Francis (Latin: Franciscus Italian: Francesco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio;[b] 17 December 1936) is the 266th and current

Pope of the Catholic Church[2] having been elected Bishop of Rome and absolute Sovereign of Vatican City. Born in Buenos Aires as the son of Italian parents, Bergoglio worked briefly as a chemical technician and nightclub bouncer before entering seminary.[3] He was ordained a priest in 1969. From 1973 to 1979 he was Argentina's Provincial superior of the Society of Jesus. He became Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998, and a cardinal in 2001. Following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI in February 2013, on 13 March 2013 the papal conclave elected Bergoglio, who chose the papal name Francis in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi. Francis is the first Jesuit pope, the first pope from the Americas, the first from the Southern Hemisphere and the first non-European Pope since Pope Gregory III, 1272 years earlier.
[4]

Throughout his life, both as an individual and as a religious leader, Bergoglio has been noted for his humility, his concern for the poor, and his commitment to dialogue as a way to build bridges between people of all backgrounds, beliefs, and faiths.[5][6][7] He is known for having a simpler and less formal approach to the papacy, most notably by choosing to reside in the Domus Sanctae Marthae guesthouse rather than the papal apartments of the Apostolic Palace formerly used by his predecessors. In addition, he is known for favoring simpler vestments void of ornamentation, by starting to refuse the traditional papal mozzetta cape upon his election and choosing silver instead of gold for both his piscatory ring and pectoral cross.[8][9] Pope Francis, while affirming the present Church teachings has stated that Catholics have concentrated officiously on condemning abortion, the usage ofcontraception and homosexual acts, while neglecting the greater need for tenderness, mercy and compassion. Furthermore, the Pontiff emphasized the Christian obligation to assist the poor, upholding the orthodox teachings of the Catholic faith, and maintaining ties with the Islamic world. [10][11][12][13][14]
Contents
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1 Early life 2 Pre-papal career

o o o o

2.1 Pre-religious life 2.2 Jesuit 2.3 Bishop 2.4 Cardinal

3 Relations with Argentine governments

o o o

3.1 Dirty War 3.2 Fernando de la Ra 3.3 Kirchners

4 Relations with religious communities and others

4.1 Interfaith dialogue

4.1.1 Eastern Orthodox Church

4.1.2 Protestantism 4.1.3 Judaism 4.1.4 Islam

4.2 Nonbelievers

5 Papacy

o o o o o o o

5.1 Election 5.2 Name 5.3 Inauguration 5.4 Residence 5.5 Curia 5.6 Early issues 5.7 Vatican Bank

6 Teachings

o o o o o o o o o o o

6.1 Rejecting worldliness 6.2 Morality as response to God's mercy 6.3 Creative transformation in evangelization 6.4 Capitalism 6.5 Poverty and economic inequality 6.6 Impoverished migrants 6.7 Abortion 6.8 Food waste and starvation 6.9 Lobbies 6.10 Liberation theology 6.11 Position of women

6.11.1 Unwed mothers

6.12 Clergy

6.12.1 Priestly celibacy

6.13 Children

o o o

6.13.1 Abuse 6.13.2 Labour

6.14 Contraception 6.15 Homosexuality 6.16 Organized crime

7 Titles and styles 8 Arms 9 Writings

9.1 Books

10 Other 11 See also 12 Notes 13 References 14 Bibliography 15 External links

Early life
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in Flores,[15] a barrio of Buenos Aires. He was the eldest[16] of five children of Mario Jos Bergoglio, an Italian immigrant accountant[17] born in Portacomaro (Province of Asti) in Italy's Piedmont region, and his wife Regina Mara Svori, [18] a housewife born in Buenos Aires to a family of northern Italian (Piedmontese-Genoese) origin.[19][20][21][22][23] Bergoglio's sister Mara Elena told reporters decades later that their father often said that "the advent of fascism was the reason that really pushed him to leave" Italy. She is the pope's only living sibling.[24] His brother Alberto died in June 2010.[25] Bergoglio has been a lifelong supporter of the San Lorenzo de Almagro football club.[26][27] Bergoglio is also a fan of the films of Tita Merello,[28] neorealism and tango dancing, with an "intense fondness" for the traditional music of Argentina and Uruguay known as the milonga.[28] In the sixth grade, Bergoglio attended Wilfrid Barn de los Santos ngeles, a school of the Salesians of Don Bosco, in Ramos Meja, Buenos Aires.[29] He attended the technical secondary school Escuela Nacional de Educacin Tcnica N 27 Hiplito Yrigoyen[30] and graduated with a chemical technician's diploma.[31] He worked for a few years in that capacity in the foods section at Hickethier-Bachmann Laboratory.[32] In the only known health crisis of his youth, at the age of 21 he suffered from life-threatening pneumonia and three cysts. He had part of a lung excised shortly afterwards. [30][33]

