Kevin White, a Ph.D. Candidate in History and a Protestant, puts the election of Pope Francis into a larger historical context in a recent post at MereOrthodoxy.com.
This new Pope Francis is already an unexpected sort of pope.
In a surprise announcement Monday, Pope Benedict XVI said he would resign this month after less than eight years in office. He's the first pope to resign in nearly 600 years, when Pope Gregory XII stepped down, and the first to have done so voluntarily since Celestine V in 1294.
