El Papa Porteño

[Gregorio Borgia/Associated Press]Porteños (Argentines from the capital city Buenos Aires) will get quite a self-esteem boost today, March 19 when the Vatican inaugurates Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as the new pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.

There has been no news in Buenos Aires for the last five days that has not focused on the Pope. Immediately after the announcement last Wednesday, I made my way down to the Plaza de Mayo to witness the country’s faithful celebrating the news in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral. Yet I couldn’t help but notice the crowd was … small, especially when compared to the teacher salary protest march happening at the same time a few blocks away.

In an increasingly secular country, the news was certainly met with pride, but there are doubts the new pontiff will be able to achieve the major goal placed upon him: unify Latin American Catholics and stem the growth of Evangelical Protestantism.

It is unclear if anyone briefed the Vatican’s cardinals on inter-state rivalries in South America before this decision. Immediately social media networks were filled with jokes that ranged from political to ridiculous: “Finally! A Latin Pope… even if he is Argentine”; “It’s a consolation prize for Argentina losing the Malvinas referendum”; and “This could mean bad news for the Brazilians if God is with Argentina for the 2014 World Cup.”

Latins have clamored for years for a Latin American pope; after all, more than 40 percent of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics are concentrated in Latin America. But the favorite was Sao Paulo’s Archbishop Odilo Scherer. Brazil has the largest Catholic community in the world and one of the fastest-growing populations of evangelicals. The hope among many Catholics was that a Latin American pope, specifically a Brazilian one, would engender new excitement among the population. More pointedly, that a Latin pope could stymie or even reverse the growing trend toward Evangelical Protestantism.

According to the polling site Latinobarometro, in 1996 Catholics made up some 80 percent of Latin America’s population, with Protestants lagging far behind at only 4 percent. 2010’s polling showed that the number of Protestants had more than tripled to 13 percent of the population while Catholics dropped to 70 percent. The proportion of conversions has been even stronger in the region’s two most populous Catholic countries: Brazil and Mexico. The new pontiff’s humility and rejection of the pomp and circumstance that many high-ranking clergy enjoy is undeniably refreshing. It could go far in terms of reaching Latin America’s poor increasingly report feeling better served by Evangelical Protestant churches.

But being a Latin is not enough, and even Argentines will admit that. Time will tell if Francis is really a pope of the people.