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• After the visit, Francis also stopped by a Vatican-owned residence in downtown Rome to pick up the luggage that he left behind before moving into the Vatican hotel for the conclave, according to witnesses. News reports said he was driven in a simple car -- not the papal car -- and asked if he needed to pay the bill.
• It was a remarkable show of simplicity and humility for a man who could easily have dispatched someone to do the job for him.
• He displayed that same sense immediately after his election, shunning the special sedan that was to transport him to the hotel so he could ride on the bus with other cardinals, and refusing even an elevated platform from which he would greet them, according to U.S. Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
• "He met with us on our own level," Dolan said.
• Like many Latin American Catholics, Francis has a particular devotion to the Virgin Mary, and his visit to the basilica was a reflection of that. He prayed before a Byzantine icon of Mary and the infant Jesus, the Protectress of the Roman People.
• "He had a great devotion to this icon of Mary and every time he comes from Argentina he visits this basilica," said one of the priests at the basilica, the Rev. Elio Montenero. "We were surprised today because did not announce his visit."
• Francis' election elated Latin America, home to 40 percent of the world's Catholics which has nevertheless long been underrepresented in the church leadership. On Wednesday, drivers honked their horns in the streets of Buenos Aires and television announcers screamed with elation at the news.
• Cardinal Thomas Collins, the archbishop of Toronto, said the cardinals clearly chose Francis because he was simply "the best person to lead the church."
• "I can't speak for all the cardinals but I think you see what a wonderful pope he is," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "He's just a very loving, wonderful guy. We just came to appreciate the tremendous gifts he has. He's much beloved in his diocese in Argentina. He has a great pastoral history of serving people."
• The new pontiff brings a common touch. The son of middle-class Italian immigrants, he denied himself the luxuries that previous cardinals in Buenos Aires enjoyed. He lived in a simple apartment, often rode the bus to work, cooked his own meals and regularly visited slums that ring Argentina's capital.
• "If he brings that same desire for a simple lifestyle to the papal court, I think they are all going to be in shock," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, author of "Inside the Vatican," a must-read book on the Vatican bureaucracy. "This may not be a man who wants to wear silk and furs."
• Francis considers social outreach, rather than doctrinal battles, to be the essen

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