Polish Karol Wojtyla (1920-2005)-elected Pope in October 1978 under the name of John Paul II-and the Argentinian Jorge Mario Bergoglio, which became Pope Francis in March 2013, opened the chapter of media and planetary papacy. John Paul II was thus the first non -Italian pontiff in more than four centuries.
For the first time, we will hear in Rome the voice of Slavic believers and this “Church of silence” crushed by Soviet oppression. With François, it was the end of the European popes and the emergence of the southern continents. With almost half of Catholics in the world, Latin America has risen to the top of the “Roman” Church during the twelve years of its pontificate.
Celebrated as “stars”, they both embodied a kind of “globalization” of the Gospel. John Paul II, missionary pope-104 trips outside Italy in twenty-six years of reign-, and François, a Jesuit pope, carrier as his homonym of the hope of the poor masses, have implemented a new evangelization of a world where the Christian faith threatens to disappear: in the Near East who saw him, hence the heirs of the first faithful of Christ are forced to flee; In secularized Europe, where Christianity has grown, has imposed itself and dominated for centuries, before reflecting; In new continents where its expansion is twisted by war, poverty, oppression, exploitation.
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Source: Lemonde