ROME — Pope Francis on Sunday said clergy and Christians must not betray the word of God with their actions or they undermine the credibility of the Catholic Church.

Francis, elected a month ago, inherited a Church struggling to restore credibility after a series of scandals, including the sexual abuse of children by priests.

The pope spoke at the Papal Basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls, where he celebrated Mass. He also greeted pilgrims and local Church members earlier in St. Peter's square.

"Inconsistency on the part of pastors and the faithful between what they say and what they do, between word and manner of life, is undermining the Church's credibility," the pontiff said in his homily.

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"Those who listen to us and observe us must be able to see in our actions what they hear from our lips, and so give glory to God!"

In his first major decision on Saturday, Francis set up an advisory board of cardinals to help him govern the Church and reform its troubled central administration, which was riddled by infighting and alleged corruption under Pope Benedict.

Benedict left a secret report for Francis on the problems in the administration, known as the Curia, which came to light when sensitive documents were stolen from the pope's desk and leaked by his butler in what became known as the "Vatileaks" scandal.

Since his election as the first non-European pope in nearly 1,300 years, Francis has been laying out a clear moral path for the 1.2-billion-member Church. He has favored humility and simplicity over pomp and grandeur.

Francis has preferred to live in simple quarters in the Vatican instead of moving into the regal papal apartments, and he has said he wants "a poor Church, and for the poor".

In the Sunday afternoon service at St. Paul's, Francis said that each Christian can be a saint, which he defined as "middle class holiness."

"There are the saints of every day, the 'hidden' saints, a sort of 'middle class of holiness'... to which we can all belong."

The pope celebrated Mass together with the Benedictine monks to whom the basilica and the adjoining monastery are entrusted. St. Paul's is one of Rome's four major basilicas and the second largest after St. Peter's. 

 

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News analysis

Two major churches installed new leaders this week. But while it took the Roman Catholic Church just a month to get a new pope, more than a year passed before the Anglicans inaugurated the new Archbishop of Canterbury.

Catholics saw the new Pope Francis inaugurated at the Vatican on Tuesday — after Pope Benedict’s shock resignation on Feb. 11 — and two days later Justin Welby was installed as leader of some 85 million members of the Anglican Communion.

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The Roman Catholic Church got together all 115 cardinal electors, set the date for the conclave and, after a couple of days of deliberation, a leader for the church’s 1.2 billion members emerged. He is appointed for life and can invoke papal infallibility.

"It’s a very secretive process, a lot of people are involved, but it doesn’t usually take … long," papal historian Michael Walsh said, noting conclaves in the 20^th century took no longer than three or four days.

Since the resignation of the last Anglican leader, it took nine months to find a new one and over a year to reach the day of Welby’s inauguration.

The procedure in choosing an Anglican leader — who presides over royal births, marriages, deaths and coronations and will most likely christen Prince William and Kate's baby this summer — is complicated, even though his powers over Anglicans are more limited than those of the pope over Catholics and he must retire by the age of 70.

Their equivalent of the papal conclave is the Crown Nominations Commission consisting of 16 people, who narrow down the list of candidates to two people.

Those names are then submitted to the British prime minister who chooses one and submits it to the monarch for the final approval.

While the decision to elect a pope rests solely with members of the Catholic Church, the selection of an Archbishop of Canterbury is a combined decision of the clergy and the British state.

The balance between to the two weighs heavily on the side of the state, since it chooses the chairperson of the nomination commission.

"I don’t think it is a lengthy procedure — after all, he is being elected for three roles: the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion, leader of the Church of England and Bishop of Canterbury," Jan Butter, director of communications for the Anglican Communion, said.

He explained that the commission's task was complicated by having to choose from candidates who are not present in the discussions, unlike the conclave where every cardinal involved is a potential candidate.

"When a huge corporation hunts for a CEO, they take the right amount of time to make sure the right choice has been made," Butter emphasized "and that is what the CNC has done this time and always."

The duration does not seem to bother some Anglicans.

"There is less rush and more excitement," Tarsila Burity, a member of the church from Brazil currently attending college in the UK said, "knowing that the decision could affect so many people it’s worth the wait."

