The beatitudes were created by Italian Archbishop Mimmo Battaglia of Naples, who was dubbed “Bergoglio of the South” while he was a bishop of another southern Italian diocese and continued his work as a “street priest,” especially in aiding those with drug dependencies.

The archbishop, 58, presented the beatitudes during a homily ordaining three new auxiliary bishops for Naples in October; they were reproduced on the card distributed by the pope:

• “Blessed is the bishop who makes poverty and sharing his way of life, so that by his witness he is building up the kingdom of heaven.
• “Blessed is the bishop who is not afraid of tears streaming down his face, so that in them may be mirrored the pains of the people…
• “Blessed is the bishop who considers his ministry a service and not power, making meekness his strength…
• “Blessed is the bishop who does not shut himself up in the palaces of governance, who does not become a bureaucrat who is more attentive to statistics than to faces…
• “Blessed is the bishop who has a heart for the misery of the world, who is not afraid to dirty his hands with the mud of the human soul in order to find God’s gold, who is not scandalized by the sin and frailty of others because he is aware of his own misery…
• “Blessed is the bishop who banishes duplicity of heart…
• “Blessed is the bishop who works for peace, who accompanies journeys of reconciliation, who sows the seed of communion in the heart of the presbytery, who accompanies a divided society along the path of reconciliation, who takes every man and woman of goodwill by the hand to build fraternity: God will recognize him as his son.
• “Blessed is the bishop who is not afraid to go against the tide for the sake of the Gospel…