Pre-papal career
Pre-religious life
Before joining the Jesuits, Bergoglio worked as a bar bouncer, as a janitor sweeping floors, and also ran tests in a chemical laboratory.[34]

Jesuit
[show]Ordination history of Pope Francis

Bergoglio studied at the archdiocesan seminary, Inmaculada Concepcin Seminary, in Villa Devoto, Buenos Aires City, and, after three years, entered the Society of Jesus as a novice on 11 March 1958. [28] Bergoglio has said that as a young seminarian, he "was dazzled by a girl I met at an uncle's wedding", so much so that he "could not pray for over a week" because he could not help thinking of her, and so he "had to rethink what I was doing". [37] As a Jesuit novice he studied humanities in Santiago, Chile.[38] At the conclusion of his novitiate in the Society of Jesus, Bergoglio officially became a Jesuit on 12 March 1960, when he made the religious profession of the initial, temporary vows of a member of the order.[39]

In 1960, Bergoglio obtained a licentiate in philosophy from the Colegio Mximo San Jos in San Miguel, Buenos Aires Province; in 1964 and 1965, he taught literature and psychology at the Colegio de la Inmaculada, a high school in the Province of Santa Fe, Argentina, and in 1966 he taught the same courses at the Colegio del Salvador in Buenos Aires City.[40] In 1967, Bergoglio finished his theological studies and was ordained to the priesthood on 13 December 1969, by Archbishop Ramn Jos Castellano. He attended the Facultades de Filosofa y Teologa de San Miguel (Philosophical and Theological Faculty of San Miguel), [41] a seminary in San Miguel. He served as the master of novices for the province there and became a professor of theology. Bergoglio completed his final stage of spiritual formation as a Jesuit, tertianship, at Alcal de Henares, Spain, and took his perpetual vows in the Society of Jesus on 22 April 1973. [42] He was namedProvincial Superior of the Society of Jesus in Argentina on 31 July 1973 and served until 1979. [43] After the completion of his term of office, in 1980 he was named the rector of the Philosophical and Theological Faculty of San Miguel in San Miguel. [44] Before taking up this new appointment, he spent the first three months of 1980 in Ireland to learn English, staying at the Jesuit Centre in the Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy, Dublin.[45] After returning to Argentina to take up his new post at San Miguel, Father Bergoglio served in that capacity until 1986. He spent several months at the Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology in Frankfurt, Germany, while considering possible dissertation topics,[46] before returning to Argentina to serve as a confessor and spiritual director to the Jesuit community in Crdoba. [47] In Germany he saw the painting Mary Untier of Knots in Augsburg and brought a copy of the painting to Argentina where it has become an important Marian devotion. [48][49][c] As a student at the Salesian school, Bergoglio was mentored by Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest Stefan Czmil. Bergoglio often rose hours before his classmates to concelebrate Divine Liturgy with Czmil.[52]

Bishop
Bergoglio was named Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires in 1992 and was ordained on 27 June 1992 as Titular Bishop of Auca,[53] with Cardinal Antonio Quarracino, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, serving as principal consecrator. [35] On 3 June 1997, Bergoglio was appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of Buenos Aires with right of automatic succession.[36] He chose as his episcopal motto Miserando atque eligendo.[54] It is drawn from Bede's homily on Matthew 9:9 13: "because he saw him through the eyes of mercy and chose him". [55] Upon Quarracino's death on 28 February 1998, Bergoglio became Metropolitan Archbishop of Buenos Aires. In that role, Bergoglio created new parishes and restructured the archdiocese administrative offices, led pro-life initiatives, and created a commission on divorces. [56] One of Bergoglio's major initiatives as archbishop was to increase the Church's presence in the slums of Buenos Aires. Under his leadership, the number of priests assigned to work in the slums doubled.[57] Early in his time as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio sold off the Archdiocese's shares in multiple banks and transferred its accounts to those of a normal customer in international banks. [clarification needed][58] On 6 November 1998, while remaining Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he was named ordinary for those Eastern Catholics in Argentina who lacked a prelate of their own rite.[35] Archbishop Shevchuk has said that Bergoglio