So much effort to award a significant ecclesiastical position, even though authority does not carry infallibility and the post is not for life.

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ANKARA, Turkey — Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, left Monday for the Vatican to attend Pope Francis' installation Mass — the first time a patriarch from the Istanbul-based church is attending a papal investiture since the two branches of Christianity split nearly 1,000 years ago.

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Bartholomew said he was attending the installation Mass to underscore the importance he attaches to "friendly ties" between the churches and reflects expectations that the new pontiff will advance rapprochement efforts that began decades ago.

"It is a gesture to underline relations which have been developing over the recent years and to express my wish that our friendly ties flourish even more during this new era," Bartholomew told private NTV television in an interview in Istanbul before his departure. "I am very hopeful in this matter."

He is just one of several ecumenical and interfaith leaders who will be attending the Mass, including a sizeable Jewish contingent that reflects Francis' longstanding ties to the Jewish community in his native Argentina. Several Orthodox leaders will be there, although the Russian Orthodox Church's Patriarch Kirill is staying home in Moscow and sending his envoy instead.

In a sign of common bonds between East and West, the Vatican said the Gospel during the installation Mass would be chanted in Greek instead of Latin, the language that will be used for many of the other elements of the ceremony.

The Eastern and Western churches were united until the Great Schism of 1054, a divide precipitated largely by disagreements over the primacy of the pope.

Francis' predecessor, the now-retired Pope Benedict XVI, had made uniting all Christians and healing the split a priority of his pontificate. A joint committee has been working to mend the rift between the two churches.

Rev. Dositheos Anagnostopoulos, the spokesman for the Istanbul-based Patriarchate, said Bartholomew would become the first Orthodox spiritual leader to attend an investiture since the Schism. The decision to attend the Mass at St Peter's Square on Tuesday was "the fruit" of the growing dialogue between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, he said.

Bartholomew: 'He was won over hearts'
Bartholomew went further to say he would be the first Orthodox spiritual leader to attend an investiture since "at least" before the Schism.

"Even before the churches were divided in 1054, a patriarch from Istanbul did not attend the inauguration," he explained.

The Patriarch said: "From the first day, (Pope Francis) has won over hearts with his modest demeanor... I felt the wish to go and I am going willingly."

Bartholomew has made several previous visits to the Vatican, including attending the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005. Bartholomew also hosted Benedict during a 2006 visit to Istanbul, the sprawling city formerly called Constantinople and the ancient spiritual center of the Orthodox churches.

Prof. Ionnis Zizioulas, the Metropolitan of Pergamon and a co-chair of the joint commission promoting dialogue between the two churches, is accompanying Bartholomew to Rome, Anagnostopoulos said. Bartholomew's delegation will also include Tarassios, the Metropolitan of Argentina, and Gennadios, the Metropolitan of Italy.

Francis is familiar with Orthodox traditions from 14 years of heading the Argentine church's commission on Eastern Rite Christians, who are within the Catholic fold but follow Orthodox religious customs, including some married clergy in lower ranks.

The powerful Russian Orthodox Church, the largest of the more than dozen Orthodox churches,áwelcomed the election of Francis.

"The new pope is known for his conservative views, and his papacy will evidently be marked by the strengthening of faith. The fact that he has taken the name of Francis — reminiscent of St. Francis of Assisi — confirms his understanding of evangelization primarily as assistance for the poor and the deprived, as protection of their dignity," Dimitry Sizonenko, secretary for inter-Christian relations in the Russian church, told the Interfax-Religion news service.

For Orthodox, the new pope's choice of Francis is also important for its reference to the Italian town of Assisi, where Pope John Paul II began conferences encouraging interfaith dialogue and closer bonds among Christians.

In an indication that the Vatican's interfaith and ecumenical partners expect great things from Francis, several Jewish representatives were attending his installation, including the chief rabbi of Rome , the general secretary of the chief Rabbinate of Israel, and representatives from the American Jewish Committee, the World Jewish Congress and the Anti-Defamation League.

The Vatican said Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh and Jains would also attend, though on the official list released Monday, none were listed.

Muslim delegations
Several mostly Muslim countries were sending delegations, including Bahrain and Lebanon as well as Jordan. Jordanian King AbdullahII had congratulated Francis on his election and said he was committed to working withthe Holy See on interfaith dialogue.

