CNN: (CNN) -- For an institution that moves glacially, instant analysis is as impossible as it is unwise. Yet first impressions are important. Our initial glimpse of the new pope was curiously disconcerting. He stood there impassive and unemotional. He looked stunned, without almost any reaction at all except, perhaps, awe or even fear of the moment.
Suddenly, his eyes seemed to open wide, as if he was really seeing the position for which he had been chosen less than an hour before. And then he spoke, not with the power of physical force or energy but with something stronger: humility.
With the election of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires as pope, the Roman Catholic Church enters the next chapter of her history. And yet, as often happens in the church, she turns to her past for inspiration and even innovation. So we have the first pope to be elected from the Society of Jesus, known as the Jesuits, who were founded by Ignatius of Loyola in the 16th century while Catholicism reeled from Protestant challenges.
Yet this Jesuit takes the name Francis from the humble servant of medieval Assisi who began the Franciscan order 300 years before Ignatius. » | Christopher M. Belitto * | Special to CNN | Thursday, March 14, 2013
* Christopher M. Bellitto, chairman and associate professor of history at Kean University in Union, New Jersey, is the author of "101 Questions and Answers on Popes and the Papacy."
