When the curtains on the loggia in St Peter’s Square fluttered and Pope Francis — formerly Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires — stepped out, Latino Catholics in the United States and Catholics across Latin America were just as surprised as everyone else. Auxiliary Bishop Alberto Rojas, Cardinal George’s liaison to Hispanic Catholics, called Pope Francis’ election “refreshing.” “The fact that he is the first Latino, the first Francis, the first Jesuit, is very exciting,” Bishop Rojas said in an email. “Obviously there is hope and joy when you know that the new pope may have a closer understanding of the Latin American reality because he was born and raised in a Latino and poor country, his first language is Spanish and his personal experience is the experience of many Latinos and non-Latinos alike around the world.” At one North Side church, the bets were on Cardinal Marc Ouellet, former archbishop of Quebec and current prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops. “The four deacons at the church were talking, and we thought it would be the Canadian,” said Deacon Efrain Lopez, one of four Spanish-speaking deacons at Resurrection Parish, 3043 N. Francisco. Martin Atilano, director of religious education at St. Gall Parish, 5500 S. Kedzie, is thrilled and surprised by the election. “He was not on the list that everyone was saying,” he said. But it makes sense to have a Latin American pope because, Atilano said, “that’s the epicenter of Catholicism in the world. Latin America is the continent of hope for the faith.” Widely cited figures say Latin America is home to nearly 40 percent of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, and according to the CIA’s World Factbook, Argentina is 92 percent Catholic, although the reference work notes that many do not practice their faith. Throughout Latin America, evangelical Protestant churches and secularism have made inroads, said Atilano, who was born in Mexico, but he thinks Pope Francis can help reverse that trend. He’s made a good start by showing a “startling” humility, Atilano said. “He is very humble, and he’s shown with very strong symbols that he is very good on the preferential option for the poor,” he said. “The church has to be prophetic, but also give testimony of what we preach. He didn’t wear fancy clothes. He kept his own shoes. He didn’t come out with his arms raised high. He invited people to pray.” Lopez said that the pope asking for the prayers of the people in St. Peter’s Square — and bowing to receive them — struck him as an important symbol. “Being humble — people look up to that,” he said. All of that struck Argentines as in character for the man they knew as archbishop of Buenos Aires, said Candelaria Beltrami, who was born in Argentina and came to the Chicago area as a child. She returned to Argentina for college and law school and now works as an aide to an Argentine senator. No one in Buenos Aires was expecting his election, she said, and when his name was announced, “we were all just looking at each other.” But then bells started ringing and car horns were honking and people packed the cathedral to pray, she said. Her sister Florentina Beltrami, in law school in Buenos Aires, said the Mass at the cathedral on the evening of March 13 “was so packed you couldn’t move.” Florentina Beltrami says she also got up to go to a vigil at the cathedral at 3:30 a.m. March 19 before watching Pope Francis’ inaugural Mass with friends at 5:30 a.m. local time Like Atilano, Candelaria Beltrami sees the election of Pope Francis as an opportunity for the church to win back people who have stopped practicing their faith. As a man, she said, Pope Francis is very strong and will not be swayed from his convictions. In Argentina he was known for standing up to the government of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and the former president, her late husband, Nestor. He is also very humble; in Buenos Aires, he not only took the bus, he answered his own telephone and made time for everyone, Candelaria Beltrami said. “He belongs to the world now, and he is perfect for the job,” she said. “He knows what it’s like to be in a situation where things are not 100 percent the best.” “Hopefully, it’s what the church needs at this moment,” Florentina Beltrami said. “The fact that he comes from a Third World country does make a difference. He knows what it’s like to be with the poor.” Siomara Melendez, a parishioner at St. Anne, 1820 S. Leavitt St., said that she was very surprised when she learned the new pope was from Argentina. “I feel very happy,” Melendez said. “For the first time, the church has a Hispanic pope. He represents all the church, especially the Hispanic people. We know God always sends the best for the church and the people.” Melendez said she couldn’t put her finger on how having a Hispanic pope is different from having an Anglophone pope, or a European or African pope. It might have something to do with having Spanish as a first language, like millions of Hispanic Catholics in the United States as well as in Latin America. “He feels all the feelings in the people,” Melendez said. “He is like us.”