Pope Francis’s new approach

Pope Francis set the tone for a humbler, more caring papacy at his inauguration Mass this week, calling on the Catholic Church to serve “the poorest, the weakest, the least important,” and urging world leaders to embrace the whole world “with tender affection.” Addressing some 200,000 faithful gathered at the Vatican, Francis paid homage to his predecessor, Benedict XVI. But where Benedict, at his installation in 2005, darkly warned of the dangers of secularism, Francis espoused a message of love for neighbor and creation. To protect every man and woman, he said, “is to let a shaft of light break through the heavy clouds.” That message gave hope to many in St. Peter’s Square. “I had lost my faith in recent years,” said Maria Grazia Ceccarelli, 67. “But Francis has already called me back.”

Francis gives me cause for hope, too, said Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal. The financial and sexual scandals that have torn the church apart arose from “arrogance, conceit, clubbiness, and an assumption that the special can act in particular ways.” By showing himself to be a true man of the people, Francis is sending a message to the Curia that he will not tolerate corruption.

The new pope might be more appealing than his predecessor, said Michael Brendan Dougherty in Slate.com, but for the church the change is purely cosmetic. Let’s not forget that the cardinals who undermined Benedict’s attempts at reform are still in place. And a 76-year-old Argentine unfamiliar with the Vatican’s labyrinthine workings “will be even easier to ignore than Benedict.”

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Francis now has the chance to prove he’s a true reformer, said Barbie Latza Nadeau in TheDailyBeast.com. On his desk is an investigative report, commissioned by Benedict, that is thought to detail the church’s many scandals. If he uses that evidence to guide a Vatican cleanup, he will “turn the hope he has created into something tangible for the future of the church.” And if he doesn’t, “the honeymoon will soon be over.”