Vatican City (AP) - The Catholic Church has chosen a new pope.
Argentine Jorge Bergoglio was elected Wednesday, the first ever from the Americas and the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium. He chose the name Pope Francis.
115 cardinals in a papal conclave elected the new leader for the world's 1.2 billion Catholics.
The new pope appeared on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica to wave to the crowd.
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.
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