Breaking News: TIME Magazine names Pope Francis Person of the Year 2013

Time Magazine has announced Pope Francis as the 2013 Person of the Year. He was chosen a shortlist which included the following:

The other candidates are, in no significant order, as follows:

• President Barack Obama, the American President who was the 2012 Time Person of the year 
• Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who the United States declared was behind a chemical attack on Syrian residents;
• Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas and member of the Tea Party movement;
• Hassan Rouhani, the president of Iran who recently agreed to an interim deal that would curb his nation’s nuclear program;
• Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who fled to Russia after leaking top-secret U.S. documents that revealed widespread government surveillance programs;
• Edith Windsor, the marriage equality advocate whose Supreme Court victory struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act; 
• Miley Cyrus, whose twerk-filled performance at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards set off a chain of memorable entertainment moments; 
• Amazon.com founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos, who this year bought The Washington Post and recently announced that Amazon was exploring drone delivery;
• Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the individual tasked with overseeing the launch of the Affordable Care Act and under fire for its botched rollout.

"What makes this pope so important is the speed with which he has captured the imaginations of millions who had given up on hoping for the church," Time said in its cover story announcing the news.

"As Pope, he was suddenly the sovereign of Vatican City and head of an institution so sprawling—with about enough followers to populate China—so steeped in order, so snarled by bureaucracy, so vast in its charity, so weighted by its scandals, so polarizing to those who study its teachings, so mysterious to those who don't, that the gap between him and the daily miseries of the world's poor might finally have seemed unbridgeable," Time says. "Until the 266th Supreme Pontiff walked off in those clunky shoes to pay his hotel bill."

Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio; on the 17th of December 1936, Pope Francis is the 266th and current Pope of the Catholic Church having been elected Bishop of Rome and absolute Sovereign of Vatican City.

He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina as the son of Italian parents, and was ordained a priest in 1969.