VATICAN CITY - In choosing a name no other pope has ever taken, Pope Francis could be signaling that he sees the need for change in the Roman Catholic Church.
The name recalls two of the church's most famous saints.
One is Francis of Assisi, the man from the Umbrian hill town who renounced a wealthy, dissolute lifestyle to found the Franciscan order of friars in 1209, embracing a life of poverty and simplicity and going out in the countryside to preach a message of joy and peace.
The other is Francis Xavier, a globe-trotting Spaniard who became one of Christianity's greatest missionaries and was a founding figure of the Jesuit order, of which the new pope is a member.
Pope Francis didn't cite either of those famous men when he made his first public speech as pontiff on Wednesday night, but within an hour of his presentation to the world from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, his choice of name was being hailed as heralding what could be his priorities - and perhaps style - at the helm of a troubled church.
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The Vatican said the new pope's official name is Pope Francis, without a Roman numeral.
The Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, sought to clear up any confusion, noting that Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, who announced the name to the world, said simply Francis. It is listed that way in the first Vatican bulletin on the new pope.
"It will become Francis I after we have a Francis II," Lombardi quipped.
Umbria's bishops sent congratulations in a message noting that the new pope had taken up name of the saint of Assisi, one of Italy's patron saints who sought to "renew the church."
"It was precisely Francis the Lord asked to repair his church in ruins," the bishops said.
Pope Francis' predecessor, Benedict XVI, had explained his resignation last month - the first pontiff to step down in 600 years - by saying he didn't have the mental or physical stamina to shepherd the church, rocked by scandals and leaks in the Vatican's bureaucracy and losing many faithful to secularism or more dynamic forms of worship.
Since Francis is associated with peacemaking, the choice of name could foretell the pope's priority to bring a sense of serenity to a church feeling rudderless by Benedict's departure.
It's "striking that the new pope has chosen the name Francis," said Jonathan Seitz, a professor of history and politics at Drexel University in Philadelphia. "This is a little like old-style Kremlinology, but these choices are made with the purpose of sending a message."
While St. Francis is known for embracing poverty and simplicity, the friar "sought a reformation and a rebuilding of the church, seeking to act in the world rather than withdraw from it. The implication to me from the choice of a new name, and the name chosen, is that a change is in store," Seitz said.
Though both Francis of Assisi and Francis Xavier could have inspired the new pope in selecting his name, it was more likely the Italian friar who was the main inspiration, said Monsignor Raymond J. Kupke, a professor of church history at Seton Hall University in New Jersey.
"He was a man of great simplicity, down to earth, a man of the people," Kupke said. "Also Francis of Assisi spearheaded a great evangelization movement of the 13th century. He embraced a new way of being religious in the world."