Although Catholics and Orthodox remain estranged on key issues — including married clergy and the centralized power of the Vatican — there have been significant moves toward closer interactions and understanding.

The first major breakthrough came in 1964 when Pope Paul VI met in Jerusalem with Patriarch Athenagoras in the first encounter between a pope and Orthodox patriarch in more than 500 years. The meeting led to the lifting of mutual excommunication edicts and the Catholic-Orthodox Joint Declaration of 1965 that called for greater harmony among the churches.

An apostolic letter by John Paul II in 1995 encouraged unity between the two branches of Christianity and opened the way for a historic visit to Rome by Bartholomew I, who is considered the "first among equals" of the Orthodox patriarchs, as well as Catholic-Orthodox conferences.

During the first papal trip to Greece in 2001, John Paul II issued an apology for the ravages of the Fourth Crusade, which in the early 13th century sacked Constantinople, now Istanbul, the seat of the Eastern church. In 2006, Benedict XVI was hosted by the ecumenical patriarchate in Istanbul in a visit that brought protests from some archconservative Orthodox but generally opened room for dialogue on even closer contacts.

Francis was expected to meet with representatives of other religious denominations, including Bartholomew, on Wednesday.

Among the delegation with Bartholomew will be Ioannis Zizioulas, co-president of the joint commission for Catholic-Orthodox dialogue, and a senior envoy from the powerful Russian Orthodox Church.

A meeting between a pope and the head of the Russian church remains one of the elusive goals in efforts to improve ties. The Russian church and Vatican have a host of lingering conflicts including disputes over properties following the collapse of the Soviet Union and objections by Moscow of perceived Catholic efforts to gain followers in traditional Orthodox lands.                                                                                                                                       

The spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Hilarion, said last week that any possible meeting between Francis and Russian Patriarch Kirill "will depend on how quickly" the points of dispute are settled.

Associated Press writer Brian Murphy in Rome contributed to this report.

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VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis said Saturday he wanted "a poor church for the poor" in his first remarks to the media since he was elected leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics.

Wearing simple white robes and plain black shoes, he explained how he decided to name himself after St. Francis of Assisi: When he reached two-thirds of the vote in the conclave, a fellow cardinal embraced him and said, "Don't forget the poor."

"That's when I thought of Francis of Assisi," he said. "And that is how the name came to me: Francis of Assisi, the man of poverty, of peace."

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He added: "This is what I want, a poor church for the poor."

His comments underscored previous indications of his preference for austerity -- he did not sit on the papal throne to receive the cardinals after being elected, he took a bus with the rest of the cardinals back to their hotel and he was pictured Friday paying the bill himself.

There were some 5,600 accredited journalists – including some children and family members – packed into the Vatican's Paul VI Hall, the UK's Sky News reported.

The 76-year-old pontiff praised reporters for their coverage of the historic transition of the papacy.

"The role of mass media has become essential in modern times, so thank you...you have worked hard," he said to applause.

Pope Francis, formerly Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was set to meet Emeritus Pope Benedict at his retreat south of Rome next week, the Holy See said in a statement. It will be the first time in modern history that a newly elected pope has met his predecessor.

Benedict resigned from the papacy on Feb. 28, the first to do so in 600 years. Francis, an Argentine and the first non-European pope, was elected on Wednesday.

Pope Francis is also expected to meet Argentine President Christina Kirchner next week ahead of his Installation Mass on Tuesday, the Vatican said.

The two have a combative history over issues such as same-sex marriage, which Bergoglio described as "a plan to destroy God's plan." Kirchner, meanwhile, said his remarks were "reminiscent of the times of the Inquisition."

On Friday, the Vatican denied "anti-clerical" accusations that Pope Francis had failed to protect priests during the so-called "dirty war" waged by Argentine dictators more than 30 years ago.

"We have every reason to affirm that these accusations are not reliable and there is no reason for them today to cast a shadow over the new pope," Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said at a briefing.

A second spokesman, Father Tom Rosica said the accusations by an Argentine journalist amounted to a political smear campaign against the new pope.

