Many of the people entering Holy Name Cathedral for 5:15 p.m. Mass on March 13 admitted they didn’t know much about Pope Francis before he was elected and many headed online to find out more.

Sue Finlon was one of these worshippers. She was volunteering at Aid for Women on South Michigan Avenue when she learned of the new pope’s identity.

“There were three of us there and we were all gathered around the computer,” she said before Mass.

After she Googled him, she said she was “pretty happy.” “I love that he’s a South American. I love that he’s a Jesuit.”

His age of 76 surprised her though.

“If he’s the right man, age doesn’t matter,” Finlon said.

Ricardo Villalba was happy to hear the cardinals selected a Latin American. Like Finlon, Villalba, who is of Venezuelan descent, didn’t know of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio before he was elected but he said he thought the next pope would be from either Latin America or Africa.

“I was expecting it because I think it was time for a change,” he said.

During the cathedral’s Mass of Thanksgiving, retired Auxiliary Bishop Raymond Goedert told the congregation he was “really happy” when Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s and announced we had a new pope. He said we were all feeling a sense of loss without a pope leading our church.

“This afternoon our hearts were filled with joy because we have our shepherd. And what a burden he has,” the bishop said.

Now, Pope Francis is shepherd to the whole world.

“All we can do at this moment is what he himself did before he gave his blessing,” Goedert said, leading the congregation in praying the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be for the world, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, as the pontiff did himself in the moments after greeting the crowd in St. Peter’s Square.

During his homily, the bishop invited to the ambo Jesuit Father Timothy Kesicki, provincial of the Chicago-Detroit Province of the Society of Jesus.

Father Kesicki told the congregation that Pope Francis is the first pope for the Jesuits. In fact, the religious congregation’s founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola, asked that his Jesuits eschew positions of authority because he wanted his members to be humble and focus upon serving the church.

It is with that same humility and obedience to the will of the Lord that Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio accepted the cardinals voting him to be the next pope, Father Kesicki told the congregation.

There are 386 Jesuits serving in the Chicago-Detroit Province of the Society of Jesus, according the order’s website. The Society of Jesus was founded in Rome in 1540 by St. Ignatius Loyola.

Offering a glimpse into why the pope might have chosen the name Francis, Kesicki said that the Jesuit founder St. Ignatius looked to St. Francis of Assisi for inspiration; St. Francis Xavier was one of the early followers of St. Ignatius; and St. Francis Borgia, a Jesuit superior general. There are many named Francis in the order’s past and now one in its present.

“As pontiff he is the bridge between us and the Lord,” he concluded.

In a nod to the pope name, the cathedral choir sang the “Prayer of St. Francis” after Communion.

Earlier in the week, Holy Name Cathedral hosted a prayer service for the conclave following 5:15 p.m. Mass. Msgr. John Canary, archdiocesan vicar general, was the main celebrant and homilist. A prayer service with adoration followed.