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VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis abandoned the bulletproof popemobile on his way to his installation Mass Tuesday, instead opting to make the ride to St. Peter’s Square in a white, open-backed Mercedes G-Class jeep.

Francis, 76, thrilled the crowd with his unexpectedly unguarded journey through the sun-drenched piazza, stepping out into the crowd to bless a disabled man. It was a gesture from a man whose short papacy so far is becoming defined by such spontaneous forays into the crowd and concern for the disadvantaged.

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In the mass, the Pope urged princes, presidents, sheiks and the thousands of ordinary people gathered at the Vatican Tuesday to protect the environment, the weakest and the poorest, mapping out a clear focus of his priorities as leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.

The Argentine native is the first pope from Latin America and the first named for the 13th-century friar St. Francis of Assisi, whose life’s work was to care for nature, the poor and most disadvantaged. Echoing the gentleness for which St. Francis is known, the pope said a little bit of tenderness can “open up a horizon of hope.”