José Mujica, Uruguayan President, Admits He ‘Admires’ Pope Francis

Jose Mujica, the President of Uruguay, today explained his admiration for Pope Fancis, whom he "applauds" for his reformist style. The comments were published in th digital version of an online Uruguayan publication. The President said that he admires the ponitf's philopophy and that in his view Francis "is a Pope that rocks" and who "gets fired up" for going against "the status quo." The President spoke openly about his support for the first Latin American pope in the history of the Catholic Church.

Jose Mujica continued his praise of Pope Francis saying "he is getting people fired up because he rails against a set of accepted platitudes," provoking "a revolution of ideas the likes of which have not been seen since Pope John XXIII." While Mujica declared that he is not in fact a believer, the Uruguayan president affirmed that he had always maintained a "political admiration" for the Catholic Church, because "despite its faults and mistakes, it achieves an enormous task in real, human terms."

Mujica finished by urging Uruguayans to read "Evangelii Gaudium" (Evangelical Joy), which is the first apostolic exhortation written by Pope Francis who took over as Pope in March 2013 following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. Indeed Pope Francis has become an extraordinarily popular Pope with state leaders and the public at larg. TIME magazine honored him as "Person of the Year," as did the oldest gay magazine in the world Advocate.