Pope Francisco is the Person of the Year according to Time

As just announced by the renowned Time magazine, today Pope Francisco was chosen as Person of the Year 2013.

“In his nine months in office, he has placed himself at the very centre of the central conversations of our time: about wealth and poverty, fairness and justice, transparency, modernity, globalisation, the role of women, the nature of marriage, the temptations of power,” says Nancy Gibbs, editor of the magazine.

Among the other favourites to take the first place on the list of TIME were: Presidents, Barack Obama (USA); Bashar al-Assad (Syria); and Hasan Rohani (Iran). In addition, the CIA former analyst Edward Snowden; American ultraconservative Senator Ted Cruz; the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos; singer Miley Cyrus; US Secretary of Health, Kathleen Sebelius; and activist for gay rights, Edith Windsor.

In 1927 the magazine chose its first Person of the Year. Since then it has maintained the tradition as a way to recognize the person who has had a greater influence on the news in the world during the year, whether for positive or negative reasons.