Just over 10 years ago, Jorge Mario Bergoglio stood on the balcony of St Peter’s and said simply to the crowd, “Buona Sera”. It was the beginning of a pontificate very different from any other.
Other popes have lived in the grand papal apartments where access to the pontiff could be physically controlled by the head of the papal household. Pope Francis has undermined that system by dividing his time between the papal apartments and the Casa Santa Marta.
In the heady early days of his pontificate, all things seemed possible. He was more informal than monarchical. He was not legalistic; when asked about homosexuality, he famously asked, “Who am I to judge?” He seemed to be a different person from the cautious archbishop who had played a careful game, at least once at the expense of his own priests, during the military junta in Argentina.
