Francis, ‘cold-call pope,’ touches a lot of people

Of all the novelties that Pope Francis has brought to the Vatican, few have endeared him to the public—and unsettled his aides—as much as his penchant for picking up the phone and calling someone out of the blue.

The pontiff with the pastor’s touch has phoned his cobbler in Argentina to inquire about a shoe repair, called to cancel his newspaper subscription and phoned a woman who was raped by a local police officer to counsel her.

Just recently, Francis phoned a pregnant Italian woman whose fiancé had pushed her to have an abortion.