The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan was blogging from the Vatican before the cardinals chose the next pope:

There is a sense too, at least among American Catholics I talk to, that this is in some new way a crucial moment for the church, even though we don’t understand or cannot name exactly why. It’s not only The Scandals, the Vatican bank, that source of half a century’s rumors, or Vatileaks. It’s not only the three cardinals who reportedly made a dossier on the last, bound in red leather and locked away like the third secret of Fatima for the next pope’s perusal. Those cardinals—again, reportedly—wrote of rivalries and ambitions. But what exactly does that mean? Who are the rivals and what are they fighting over? Ambitions for what, to do what? We are all wondering about this.

Anyway, I talk to a lot of Catholics who are publicly sanguine and privately unsettled.

All this is at odds with the burly bonhomie shown in public by those such as New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who in his few days in Rome has always been seen laughing and reaching out, joking and teasing. It’s a good thing to see. I want to feel the way he seems to feel. Maybe by the end of the conclave I will. …

… there’s a lot of ignorant, tendentious and even aggressive media chatter about the church right now, and it’s starting to grate. Church observers are blabbering away on cable and network news telling the church to get with the program, throwing around words like “gender” and “celibacy” and “pedophile” and phrases like “irrelevant to the modern world.” …

Right now every idiot in town feels free to tell the church to get hopping, and they do it in a new way, with a baldness that occasionally borders on the insulting. Whatever their faith or lack of it they feel free to critique loudly and in depth, to the degree they are capable of depth. I have been critical of the church over the sex scandals for longer than a decade. Here’s one column—but I write of it because I love it and seek to see it healthy, growing and vital as it brings Christ into the world. Some of the church’s critics don’t seem to be operating from affection and respect but something else, or some things else.

When critics mean to be constructive, they bring an air of due esteem and occasional sadness to their criticisms, and offer informed and thoughtful suggestions as to ways the old church might right itself. They might even note, with an air of gratitude free of crowd-pleasing sanctimony, that critics must, in fairness, speak of those parts of the church that most famously work—the schools that teach America’s immigrants, the charities, the long embrace of the most vulnerable—and outweigh a whole world of immediate criticisms.

But when they just prattle on with their indignant words—gender, celibacy, irrelevant—well, they’re probably not trying to be constructive. One might say they’re being vulgar, ignorant and destructive, spoiled too. They think they’re brave, or outspoken, or something. They don’t have enough insight into themselves to notice they’d never presume to instruct other great faiths.

CNN found someone who actually knows something about the church:

Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina, the new pope, is breaking historic ground by choosing the name Francis.

It’s the first time the name is being used by a pope, said CNN Vatican expert John Allen.

Pope Francis chose his name in honor of St. Francis of Assisi because he is a lover of the poor, said Vatican deputy spokesman Thomas Rosica.

“Cardinal Bergoglio had a special place in his heart and his ministry for the poor, for the disenfranchised, for those living on the fringes and facing injustice,” Rosica said.

St. Francis, one of the most venerated figures in the Roman Catholic Church, was known for connecting with fellow Christians, Rosica added.

Allen described the name selection as “the most stunning” choice and “precedent shattering.” …

The name symbolizes “poverty, humility, simplicity and rebuilding the Catholic Church,” Allen said. “The new pope is sending a signal that this will not be business as usual.”

Wigderson Library & Pub (and remember that Catholics started colleges and celebrated the wine part of the Eucharist):

One of the advantages of being Catholic is that, instead of offering an opinion on who should be Pope, we’re more or less left to accept and offer prayers that the Cardinals make the right choice. That said, obviously there was a rooting interest for Cardinal Timothy Dolan. God must have other plans. I suspect the White House, as much as it prays, was hoping Dolan would become Pope, too, if only to get him to move to Rome. …

It was interesting to listen to the speculation regarding the meaning of the name Francis. It was like watching a funeral from the Soviet Union and trying to figure out the significance of who is on the reviewing stand.

What we know of Pope Francis is that he’s a Jesuit, he’s an Argentine, and he’s a humble and faithful man. He’s the first Pope from the New World.

Pope Francis is a stauch defender of the unborn, even believing that politicians that support abortion and euthanasia should be denied Communion. That should make for an interesting visit by American Vice President Joe Biden to the Pope’s inaugural on Tuesday.

He’s committed to ministering to the poor and unfortunate, but he’s not a Liberation Theologian. He is not afraid of conflict with secular authorities over gay marriage and adoption.

He’s not a young man, yet Pope Francis is hoped to be a reformer of the institutions of the Church.

The London Daily Mail adds:

While he is unlikely to soften the Church’s approach to issues such as contraception, he has spent many years administering to the poorest in the land, endearing himself to them as ‘Father Jorge’.

Though unwaveringly orthodox, he has never closed his mind to pastoral  realities. Six months ago, he delivered a blistering attack on priests who refuse to baptise children born out of wedlock, calling it — in his own typical style of phraseology — a form of ‘rigorous and hypocritical neo-clericalism’. …

He has spoken out against liberal abortion laws and gay adoption, arguing that it infringed the rights of children to both a mother and father.

This earned him a rebuke from Argentina’s President, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

But he has shown deep compassion for Aids victims, once visiting a hospice to kiss and wash the feet of 12 Aids patients.

At the same time he has spoken passionately about the importance of pastoral care for divorcees. …

He considers helping the neediest in society, rather than ideological battles about religious doctrines, the essential business of the Church.

He has labelled those fellow Church leaders who enjoy the trappings of high office as hypocrites, saying they forget that Jesus bathed lepers and ate with prostitutes.

This sort of pastoral work, aimed at capturing more souls and building the flock, is an essential skill for any religious leader in the modern era, says Bergoglio’s authorised biographer, Sergio Rubin. …

Eight years ago, when he came second in the papal ballot, there were some doubts about his toughness. Why this should change now is yet to be explained.

But, in electing him, the cardinals undoubtedly feel that, with his Italian roots, he will be able to take on the Vatican bureaucracy known as the Curia  — which has been subject to accusations of money laundering. And that he will take a tough line on the sexual scandals which continue to embarrass the Church worldwide. …

The hope is that he will not put up with the cover-ups of recent years. We shall see. Certainly, he has never worked in the Vatican, so he has much to learn.

But his appeal is in drawing respect from both conservatives and moderates, and for his deep spirituality. In an address last year he said Argentina was being harmed by demagoguery, corruption and totalitarianism. …

And why did he choose to call himself Pope Francis? After 13th-century St Francis of Assisi, who set out to ‘rebuild a Church’.

The funniest unfunny comment comes from Tim Nerenz: