Joy in Ecuador and Latin America for Pope Francis I

Once it became known the name of Jorge Bergoglio as the  new Pope,  Cristina Fernández, President of Argentina, in a letter released by the Government, welcomed the appointment . “It is our wish test he has, when assuming  the conduction and guide of the Church, a fruitful pastoral task.”

For his part the President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, wrote on his Twitter account the following: we have a Latin American Dad! We live unprecedent historical moments ! Long live Francis I!.

Eduardo García, Bishop of the Cathedral of Buenos Aires, also expressed his happiness. “For us it is a great grace…, we are proud of him as a pastor, and we hope that he can do good  to the whole universal Church”.

Monsignor Antonio Arregui, Archbishop of Guayaquil, called the appointment of the Supreme Pontiff as ‘an extraordinary story’.”We give thanks to God because it has penetrated into South America to elect the successor of St. Peter, said Arregui.

The Jesuit community of the Ecuador received with surprise and jubilation the news. “Who would believe that a Jesuit would replace him? “, expresses Javier Alaña, director of the  Javier School,  who says that the current Pope is a kind and unselfish man, attitudes which he witnessed when he was studying at the University of Jesuit formation in Argentina.”

About the vistis of Francis I to Guayaquil he said that Bergoglio was in the country in the 1980s, because according to the Javier school, exchanges between young people of the Jesuit community in several countries of the South were made at that time.

Bergoglio was in charge at the time to authorize the traveling of Argentine seminarians of the Jesuit community, he also accompanied them on a visit to Ecuador. This tradition was kept from 1983 to 1995.