With only nine months as leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, the first non-European Pope in 1,200 years, has surprised both the faithful and those who are not.
Francis' renewing discourse inside the Church has taken such relevance and importance in 2013 that Time Magazine didn't hesitate to name Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Person of the Year.
According to the prestigious magazine, Francis changed "the tone, perception and focus" of the Catholic Church by bringing it closer to its faithful with actions and statements completely different to those of previous Popes.
According to the BBC, Nancy Gibbs, Time editor, explained that "you rarely see a global figure catch the attention of the public so quickly. Both young and old, faithful and skeptics."
In Gibbs' words, Francis, with barely 9 months as leader of the Catholic Church, has become a fundamental figure in important matters such as "wealth, poverty, justice, equality, transparency, modernity, globalization, women's role, marriage and the temptations of power."
The attitude of the leader of one of the world's most powerful institutions has renovated the Church, who not so long ago seemed to keep away from people.
With 1.2 billion faithful around the world, Francis' arrival at the Vatican couldn't have been more opportune. According to ABC, the Pope has given a positive and approachable character to an institution passing through one of its worst crises as a result of sexual abuse scandals priests have been involved in, and the distant and elitist appearance of some of its high clergy the faithful don't see as representative of them.
Besides Francis, among the candidates for this year's Person of the Year were former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, Bashar al-Assad, the President of Syria who has been accused of war crimes, Edith Windsor, LGBT rights activist, and Republican Senator Ted Cruz.
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