiracy and other charges.

She has been in prison since early 2011, when Philadelphia prosecutors released the harrowing grand jury report on Gosnell's Women's Medical Center and arrested the doctor, wife Pearl and eight current or former employees. Most of them are expected to testify.

Women and teens came from across the mid-Atlantic, often seeking late-term abortions, Moton said. She recalled one young woman from Puerto Rico who did not speak English and appeared to be 27 weeks pregnant.

Karnamaya Mongar, a 41-year-old refugee who traveled to the clinic from Virginia, died after an overdose of drugs allegedly given to her during a 2009 abortion.

Now, just who would any rational person say is being "medieval" here?

Christ-likeness

Pope Francis following the example of his namesake, and his Lord.

BREAKING NEWS: New pope supports church's teaching on marriage

Wow! This should drive the liberals nuts.

New Pope Francis I is an ardent opponent of same-sex marriage, in coincidence with traditional Catholic belief. In 2010, he wrote, “Let’s not be naïve, we’re not talking about a simple political battle; it is a destructive pretension against the plan of God. We are not talking about a mere bill, but rather a machination of the Father of Lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God.”

Patriarch of Constantinople to attend inauguration of Pope Francis

The significance of this announcement cannot be understated, considering something like this has not happened since 1054.

Istanbul (AsiaNews) - The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I will attend Pope Francis's inaugural Mass. The Ecumenical Patriarchate Press Office informed AsiaNews about the decision, noting that this is the first time such an event occurs since the Catholic-Orthodox split in 1054, an important sign for Christian unity.

The ecumenical patriarch will be accompanied by Ioannis Zizioulas, metropolitan of Pergamon and co-president of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Church, as well as Tarassios, Orthodox Metropolitan of Argentina, and Gennadios, Orthodox Metropolitan of Italy.

Relations between Catholics and Orthodox have been improving since the Second Vatican Council through mutual visits, acts of friendship and theological dialogue.

Under Benedict XVI, the dialogue picked up in earnest after a lull. In trying to promote it, the pope suggested ways to express the primacy of Peter's successor that could be acceptable to the Orthodox, finding his inspiration from the undivided Church of the first millennium.

Catholic ecumenism has met however with great resistance from the Russian Orthodox Church and the Moscow Patriarchate, seat of the 'Third Rome'.

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church's Department for External Relations, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, said on Thursday that a meeting between the pope and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow was "possible but the place and timing will depend on how quickly we will overcome the consequences of the conflicts from the turn of 1980s and 1990s".

The issue of the Ukrainian Catholic Church is at the core of the "conflicts" to which Hilarion was referring. Although it was unbanned following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was left without its original churches, which had been seized by the Communists under Soviet rule and later transferred to the Orthodox Church.

Still, "on several occasions, Pope Francis has shown spiritual sympathy towards the Orthodox Church and a desire for closer contacts," Hilarion said.

It is his hope that under the new pontificate "relations of alliance will develop and that our ties will be strengthened."

The new pope's relationship with Anglicans will likely be quite cordial, as he is already a close friend of Bishop Gregory Venables of Buenos Aires, formerly Primate of the Southern Cone. In a Facebook post, Bishop Venables shared his thoughts on Francis.

Many are asking me what Jorge Bergoglio is really like. He is much more of a Christian, Christ centered and Spirit filled, than a mere churchman. He believes the Bible as it is written. I have been with him on many occasions and he always makes me sit next to him and invariably makes me take part and often do what he as Cardinal should have done. He is consistently humble and wise, outstandingly gifted yet a common man. He is no fool and speaks out very quietly yet clearly when necessary. He called me to have breakfast with him one morning and told me very clearly that the Ordinariate was quite unnecessary and that the church needs us as Anglicans. I consider this to be an inspired appointment not because he is a close and personal friend but because of who he is In Christ. Pray for him.

Pope Francis and "conservative populism"

First Things editor R.R. Reno sees the election of an Argentine pope as the harbinger of a new phenomenon that will confound (and most likely frustrate) the secular world.

News flash: The revolutionary left does not like the new Pope. An interview with Brazilian sociologist and Marxist philosopher Michael Lowy offers a particularly pure example of the reasoning behind the Latin American Left’s efforts to discredit the new pope.

His reasoning is as follows: Anyone not a thoroughgoing Marxist revolutionary is de facto complicit with the status quo. Bergoglio is clearly not a thoroughgoing Marxist. Therefore, he was complicit with the junta during their dirty war in Argentina during the 1970s. Details to follow as needed.

The Peronists in Argentina are rather less theoretical. Then Cardinal Bergoglio crossed swords with Cristina Kirchner. She’s not a fan. Meanwhile, other Peronists are lauding the new Pope as one of their own. Columnist Ricardo Roa titled his piece: “Argentine miracle: A Peronist on Saint Peter’s throne.”

It says something about American politics that our Democratic party is less likely than Argentina’s Peronists to have a divided opinion of Pope Francis. Is that because today’s Democratic party isn’t all that concerned about the poor, other than to manage and palliate? Say what you want about Peronists in Argentina (and there’s a great deal negative to say), they’re actual populists.

The Peronist reactions have helped me see that Pope Francis is very likely to represent something the secular world may find hard to fathom: conservative populism.

I like the sound of that.

So do I, especially if it means we'll be hearing more pronouncements like this from the new pontiff.

Archbishop Welby's statement on election of Pope Francis

We wish Pope Francis every blessing in the enormous responsibilities that he has assumed on behalf of Roman Catholics around the world.

His election is also of great significance to Christians everywhere, not least among Anglicans. We have long since recognized—and often reaffirmed—that our churches hold a special place for one another. I look forward to meeting Pope Francis, and to walking and working together to build on the consistent legacy of our predecessors. May the love of Christ unite us, and intensify our service in a genuine and fruitful ecumenism that can be a blessing for the Body of Christ throughout the world.

Pope Francis is well known as a compassionate pastor of real stature who has served the poor in Latin America, and whose simplicity and holiness of life is remarkable. He is an evangelist, sharing the love of Christ which he himself knows. His choice of the name Francis suggests that he wants to call us all back to the transformation that St Francis knew and brought to the whole of Europe, fired by contemplation and closeness to God.

As I begin tomorrow a prayer pilgrimage toward my own inauguration as Archbishop in Canterbury next Thursday, Pope Francis will be much in my own prayers, as he will be throughout the coming months and years.

+ Justin Cantuar: