A pope is a pope, he is universal.
"Not even with the pope would there have been all this fuss," exclaimed Diana Cucereavii, a waitress in a cafe nearby.
It is difficult to imagine a time when he pope wasn't part of the restrained gestures.
A couple of months back the pope told a visiting Latin American social movement leader he would eat only in the Vatican canteen.
Asked whether Francis's apparent desire to go on last-minute outings might cause a headache for Vatican security, Father Thomas Rosica, the Vatican spokesman's English-speaking assistant, said: "It's the pope who is in charge and he will do what he wants to do".
One of the first things he did on Wednesday evening, the Vatican said, was to telephone the emeritus pope Benedict XVI, ensconced in the papal villas at Castel Gandolfo since 28 February.
John Thavis, author of The Vatican Diaries, wrote on his blog: "One of the first things a new pope hears is: 'Holy Father, it's always done this way.' In his first 24 hours in office, Pope Francis has already given indications that he may not be intimidated by those words, as he creates his own style of being pope".
"For us the idea of a Jesuit pope is very strange," he said, explaining that historically the Jesuits had considered themselves "servants, not authorities, in church".
Others put in a good word for the pope, Waris Dirie and Monroe.
(If the "credibility and effectiveness" of Irish bishops have been undermined, as he says, by the scandals, what of his own standing as a bishop, as the power behind John Paul II's throne and now as pope?) There is no explicit endorsement of the new protocols in Ireland demanding that all suspicions be referred to the police.
Francis also paid tribute to his predecessor, the emeritus pope, Benedict XVI.
