On the evening of March 13th 2013 a man previously known as Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio stepped out onto a balcony and blinked at the rain-soaked pilgrims in St Peter's Square. They were instantly charmed by his modesty. His fellow prelates had "gone to the ends of the Earth" to find a pope, he declared, as though he were an improbably obscure choice. The modesty was real, but his elevation was no fluke, according to a biography that delves deep into the Argentine pope's personal history and ideological roots. Austen Ivereigh, a British Catholic, argues with passion and rigour that electing Cardinal Bergoglio pope signalled the surfacing of powerful undercurrents that had been swirling around for several decades in the world of Catholicism. Even during the monarchical reign of John Paul Ⅱ, who centralised authority and quashed dissent, some countervailing trends were at work. They finally found expression in the choice of a pope from the south.
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