"They reveal left-wing elements, anti-clerical elements that are used to attack the Church," Rosica said. "They must be firmly and clearly denied."

Bergoglio was not a cardinal, or even a bishop, during the time in question but supervisor of Jesuit priests in Argentina.

NBC News' Alastair Jamieson and Ian Johnston, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis celebrated his first mass as pontiff Thursday, urging the Catholic church to emphasize its core faith and the Gospels or risk becoming like "a compassionate NGO," referring to non-governmental organizations that provide community services.

He warned that following anything other than spiritual values was like children building sand-castles on a beach, Reuters reported. "Then everything comes crashing down," he said, according to the report.

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His homily, in front of a congregation at St Peter's Basilica, was short and delivered without notes. It was also given in Italian, in place of the Latin preferred by his predecessor, the pope emeritus.

 

The first full day of his pontificate saw more details emerge about his character and background.

Officials said Pope Francis had declined the official papal car and joked with cardinals not long after being elected as head of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics on Wednesday night.

One Vatican insider admitted he was as "surprised" by the choice of Francis as the rain-soaked crowd at St. Peter's Square — where an audible gasp followed the pontiff's unveiling. 

"I didn’t expect it," press spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told reporters, referring to the moment when Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio appeared on the balcony overlooking the square.

The Latin American pope’s election shattered Europe's centuries-old grip on the papacy, and his choice of name — in honor of the 12th century saint from Assisi — is widely seen as a nod to a new era of simplicity.

Lombardi said Pope Francis declined the official papal car for his first journey from the Sistine Chapel, choosing instead to board a bus with cardinals who had just elected him.

Later, at dinner, the new pope prompted laughter by responding to their toast with the remark: "May god forgive you for what you have done."

Those observations were echoed by New York's Cardinal Tim Dolan, who told TODAY's Matt Lauer that Francis had shunned protocol that called for him to sit on elevated platform, preferring instead to stand alongside fellow cardinals. "So he greeted each of us as brothers, literally on the same level as we were.”

Francis returned Thursday to the church-run hostel where he had stayed ahead of the conclave and insisted on paying the bill.

"He was concerned about giving a good example of what priests and bishops should do," a Vatican spokesman said. He did not disclose how much the bill totaled.

A theological conservative who has also been hailed for his compassion toward the poor, the 76-year-old Francis is the first Jesuit pontiff. 

He is also expected to become the first pope in more than 600 years to meet his predecessor. Francis will travel to the hillside papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo to greet the emeritus pope, who is living there temporarily after abdicating as Benedict XVI on Feb. 28.

Lombardi on Thursday confirmed the historic meeting would take place but said the timing had yet to be decided.

Francis will be formally installed as the church's new leader on Tuesday.

Earlier Thursday, he made a quick and discrete visit to Rome’s Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.

"He spoke to us cordially like a father," Father Ludovico Melo told Reuters after the meeting. "We were given 10 minutes' advance notice that the pope was coming".

The new pope, who is also now Bishop of Rome, prayed before a famous icon of the Madonna called the Salus Populi Romani, or Protectress of the Roman People.

NBC News' Vatican expert George Weigel predicted Francis would "certainly" prove to be a reformer when it comes to the Roman curia — the Vatican bureaucracy at the heart of the Catholic church.

The election of Francis appeared to surprise even those at the very heart of the church leadership, particularly among its sizable Italian contingent.

The Conference of Italian Bishops was so confident of victory for Milan’s Cardinal Angelo Scola that an emailed press statement congratulating the new pope was sent with a covering email that referred to Scola, not the victorious Bergoglio, as the chosen successor to Benedict.

Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported that the conclave had "rebelled against the curia."

However, Cardinal Dolan denied the conclave had been divided. "I didn't sense that tug of war at all," he said. "I sensed a rather remarkable consensus. We needed a man who had a good track record of sound, effective pastoral governance, and we got what we wanted."

Italy's La Stampa newspaper cited an interview Bergoglio gave last year in which he condemned "vanity" and said being cardinal was "not an award to be bragged about."

Outside the Vatican, torrential overnight rain had cleansed St Peter's Square of any sign of the 100,000-strong crowd that had cheered, applauded and cried when Francis emerged on the balcony above.

