New pope tours St. Peter's Square in open-top Jeep
(NEWSER) – Pope Francis officially kicked off his papacy today with a call to protect the planet and its poor, in a "low-key" yet dignitary-stuffed inaugural Mass that installed him as the Catholic Church's 266th pontiff. “Let us never forget that authentic power is service and that the pope, too, when exercising power, must enter ever more fully into that service which has its radiant culmination on the Cross," he told the crowd in St. Peter's Square. His inauguration was a simpler—and shorter—affair than previous ones, Reuters reports.
In a sign of the humble and open style the Argentine is expected to bring to the papacy, he shunned the bullet-proof popemobile to tour the square in an open-topped Jeep, emerging to walk among the crowd, shaking hands and kissing babies. As the service began, he received the fisherman's ring that symbolizes the papacy and the white woolen vestment that symbolizes his role as a shepherd for the faithful, the New York Times reports.
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