Analysis: Pope Seeks to Align Church Hierarchy With the Pews By NewsAmericas - August 2, 2013 Facebook Twitter Pinterest WhatsApp Linkedin ReddIt Email Print Some say his trip last week to Brazil, capped by a Mass for 3 million on Copacabana Beach, and the 80-minute, unfiltered news conference on the plane back to Rome, were the real start of Pope Francis’s pontificate.