Newspaper vendors were kept busy by tourists lining to see inside the basilica.

"I think he will be a pope who thinks about more than just the Vatican," said Maryland native Marjorie Steiner, 61, who visited St. Peter’s Square on Thursday as part of a vacation in Rome.

Dory Gordon, 51, from Houston, Texas, who was also on vacation, said: "As a Catholic I'm really excited that they have made this break with tradition. It sends out a good message that the church is here for all the world's people."

NBC's John Newland, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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This story was originally published on Thu Mar 14, 2013 5:25 AM EDT

Although Pope Francis is a Jesuit, he chose his papal name not in honor of St. Francis Xavier, a co-founder of the Society of Jesus, but rather in honor of St. Francis of Assisi. It's a significant choice.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, a member of the 115-member conclave that elected Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as the 266th pope, told NBC News that the new pope explained his choice of name at the gathering Wednesday.

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Vatican watchers said the election of Bergoglio was already a powerful signal of a renewed commitment by the Catholic Church to traditional Catholic theology. And in choosing to highlight Francis of Assisi, Bergoglio was explicitly honoring "a saint that transcends the Catholic Church and is loved by all people, a saint who reached out for simplicity, ... poverty and care for the poor," the Rev. Thomas Rosica, a spokesman for the Vatican, said in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC).

Francis (who was born in 1181 or 1182 and died in 1226) founded the Franciscan Order in his hometown, Assisi, in what is now the Italian region of Umbria.

Although he was never even ordained as a priest, Francis is considered one of the church's holiest figures and was canonized by Pope Gregory IX in 1228, only two years after his death, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, which reflects the Vatican's official view of history. 

Among other things, he's credited by the church with creating the first Nativity scene to celebrate Christmas in 1223.

Francis wasn't always so saintly. Born to wealth, he lived a playboy life that included blowing off his studies, according to a biography penned by Thomas of Celano, a friar who was a contemporary of Francis' and one of his first followers.

But in 1205 — as he was on his way to fight one of Assisi's many battles with its rival city of Perugia — Francis had what Thomas and other biographers describe as a vision in which he was told to return home. He did, taking up a life of prayer and solitude. On a subsequent pilgrimage to Rome, he reportedly gave all his money to the city's poor having exchanged his clothes with those of a beggar.

Shortly thereafter, Francis had another vision as he was praying in a rundown chapel in Assisi, in which Jesus commanded him, "Go, Francis, and repair my house, which as you see is falling into ruin."

Taking the command literally, according to Thomas' and other histories, Francis sold his home and his possessions to raise the money to rebuild the city's chapels. He became a street preacher, and by 1209, he and about 11 followers were making the rounds of Umbria's towns as itinerant preachers when Francis traveled to Rome to seek Pope Innocent III's blessing to establish a religious order. Final approval came the following year.

(The official history and admiring biographies of the time tell an entertaining tale of red tape and bureaucratic delays that kept Francis hanging around outside the Vatican for several days trying to get inside to see the pope.)

The order grew rapidly, and within a few years it had expanded into two others: one for women, today known as the Poor Clares, and another for pious laymen and women who choose to live a worldly life.

Followers were drawn by Francis' absolute devotion to living his life in close imitation of Jesus'. The burgeoning order celebrated poverty, so much so that in his "Testament," written shortly before he died, Francis said absolute poverty was his order's defining rule.

In a famous dictum history attributes to him, Francis argued: "You cannot starve a fasting man, you cannot steal from someone who has no money, you cannot ruin someone who hates prestige."

It is that philosophy that Pope Francis adheres to, even though he is not himself a member of the order, said Rosica, the Vatican spokesman.

"Cardinal Bergoglio has spent his life opening his arms to the poor, the destitute," he told the CBC. "Argentina is a beautiful country, but there are great pockets of poverty and injustice, and he was right there in the middle of all of this."

Church scholars predicted that the new pope would bring a sharp focus on ministering to the poor in the manner of St. Francis.

"He has a reputation for simplicity and for being utterly concerned about the poor," the Rev. John Padberg, director of the Institute of Jesuit Sources at Saint Louis University, told NBC station KSDK of St. Louis. "In all of the upheavals in Argentina in previous years, no matter what had happened, that was one of his main concerns."