understands the liturgy, rites, and spirituality of his Greek Catholic Church and always "took care of our Church in Argentina" as ordinary for Eastern Catholics during his time as Archbishop of Buenos Aires. [52] In 2000, Bergoglio was the only church official to reconcile with Jernimo Podest, a former bishop who had been defrocked as a priest after opposing the military dictatorship in 1972, and he defended Podest's wife from Vatican attacks on their marriage. [59][60][61] That same year, Bergoglio said the Argentine Catholic Church needed "to put on garments of public penance for the sins committed during the years of the dictatorship" in the 1970s, the years known as the Dirty War.[62] Bergoglio made it his custom to celebrate the Holy Thursday ritual washing of feet in "a jail, a hospital, a home for the elderly or with poor people".[63] One year he washed the feet of newborn children and pregnant women. [64] In his first Holy Thursday as pope, Francis continued this custom, visiting a jail in Rome where he washed the feet of twelve inmates aged 14 to 21, among them two women; the first woman was a Serbian Muslim, the second was an Italian Catholic.[65] In 2007, just two days after Benedict XVI issued new rules for using the liturgical forms that preceded the Second Vatican Council, Cardinal Bergoglio was one of the first bishops in the world to respond by instituting a Tridentine Mass in Buenos Aires. [66][67] It was celebrated weekly. [68] On 8 November 2005, Bergoglio was elected president of the Argentine Episcopal Conference for a three-year term (200508).[69] He was reelected to another three-year term on 11 November 2008. [70] He remained a member of that Commission's permanent governing body, president of its committee for the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina, and a member of its liturgy committee for the care of shrines. [35] While head of the Argentine Catholic bishops' conference, Bergoglio issued a c ollective apology for his church's failure to protect people from the Junta during the Dirty War. [71] When he turned 75 in December 2011, Bergoglio submitted his resignation as Archbishop of Buenos Aires to Pope Benedict XVI as required by Canon Law. [72]

Cardinal
At the consistory of 21 February 2001, Archbishop Bergoglio was created a cardinal by Pope John Paul II with the title of cardinal-priest of San Roberto Bellarmino, a church served by Jesuits and named for one. When he traveled to Rome for the ceremony, he and his sister Mara Elena visited the village in northern Italy where their father was born.[24] As cardinal, Bergoglio was appointed to five administrative positions in the Roman Curia. He was member of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the Congregation for the Clergy, the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, the Pontifical Council for the Family and the Commission for Latin America.

Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio in 2008

Later that year, when Cardinal Edward Egan returned to New York following the September 11 attacks, Bergoglio replaced him as relator (recording secretary) in the Synod of Bishops,[73] and, according to the Catholic Herald, created "a favourable impression as a man open to communion and dialogue". [74][75] Cardinal Bergoglio became known for personal humility, doctrinal conservatism and a commitment to social justice. [76] A simple lifestyle contributed to his reputation for humility. He lived in a small apartment, rather than in the elegant bishop's residence in the suburb of Olivos. He took public transportation and cooked his own meals. [77] He limited his time in Rome to "lightning visits". [78] He was known to have a unique devotion to St. Therese of Lisieux, and he enclosed a small picture of her in the letters he wrote, calling her "a great missionary saint." [79] On the death of Pope John Paul II, Bergoglio attended his funeral and was considered one of the papabile for succession to the papacy. [80] He participated as a cardinal elector in the 2005 papal conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI. In the National Catholic Reporter John L. Allen, Jr. reported that Bergoglio was a frontrunner in the 2005 Conclave. [76][81] In September 2005, the Italian magazine Limes published claims that Bergoglio had been the runner-up and main challenger to Cardinal Ratzinger at that conclave and that he had received 40 votes in the third ballot, but fell back to 26 at the fourth and decisive ballot. [82][83] The claims were based on a diary purportedly belonging to an anonymous cardinal who had been present at the conclave.[82][84] According to Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli, this number of votes had no precedents for a Latin American papabile. [84] La Stampa reported that Bergoglio was in close contention with Ratzinger during the election, until h