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Pope marks 10 years with podcast and a diplomatic row
Pope Francis marked 10 years as head of the Catholic Church on Monday with a podcast, a private mass and a series of interviews.
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Pope Francis waves from the window of the apostolic palace during the weekly Angelus prayer on March 12, 2023 in The Vatican. (AFP/Tiziana Fabi)
P
ope Francis marked 10 years as head of the Catholic Church on Monday with a podcast, a private mass and a series of interviews, one of which triggered a diplomatic spat with Nicaragua.
"It seems like yesterday," the 86-year-old recalled of his election during a podcast for the official Vatican News outlet -- after first having to be told what a podcast was.
Asked what he would like as a gift for his 10-year anniversary, for which he had no public plans beyond a mass with cardinals, Francis added: "Peace. We need peace."
Jorge Bergoglio was elected pope on March 13, 2013, after his predecessor Benedict XVI stunned the world by becoming the first pope to resign since the Middle Ages.
He has said he never expected to be elected, only packing a small suitcase to travel from Argentina to Rome for the conclave on the assumption he would soon be back in Buenos Aires, where he was archbishop.
But he had a vision, and over the next decade he would overhaul the governance of the Church, including cleaning up the Vatican books and taking action against clerical child abuse.
He also shifted many people's perception of the papacy by engaging less in theology and more with social issues from migration to the environment.