Juan Martinez, an associate professor of Hispanic studies and pastoral leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., said that while Pope Francis might be considered theologically conservative, he'll be "conservative with a human face."

"The reality of living amongst the poor and those who suffered in the majority world gives him a very different perspective from the previous pope," Martinez told NBC 4 of Los Angeles. "It is an experience that is more common among the majority of Catholics."

Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook.

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Pope Francis is unique not just for being the first Latin American pope. He's also the first Jesuit pope, possibly signaling a renewed emphasis on traditional Catholic theology by the church.

The Society of Jesus, as the Jesuits are formally known, observes a vow of poverty, and as archbishop of Buenos Aires, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was known for his accessibility and simplicity, said Michael Sheeran, president-elect of the American Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities.

"Pope Francis took the bus to work every day," Sheeran said in a live online discussion of Bergoglio's election. "He sold the cardinal's residence and lived in a small apartment where he cooked for himself."

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But that simplicity hides a steely determination to advance Jesuit principles, especially on the importance of traditional Catholic teachings and protection of the poor and the oppressed, Sheeran said. 

That determination emerged during Bergoglio's service as the top Jesuit leader of Argentina beginning in 1973, Sheeran said, noting, "He was a tough guy who made sure his men toed the mark."

"I think you'll find a man who is conservative theologically but very strong on matters of social justice," Sheeran said.

George Weigel, a senior fellow at the nonprofit Ethics and Public Policy Center who is a Vatican analyst for NBC News, agreed that the choice of Bergoglio "speaks to the church's commitment to the poor of the world and compassion in a world that often needs a lot of healing."

At the same time, "this is a John Paul II guy," Weigel said, referring to Pope John Paul II, who elevated Bergoglio to archbishop in 1998 and cardinal in 2001. As archbishop of Buenos Aires, "he tried to call that community back to orthodoxy," Weigel said.

The new pope has been a vocal opponent of abortion and especially of same-sex marriage, saying in 2010 that its role was to "seriously injure the family." He said the practice deprived children of "the human growth that God wanted them given by a father and a mother."

That position drew a rebuke from Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, who called Bergoglio a relic of "medieval times and the Inquisition."

Ultimate redemption for Jesuits
The Society of Jesus is the largest religious order of men in the Catholic Church, according to church statistics, and the largest single order of Catholic priests. But there has never before been a Jesuit pope, reflecting both the order's own reluctance to get deeply involved in church politics and its history as a polarizing force within Catholicism.

"I'm amazed (Francis) was selected," Sheeran said, because "the Jesuits steer clear of getting high-ranking jobs like this."

The society was founded in Rome in 1540 by St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Francis Xavier as a movement devoted to living in the imitation of Jesus. 

From the beginning, the Jesuits have been aggressively evangelistic; they were the shock troops in the church's resistance to the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century and among the first missionaries to set up shop in such far-flung locales as India, Asia, and Central and South America, the Catholic Encyclopedia records.

That activism earned the society a reputation for political scheming by the 1760s, leading to its official suppression by Pope Clement XIV in 1773. Expulsion of the order quickly followed across much of the Catholic world, from France and Portugal to as far away as the Philippines.

"It thereby contributed to the polarization and politicization of the European public sphere in the age of enlightenment," Christine Vogel, a historian at the University of Rostock in Germany, wrote in a 2010 examination of the suppression.

The order remained in the wilderness for 41 years before Pope Pius VII restored its recognition after the Napoleonic Wars wound down in 1814.

In the modern era, the Jesuits have focused on social justice and education, having founded scores of prominent colleges  around the world, including 28 in the U.S., among them Georgetown in Washington, Boston College, Fordham in New York, Holy Cross in Massachusetts, Marquette in Milwaukee and Loyola in New Orleans. (An earlier version of this story inaccurately located Marquette University.)

That's in keeping with Pope Francis' own background — like his predecessor, Benedict XVI, Bergoglio is an academic as well as a priest.

Before he became a bishop in 1992, Bergoglio earned a doctorate in theology in Freiburg, Germany. He returned to Argentina and was a theology instructor at and later rector of the Philosophical and Theological Faculty of San Miguel in Buenos Aires.

