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‘Seems like yesterday’: Pope Francis marks 10th anniversary with Mass and podcast
- The Argentina-born Francis, 86, became the first Latin American pontiff on March 13, 2013, succeeding Benedict XVI
- Francis has said he would be ready to step down if severe health problems prohibited him from running the Church but also thinks popes should try to reign for life
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Pope Francis marks 10 years as head of the Roman Catholic Church on Monday celebrating Mass with cardinals in the chapel of the Vatican’s Santa Marta hotel where he has lived since his election.
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The Argentina-born Francis, 86, became the first Latin American pontiff on March 13, 2013, succeeding Benedict XVI who had become the first pope in six centuries to resign.
“It seems like yesterday,” he said in a podcast by Vatican News broadcast on Monday. “Time flies. When you gather up today, it is already tomorrow.”
When it was recorded at his residence on Sunday, he asked: “What’s a podcast?” according to Vatican News reporter Salvatore Cernuzio. When it was explained to him, he said “Nice. Let’s do it”.
The former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio has sought to project simplicity into the grand role and never took possession of the papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace used by his predecessors, saying he preferred to live in a community setting for his “psychological health”.
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He has invited all the cardinals who are in Rome with him to the Mass on Monday.
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