The poor pope

PITY the pontiff. Not only does he face the urgent task of sorting out sordid power struggles in the heart of the Vatican; in the wider world of Catholicism, rival political camps are eagerly looking forward to his first pronouncements on social and economic questions.

On the political left, people have hailed a pope from outside Europe who had guided his Argentine flock through the economic recession and social upheaval that came to a head with the devaluation of the peso in 2001. That could affect his thinking on present-day crises, including the travails of the euro zone. Conservative Catholics, meanwhile, cherish how the new pope is personally close to his traditionalist predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, whose retirement home is only a mitre’s toss away from Francis’s own humble hostel.