Pope Francis the First
I've been a long way away from my blog but the appointment of a new Pope and such an interesting one, compels to me to my keyboard again! Given the fact that it had to be one of the cardinals in the conclave clearly meant that the world wasn't going to get either a woman, someone in a civil partnership or someone with extremely radical views who would be selling the Sistine Chapel on eBay in a weeks time. Despite that, the choice of someone whose actual name is so hard to recall unless you are a Spanish speaker and who will therefore very quickly be known only as Francis, seems an inspired choice. But it is a choice fraught with dangers! The problem is that given his already well publicised history of living simply according to a vow of poverty and his genuine 'preference for the poor', there will be those who will be disappointed not to find the Sistine Chapel on eBay and the money being used to finance projects to end poverty or develop work to offer real alternative