BUENOS AIRES, Argentina » Latin Americans are reacting with joy to news of the first pope from the hemisphere, bursting into tears and cheers.

"It’s incredible!" said Martha Ruiz, 60, who was weeping tears of emotion after learning that the cardinal she knew as Jorge Mario Bergoglio will now be Pope Francis I.

She said she had been in many meetings with the cardinal and said, "He is a man who transmits great serenity."

At the St. Francis of Assisi church in the colonial Old San Juan district in Puerto Rico, church secretary Antonia Veloz exchanged jubilant high-fives with the priest.

"This is something exciting," the 50-year-old Veloz said of the new Argentine pope. "I’m speechless."