The Eligendo

from Catholic Thing:

It seemed clear before – and still does now – that the cardinals were not looking for someone primarily focused on further intellectual developments. We’ve got a lot of documents of many kinds from the past two papacies in social thought and dogmatic fields – wonderful work that needs to find its way more into daily Catholic life than into further debate in academic settings. 

There was a lot of talk about a charismatic holy figure before the conclave began. And a lot more talk of the need for a reformer to refashion the curia. Pious and tough sound like opposites, but what if you get the former cardinal archbishop of a major archdiocese who has been a reformer by displaying holiness?

"This conclave has multiple contenders but no real front-runner, and it’s quite possible that if early voting produces a stall, the College of Cardinals could once again turn to Cardinal Bergoglio as someone who would bring key changes but without an extra-long reign."
Posted on Mon, March 11, 2013 by John Thavis

Sandro Magister describes the decision as brilliant and gives us another winning quote:

He is a pastor of sound doctrine and of concrete realism. To the Argentines reduced to hunger he has given much more than bread. He has urged them to pick the catechism back up again. That of the ten commandments and of the beatitudes. “This is the way of Jesus,” he would say. And one who follows Jesus understands that “trampling the dignity of a woman, of a man, of a child, of an elderly person is a grave sin that cries out to heaven,” and therefore decides to do it no more.