Pope Francis phones home to cancel the papers

Amid the pomp and ceremony of his installation as the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, Pope Francis still found time to phone a kiosk in his home city of Buenos Aires and cancel his daily newspaper order.

At first Daniel Del Regno thought it was a prank call, perhaps made by a friend trying to pull his leg.

The Pope - the former archbishop of Buenos Aires - had to insist that it was really him calling from the Vatican.

"Seriously, it's Jorge Bergoglio, I'm calling you from Rome," he said during the call earlier this week. The Pope - the first from the Americas and the first Jesuit pontiff - asked Mr Del Regno to cancel the delivery of his daily newspaper to his modest apartment because he would not be returning to Argentina any time soon.

"I was in shock, I broke down in tears and didn't know what to say," Del Regno told La Nacion, an Argentinian daily. "He thanked me for delivering the paper all this time and sent best wishes to my family."

The kiosk owner said that he had asked the then Cardinal Bergoglio, on the eve of his departure for Rome to take part in the secret conclave process that has elected Popes for centuries, how he rated his chances of being chosen as the successor to Benedict XVI. "He answered me, 'See you in 20 days, keep delivering the paper'. "And the rest is, well, history," he said.

The Pope will meet his predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, today (Saturday) in what will be the first such encounter for nearly 720 years. He will fly by helicopter from the Vatican to Castel Gandolfo, where his German predecessor is enjoying the first few weeks of his retirement following his shock decision to resign last month. The two Popes - both dressed in white vestments - will sit down for a meeting before having lunch together.