Catholic News Service used to survey the editors in the Catholic Press to determine their choices for stories of the year as well as person of the year. I’m not sure why, but last year, it stopped taking the poll.

If it was being taken this year, the person of the year category could just as well be eliminated. No contest! Pope Francis is first in the hearts of people all over the globe. Pope Francis has no airs about him. He’s totally unassuming and comes across as just an ordinary person in spite of his high office and status. He lives and eats meals with his fellow workers at the Vatican. He carries his own briefcase and takes delight in talking with just about anyone. Immediately following his selection, he even showed up at the Vatican hotel to pay his own bill.

He also gives hope to people. He allows people to be themselves. He appears to be non-judgmental, even though he upholds traditional moral standards. His approach is totally liberating. Isn’t that what Jesus was all about?

Pope Francis has suggested that next fall’s Synod on the Family should consider whether or not Catholics who are divorced and remarried should continue to be banned from receiving Communion. He asks whether the Eucharist should be used as punishment rather than a source of healing. Who could have imagined, only a year ago, that we would even be thinking about this!

Pope Francis wants to set people free. He hugs everyone, young and old, well and infirm, white or black. It’s obvious he loves God’s creation, and he wants everyone else to join his love for life.

So, what are we to make of this pope? Is he a breath of fresh air? A flash in the night? He’s a messenger sent from God to make straight the crooked paths of our lives. He’s tender, compassionate and kind.

If he’s tough on anyone, it seems to be his fellow bishops and priests. He has promised to fix the Vatican bureaucracy. He tells bishops to be shepherds who live so closely among their flocks that they smell like the sheep. Never heard that metaphor coming from the Vatican!

He chides priests to improve their homilies. He thinks they should be shorter and based more on sound Scripture. This observation may not win him many points among the clergy, but it resonates among the people.

In his column this week, Bishop DiMarzio makes the observation that he may have to simplify his own life based on the challenges issued by Pope Francis. We would all be smart to follow the leader and take a look at what really is essential in our lives and trim some of the excess. Maybe this is what the pope means when he says he wants a Church of the poor, for the poor!

In nine short months, Pope Francis has taken the world by storm. To paraphrase the Miley Cyrus song, he has come in like a “wrecking ball.” He is disturbing one and all as he challenges us to live up to the good news that we are Christians. That means something to the Holy Father, and he hopes that it mean just as much to us.

Pope Francis is the first pope to have been ordained a priest after the Second Vatican Council. In a sense, he is the first post-conciliar pontiff. The full effects of Vatican II just may be beginning to be fully felt in the Church. He truly is the most talked about person of the year. To borrow a phrase from the popular TV commercial, Pope Francis is “the most interesting man in the world.”