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Utah Catholics Welcome New Pope

Dan Bammes

  Utah Catholics are welcoming Pope Francis I with high expectations. 

The bells at the Cathedral of the Madeleine were ringing this afternoon as Utah Catholics welcomed the news of the selection of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina as pope.

Stephanie Olmstead was watching the news with a group of students at the Newman Center just off the University of Utah campus.  She’s hoping the new pontiff will continue Benedict’s use of Twitter to communicate with the faithful around the world.

She says, “Young people really want to see a pope who is out there evangelizing and can work with the social media.”

Cardinal Bergoglio championed traditional church teaching on subjects such as same-sex marriage and adoptions by gay couples even as the Argentine government legalized both.

Monsignor Joseph Mayo, the rector of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, understands there are people in the American church who don’t share those opinions.

“Well, those issues have no easy answer," Mayo told reporters at a news conference Wednesday, "And so I think he will deal with them as constructively as he knows how, as he’s already done in his home country.”

There will be special masses to pray for Pope Francis this weekend, after Bishop John Wester returns from a meeting of the U-S Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington.

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