Why Pope Francis Is Time Magazine's Person of the Year

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''Time Editor Nancy Gibbs, who met Pope Francis in Rome last week wrote about their decision:

Rarely has a new player on the world stage captured so much attention so quickly -- young and old, faithful and cynical -- as has Pope Francis. In his nine months in office, he has placed himself at the very center of the central conversations of our time: about wealth and poverty, fairness and justice, transparency, modernity, globalization, the role of women, the nature of marriage, the temptations of power...

He is embracing complexity and acknowledging the risk that a church obsessed with its own rights and righteousness could inflict more wounds than it heals... For pulling the papacy out of the palace and into the streets, for committing the world¹s largest church to confronting its deepest needs, and for balancing judgment with mercy, Pope Francis is TIME's 2013 Person of the Year.

What Ms. Gibbs seems to be saying, is that Pope Francis is the religious figure that the world has been waiting for.

Everyone is talking about Pope Francis on- and off-line. I can't go to a party or meet with a friend without them commenting on Pope Francis -- he has captivated the imagination of the world in a way that I haven't seen before in my 50 years. Lapsed Catholic, atheist and people of other religions have all declared themselves a fan of this Pope. And, as a Baptist minister so have I.''