when archbishop jorge bergoglio was elected as pope francis, the initial reactions were mixed. most of argentine society cheered it, but the pro-government newspaper "página/12" published renewed allegations about the dirty war, and the president of the national library described a global conspiracy theory. the president took more than an hour to congratulate him, and only did so in a passing reference within a routine speech. however, due to the pope's popularity in argentina, kirchner made what the political analyst claudio fantini called a "copernican shift" in her relations with him and fully embraced the francis phenomenon. on the day before his inauguration as pope, bergoglio, now francis, had a private meeting with kirchner. they exchanged gifts and lunched together. this was the new pope's first meeting with a head of state, and there was speculation that the two were mending their relations. "página/12" removed their controversial articles about bergoglio, written by horacio verbitsky, from their web page, as a result of this change.