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Pope Francis, the first man in the modern era from outside Europe to lead the Roman Catholic Church, prizes compassion, humility and simplicity — so much that he gave up his chauffeur in Argentina and took the bus to work.

He is the first pope to be a member of the Society of Jesus, a Catholic order founded in the 16th century by St. Ignatius Loyola. Its  members, known as Jesuits, take a vow of poverty and are known for their work among the poor and their scholarship.

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“A man who calmly stands for what’s right and just,” Cardinal Edward Egan, the archibishop emeritus of New York, told NBC News. “A man of great compassion for the poor. That is what they point to first and foremost.”

During an economic crisis that gripped his home country over the last decade, Francis, then Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, asserted himself as a champion of the least fortunate and a defender of social justice.

“We live in the most unequal part of the world, which has grown the most yet reduced misery the least,” Bergoglio told Latin American bishops in 2007, according a recent profile in the National Catholic Reporter. “The unjust distribution of goods persists, creating a situation of social sin that cries out to Heaven and limits the possibilities of a fuller life for so many of our brothers.”

The new pope is known to be conservative on social issues. He has opposed abortion and gay marriage, and in 2010 he drew the ire of Argentina’s president when he said that gay adoption was a form of discrimination against children.

Vote: Was Pope Francis a good choice?

Argentina in 2010 became the first country in Latin America to legalize gay marriage. During the debate that preceded the change, Bergoglio called the bill “a plan to destroy God’s plan.”

“This is no mere legislative bill,” he said. “It is a move by the father of lies to confuse and deceive the children of God.”

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner shot back that the then-cardinal was speaking in terms “really reminiscent of the times of the Inquisition.”

As archbishop, Bergoglio had the option to live in a palace but chose a simple apartment, according to the National Catholic Reporter. He gave up a limousine for the bus, and cooks his own meals.

In the first act of his papacy, he chose the name Francis, becoming the namesake of St. Francis of Assisi, who gave up his riches and chose a life of poverty and prayer.

He was born in Buenos Aires on Dec. 17, 1936, his father an Italian railway worker. He was elevated to cardinal in 2001 by Pope John Paul II.

At 76, he had been considered by some observers too old for the job — particularly following Benedict, who said that at 85 he was no longer healthy enough to lead the church. Francis has only one lung, the other removed because of an infection when he was a teenager.

Still, Egan said: “I can assure you that he is not feeble in any way.”

Related: Single lung not likely to hinder new pope

His official biographer has said that Francis has both keen political instincts and self-effacing humility, and that he would encourage a kind of shoe-leather evangelism within the church. He is known to walk the streets of Buenos Aires to talk to the people.

He told priests in Argentina last year: “Jesus teaches us another way: Go out. Go out and share your testimony, go out and interact with your brothers, go out and share, go out and ask. Become the word in body as well as spirit.”

Perhaps helping him overcome the traditional reluctance to elect a Jesuit pope, he fell out of favor among some Jesuits in Argentina after he was elected to the title of Jesuit provincial in 1973.

Argentina was ruled in the late 1970s by a brutal military dictatorship, and many Jesuits were drawn to a progressive activist movement within the church known as liberation theology. Church leaders backed the dictatorship publicly, and Bergoglio discouraged priests from political activism.

Two of his Jesuit priests who followed the liberation theology movement were kidnapped from the slums by the military regime in 1976. Bergoglio personally appealed to the dictator, Jorge Videla, and had them freed. One of the priests later accused Bergoglio of effectively handing them over to the death squads in the first place.

Bergoglio told his biographer, Sergio Rubin, that he often hid people on church property during the regime years and once gave his own identity papers to a man to help him get out of the country.

He later was sent to a school in northern Argentina to teach high school chemistry, an assignment seen as a type of exile, before the archbishop of Buenos Aires recalled him to be his auxiliary bishop.

“He’s a strong man, a man who can put up with criticism,” said George Weigel, NBC News’ Vatican analyst. “Cardinal Bergoglio put up with a lot of criticism from his brother Jesuits for many years.”

Francis earned a degree in chemistry and was ordained a priest in December 1969. He was named archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998.

