New Pope Francis, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio: Cardinal of Argentina named new pope

VATICAN CITY - Jorge Mario Bergoglio has been named the new pope Wednesday.

The 76-year-old cardinal of Argentina appeared on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica after being elected as the new pope.

He has selected the name Pope Francis I.

Bergoglio spent nearly his entire career at home in Argentina, overseeing churches and shoe-leather priests.

The archbishop of Buenos Aires reportedly got the second-most votes after Joseph Ratzinger in the 2005 papal election, and he has long specialized in the kind of pastoral work that some say is an essential skill for the next pope.

In a lifetime of teaching and leading priests in Latin America, which has the largest share of the world's Catholics, Bergoglio has shown a keen political sensibility as well as the kind of self-effacing humility that fellow cardinals value highly.

Bergoglio is known for modernizing an Argentine church that had been among the most conservative in Latin America.

White smoke around 7 p.m. local time rising from the Sistine Chapel signaled that a new pope was elected.

The conclave was called after Pope Benedict XVI resigned last month, throwing the church into turmoil and exposing deep divisions among cardinals tasked with finding a manager to clean up a corrupt Vatican bureaucracy as well as a pastor who can revive Catholicism in a time of growing secularism.

The 85-year-old cited health reasons as the driving force behind his retirement.