12 striking photos after his 2013 election

This is an unexpected pope. A pope looks good, who walks quickly despite his only lung, kisses in public, hugs in the crowd, and wishes “good rest” or “good appetite” at the end of his interventions. Appeared as a simple white cassock at the loggia of the Saint-Pierre basilica on the evening of his election, Wednesday March 13, Pope Francis has not stopped having since displayed a spontaneous, natural, full of benevolence.

Just elected, he takes the bus with the cardinals, pays himself the bill of the room he had occupied the previous week. “A normal pope,” already had fun social networks, referring to another François, in political campaign last spring. And yet, neither a company of seduction nor superficiality in this pope who, in each of his speeches, shakes up.

“We can walk as we want, we can build many things, but if we do not confess Jesus Christ, that is not fine. We will become a humanitarian NGO, but not the church, wife of the Lord, “he launched on March 14 during a mass in the Sistine Chapel. “How I would like a poor church, for the poor!” He said two days later in front of 6,000 journalists he had invited. “Let us not be afraid of tenderness,” he said finally Tuesday, March 19 during his installation mass, in a homily filled with the ardor of a François d’Assise, whom he chose as a guardianship for his pontificate.

Admittedly, the media language, the general public, detonates with Benoît XVI, more reserved, of ten years his elder, who left his functions a month ago and already seems so far. No break, however, on the bottom of the speech. Pope Francis continues to refer to his predecessor, whom he called on the phone shortly after his election and which he visited on Saturday 23 March. For these two, being pope means being a servant.

COUTARD GWENOLA

On March 13, Pope Francis greets pilgrims and faithful since the lodge of blessings of the Saint-Pierre basilica, shortly after his election. “Good evening my brothers and my sisters” are the first words he addresses to the crowd, which these words have touched.

On March 14, François wanted to pay in person the room he occupied during the general congregations.

On the same day, the Holy Father went to pray the Virgin to the Basilica Sainte-Marie-Majeure of Rome.

Then he celebrated his first mass in the presence of the cardinals, in the Sistine Chapel. On March 15, the sovereign pontiff welcomed the dean of the Cardinalice college, the Italian cardinal Angelo Sodano, during a Cardinals meeting. Pope Francis encouraged the Church not to give in to “pessimism” and to find new means to propagate faith to the “extremities of the earth”.

After visiting his compatriot Cardinal Jorge Maria Mejia, hospitalized for a heart attack, Pope Francis collected himself at the Grotte de Lourdes in the Vatican gardens in the morning.

To journalists on March 16 “You had a lot of work! He says, playful, to the 6,000 journalists who came to listen to him. A meeting during which he speaks to them freely, before giving them a blessing in silence and without sign of the cross, in order to respect those who do not believe.

Sunday March 17. After his first Sunday mass as bishop of Rome, at the Sainte-Anne church, Pope Francis created the surprise while heading towards the crowds massaged on the outskirts to shake the hands of the faithful.

Private meeting with the Greek Patriarch Orthodox Bartholomeos I of Constantinople, which was also present at the inaugural mass of the Sovereign Pontiff, the day before. “A historical first”, according to the ecumenical patriarch. Palpable emotion during the visit to his predecessor Benedict XVI at the Pontifical residence of Castel Gandolfo.

A few minutes before the installation mass of his pontificate, the Pope got off his car to kiss a disabled person whom he had seen in the crowd of Place Saint-Pierre.

Then, during the celebration, he received the insignia of the papal power: the fisherman’s ring which recalls that he is the successor of the apostle Peter, fisherman on the lake of Tiberias that Jesus wanted “fisherman of men”, and the pallium, a sort of scarf in lamb wool embroidered with red cross, sign that he is a pastor, called to drive the herd