Catholic Pope elected after resignation of Benedict XVI

A new Pope was elected this afternoon after white smoke poured out of the chimney of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican City indicating that the tradition of the conclave has been successful after the fifth ballot.

A non-European Pope in almost 1,300 years has been elected, and this is in the form of 76-year-old Argentinian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, Jorge Mario Bergoglio. The first non-European pontiff was Pope Saint Victor I: Leptis Magna, modern-day Libya (189 - 199). The second was the Syrian Gregory III in 731 - 741.

The new Pope will be named after St. Francis of Assisi, and will be titled Pope Francis I.

St. Francis of Assisi (1181/1182 - October 3, 1226) was an Italian Catholic friar and preacher. He was never ordained to the Catholic priesthood. Francis was the son of a wealthy foreign cloth merchant in Assisi, but was moved to live a life of poverty after experiencing a vision.

Pope Francis who was elected today, 13 March 2013 will be responsible for the 1.2 billion catholics currently around the globe. From 1998 to 2012, he served as the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, and was promoted to Cardinal in 2001.

Not only is this the first non-European Pope in a while, but he is also the first pope to select the name Francis, and the first Jesuit priest chosen to be pope.