By Philip Pullella and Catherine Hornby VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis, giving his clearest indication yet that he wants a more austere Catholic Church, said on Saturday that it should be poor and remember that its mission is to serve the poor. Francis, speaking mostly off-the-cuff and smiling often, made his comments in an audience for journalists where he explained why he chose to take the name Francis, after St. Francis of Assisi, a symbol of peace, austerity and poverty.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis has attempted to dissuade Argentines from making costly trips to Rome for his inaugural Mass next week, suggesting they make a contribution to the poor instead, the Vatican said on Friday. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the pope had called the Vatican ambassador in Buenos Aires on the night he was elected and told him of his wishes.

"If I don't marry you, I'll become a priest." They didn't get married. He became a priest. And yesterday, he became the pope. According to a bespectacled, white-haired woman identified only as Amalia, Pope Francis wrote those words to her in a letter more than sixty years ago, when they were just 10 or 12 years old. "In the little letter, he had drawn a little house with a red roof and white walls and, and he wrote, 'this house is what I'll buy when we get married,'" the woman remembered, standing on the sidewalk in the Flores neighborhood where they were both born.

Catholics gathered from the early morning in St Peter's Square on Wednesday for the first full day of a conclave to elect a new pope, saying they wanted a compassionate leader who would bring hope to the world. On a rainy day in Rome, the faithful huddled in suspense under umbrellas in front of the basilica, waiting for the first vote of the day and hoping for white smoke from the Sistine Chapel's chimney, signifying that cardinals had chosen a pontiff.