Providence Journal photo / Frieda Squires
PC students Emily Corr, left, and Laila Ettefagh join other students watching the new Pope on a big screen in St. Dominic's Chapel on the PC campus Wednesday.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Father David Orique, a professor of Latin American history at Providence College, said the selection of a pope from Argentina is symbolic of the church's "moving south."
Church growth is being seen in Africa, Latin America and Asia, he said. "This is probably some kind of gesture to that" and to Europe losing its place as the center of Catholicism.
"I was grateful that it was someone from the Americas," Father Orique said. "The largest portion of the Catholic Church is in Latin America."
Father Orique, who said he has been reading about Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio for a couple of years, said that as a cardinal, Bergoglio cooked his own meals and rode to work on a bus. He comes from a working-class family, Father Orique said.