Pope Francis's Favorite Rabbi

The day before her wedding, Florence Ofer, a blonde 27-year-old accountant, strolled out of the Shabbat service at Benei Tikva, a synagogue in Buenos Aires, praising the shul’s rabbi, Abraham Skorka, who was going to conduct her wedding. Though she isn’t a member of the congregation, Ofer is among Jews from across the Argentine capital drawn to celebrate weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, and other special occasions at Benei Tikva. “We chose to get married here because of him,” she told me. “He speaks from the heart.” Her father Leti, a local doctor, piped up to add that the rabbi was known for letting the celebrants take center stage: “He keeps a low profile.”

Which is not what most people would say about Skorka these days. It’s been a year since his close friend and fellow porteño Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis I—leader of the Catholic Church, and indisputably the world’s biggest religious rock star.