When Pope Francis was elected to the Throne of Peter on 13 March 2013, he was largely unknown to the wider world. Even many of his fellow Argentines felt they had only a vague, indistinct impression of a man who, in their experience, had tended to shun the spotlight.
Within days, however, the new pontiff had established a narrative about himself which utterly electrified public opinion, and which would endure to the very end: that of a humble, simple man of the people – “the world’s parish priest" – who spurned luxury and privilege in favour of proximity to the underdogs and the excluded.
