THE GUARDIAN: Former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio ditches Mercedes, ermine and gold cross for simpler style as he begins papacy
It wasn't quite a bus – his days of taking public transport may finally be over – but it certainly wasn't the vehicle of pontiffs, either. The car in which Pope Francis travelled on his first day as head of the Roman Catholic church was a standard-issue, black saloon.
Not for him the Mercedes with the papal number plate SCV1. That – along with the ermine-trimmed mozzetta and the gold pectoral cross – had been left behind. The new pope, said a Vatican spokesman, seemed to have brought "a new style of doing things".
First on the papal agenda on Thursday was a "spontaneous" visit – alluded to on Wednesday night by the just-elected Jorge Mario Bergoglio – to the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in central Rome. The church, home to an altar where the Jesuit founder Saint Ignatius of Loyola celebrated his first mass in 1538, had played host to Francis when he was a mere cardinal and archbishop.
Now, he was returning as the world's first Jesuit and Latin American pontiff. Not that there was much difference in the way he behaved, according to one priest, Father Ludovico Melo. "It was a meeting with a father," he said, "and not with a pope." » | Lizzy Davies in Vatican City | Thursday, March 14, 2013