He was said to be the runner-up the last time cardinals met to choose a pope. An anonymous account of the 2005 conclave said that he had the support of some of the more liberal cardinals before giving up the fight and telling his backers to vote for Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became Benedict XVI.

Related: New pope: 'Pray for me and I will see you soon' 

The account was attributed to a cardinal who leaked his diary to an Italian publication. It said that Francis, then Bergoglio, amassed 40 votes, more than half of what he would have needed for election, but still trailed Benedict after three ballots. His candidacy faltered on the fourth ballot, the diary said.

As Bergoglio cast his ballot beneath Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment,” the account said: “He had his face fixed on the image of Christ judging the souls at the end of time. A suffering face that implored: God, don’t to this to me.” The cardinal later declined to comment on the account.

By choosing a name no pope had chosen before, he may be signaling an era of rebirth for a church troubled by corruption and a sexual abuse crisis.

“We have to avoid the spiritual sickness of a self-referential church,” the new pope said before the conclave, according to the National Catholic Reporter. “It’s true that when you get out into the street, as happens to every man and woman, there can be accidents. However, if the church remains closed in on itself, self-referential, it gets old. Between a church that suffers accidents in the street, and a church that’s sick because it's self-referential, I have no doubts about preferring the former.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 

MANILA, Philippines — On the face of it Philippine Cardinal Luis Antonio "Chito" Tagle has a lot going for him as a contender for pope. He's young: At 55, the second youngest of the cardinals. He sings and preaches on television, and has 120,000 followers on Facebook.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) has named him among the three "least worst" papal candidates because of the way he has spoken out on sex abuse by members of the clergy.

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He speaks fluent Italian, English and Tagalog, and his French and Latin are said to pretty good too. The National Catholic Reporter recently called him "an effective missionary and communicator," and described him as the face of a "dynamic and relatively angst-free form of Catholicism."

 

He became something of a protégé of Pope Benedict, and if elected would be Asia's first pope.

Before getting carried away, though, it is worth looking at what he has been doing with those communication skills and the state of Catholic Church here in the Philippines.

It is locked in a fierce battle with the government over social reform, in what has become a struggle for hearts and minds in a country where for centuries the church wielded enormous and almost unchallenged power.

Four-fifths of the Philippines' 104 million people are Catholic, and the country has one of the highest birth rates in Asia.

The most recent dispute was over a law to help the country's poorest women gain access to birth control and introduce sex education in public schools and family-planning training for community health officers. It was finally passed by parliament late last year after being stalled for a decade by opposition from the church.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippine declared that "contraception is corruption!" and that the moral fiber of the nation was at risk.

Critics say the Church's doctrinaire attitude has for decades been the biggest single drag on social and economic development in the Philippines, where the U.N. estimates that half the country's 3.4 million annual pregnancies are unintended, and improved maternal health care would save hundreds of pregnancy-related deaths every year.

A large banner opposing the law still hangs on Manila Cathedral, and the Catholic groups are mobilizing for forthcoming senate elections, where they intend to target senators who supported the legislation.

The passing of what's called the Reproductive Health Act was a severe blow to an institution that had commanded almost unwavering support.

Suddenly it is no longer taboo to defy the church, and President Benigno Aquino III has vowed to press on with changes, with reformers urging him to liberalize abortion and divorce laws.

Surprisingly, the coverage of the conclave by the Philippine media has been very low key, though that could change if it drags on and Tagle is seen as having a serious chance.

There is nothing Filipinos like more than seeing one of their own making a big impact on the global stage. One young woman even described the battle for the papacy as rather like watching Filipino boxing sensation Manny Pacquiao in one of his international prize fights, and feeling the same sense of pride.

On the face of it, there's a big difference between the boxing ring and the Sistine Chapel, yet both require some pretty deft footwork.

And Tagle, with his easy smile and disarming charm, will be a key player, even if he is regarded as an outside bet for the crown.

But his is not the easy charm of a social reformer. Far from it. And reformers here in Manila fear that in the knockabout world of Philippine politics, a strong performance by Tagle in Rome could strengthen the hand of conservatives at home fighting what many regard as much-needed reforms.