Bergoglio Elected as Pope in Papal Conclave

When Bergoglio was elected pope, initial reactions were mixed. Most of the Argentine society cheered it, but the pro-government newspaper Página 12 published renewed allegations about the Dirty War, and the president of the National Library described a global conspiracy theory. The president took more than an hour before congratulating the new pope and did so only in a passing reference within a routine speech. Due to the Pope's popularity in Argentina, Cristina Kirchner made what the political analyst Claudio Fantini called a 'Copernican shift' in her relations with him and fully embraced the Francis phenomenon. On the day before his inauguration as pope, Bergoglio, now Francis, had a private meeting with Kirchner where they exchanged gifts and lunched together. This was the new pope's first meeting with a head of state, and there was speculation that the two were mending their relations. Página 12 then removed their controversial articles about Bergoglio from their web page as a result of this change.