From very good NRO piece by George Weigel about Pope Francis:
A
pope in defense of human rights and democracy. Pope Francis has left
behind an Argentina in which he was a stern critic of the Cristina
Kirchner government’s deepening of that beautiful country’s democracy
deficit, and of Madam President’s commitment to a public policy of
bread-and-circuses wedded to legally enforced lifestyle libertinism —
what Benedict XVI aptly called the “dictatorship of relativism.” At a
moment when the momentum of the democratic project in Latin America is
flagging (while new opportunities are opening up in places like
post-ChÁvez Venezuela and the inevitable post-Castro-brothers Cuba), the
new pope should be able to rally Catholic forces in defense of
religious freedom and other civil liberties in a continent where they
are now under assault. And if he can do that at home, he can do it
throughout the world.
Pope Francis is also deeply committed to
the Church’s service to and empowerment of the poor, as he made
unmistakably clear in his ministry in Buenos Aires. But those
Gospel-based commitments should not lead anyone to think that he will be
Paul Krugman in a white cassock. That seems very unlikely. …
The
first Jesuit pope? Well, yes, in a manner of speaking. Bergoglio is an
old-school Jesuit, formed by classic Ignatian spirituality and deeply
committed to an intelligent, sophisticated appropriation and
proclamation of the full symphony of Catholic truth — qualities not
notable for their prevalence among many members of the Society of Jesus
in the early 21st century. I suspect there were not all that many
champagne corks flying last night in those Jesuit residences throughout
the world where the Catholic Revolution That Never Was is still regarded
as the ecclesiastical holy grail. For the shrewder of the new pope’s
Jesuit brothers know full well that that dream was just dealt another
severe blow. And they perhaps fear that this pope, knowing the Society
of Jesus and its contemporary confusions and corruptions as he does,
just might take in hand the reform of the Jesuits that was one of the
signal failures of the pontificate of John Paul II.
There will be
endless readings of the tea leaves in the days ahead as the new pope,
by word and gesture, offers certain signals as to his intentions and his
program. But the essentials are already known. This is a keenly
intelligent, deeply holy, humble, and shrewd man of the Gospel. He knows
that he has been elected as a reformer, and the reforms he will
implement are the reforms that will advance the New Evangelization. The
rest is detail: important detail, to be sure, but still detail.
Read the entire piece, "The First American Pope".