Francis was the first Pope from the Americas and the Southern Hemisphere. Since the death of Gregory III, born in Syria, in 741, the Catholic Church had not been led by a non-European Bishop.
He was also the first Jesuit to be elected to the throne of Saint Peter.
His predecessor, Benedict XVI, was the first Pope to retire voluntarily in nearly 600 years and, for almost a decade, the Vatican Gardens hosted two popes.
Many Catholics assumed the new pontiff would be a younger man—but Cardinal Bergoglio from Argentina was already in his seventies when he became Pope in 2013.
He presented himself as a conciliatory candidate: appealing to conservatives with orthodox views on sexual issues, while attracting reformers with his liberal stance on social justice.
It was hoped that his unorthodox background would help rejuvenate the Vatican and revitalize its sacred mission.
But within the Vatican bureaucracy, some of Francis’s reform attempts met resistance, and his predecessor, who died in 2022, remained popular among traditionalists.
Determined to be different
From the moment of his election, Francis indicated that he would do things differently. He received his cardinals informally and standing—rather than seated on the papal throne.
On March 13, 2013, Pope Francis appeared on the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square.
Dressed in only white, he sported a new name that paid homage to Saint Francis of Assisi, the 13th-century preacher and animal lover.
He was determined to prioritize humility over pomp and grandeur. He avoided the papal limousine and insisted on sharing the bus that took the other cardinals home.
The new Pope set a moral mission for his flock of 1.2 billion faithful. “Oh, how I would like a poor Church, and for the poor,” he remarked.
His last act as head of the Catholic Church was to appear on Easter Sunday on the balcony of St. Peter’s Square, waving to thousands of faithful after weeks hospitalized with double pneumonia.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on December 17, 1936—the eldest of five children. His parents fled their native Italy to escape the evils of fascism.
He enjoyed dancing tango and became a fan of the local football club, San Lorenzo.
He was lucky to survive a first and severe bout of pneumonia, undergoing surgery to remove part of a lung. This left him susceptible to infections for life.
In old age, he also suffered from pain in his right knee, which he described as a “physical humiliation.”
The young Bergoglio worked as a nightclub bouncer and street sweeper before graduating in chemistry.
In a local factory, he worked closely with Esther Ballestrino, who campaigned against the Argentine military dictatorship. She was tortured and her body was never found.
He became a Jesuit, studied philosophy, and taught literature and psychology. Ordained a decade later, he rose quickly, becoming provincial superior of Argentina in 1973.
Controversies and Accusations
Some believe he did not do enough to oppose the generals of Argentina’s brutal military regime.
He was accused of involvement in the military kidnapping of two priests during Argentina’s Dirty War, a period from 1976 to 1983 when thousands of people were tortured, killed, or disappeared.
The two priests were tortured but were eventually found alive—heavily sedated and half-naked.
It was an accusation he categorically denied, insisting that he had worked behind the scenes to free them.
A man of simple tastes
He was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires in 1992 and then Archbishop.
Pope John Paul II named him cardinal in 2001 and he took on roles in the Church’s civil service, the Curia.
He cultivated a reputation as a man of simple tastes, avoiding many of the trappings of a senior cleric. He generally traveled in economy class and preferred to wear the black cassock of a priest—rather than the red and purple of his new office.
In his sermons, he called for social inclusion and criticized governments that ignored society’s poorest.
“We live in the most unequal part of the world,” he said, “which has grown the most, but reduced misery the least.”
As Pope, he made great efforts to heal the millennium-old rift with the Eastern Orthodox Church. He worked with Anglicans, Lutherans, and Methodists and convinced the Israeli and Palestinian presidents to join him in praying for peace.
After attacks by Muslim militants, he said it was not right to identify Islam with violence. “If I speak of Islamic violence, I have to speak also of Catholic violence,” he declared.
And, as a Spanish-speaking Latin American, he provided a crucial service as a mediator when the US government was approaching a historic rapprochement with Cuba. It is hard to imagine a European Pope playing such a crucial diplomatic role.
Traditionalist
In many of the Church’s teachings, Pope Francis was a traditionalist.
He was “as intransigent as Pope John Paul II… on euthanasia, the death penalty, abortion, the right to life, human rights, and priestly celibacy,” according to Monsignor Osvaldo Musto, who studied with him in the seminary.
He stated that the Church should welcome people regardless of their sexual orientation, but insisted that adoption by gays was a form of discrimination against children.
There were warm words in favor of some kind of union between same-sex people, but Francis was not in favor of calling it marriage. That, he said, would be “an attempt to destroy God’s plan.”
Shortly after becoming Pope in 2013, he took part in an anti-abortion march in Rome, claiming the rights of the unborn “from the moment of conception.”
He urged gynecologists to heed their consciences and sent a message to Ireland—which was holding a referendum on the issue—imploring the local population to protect the vulnerable.
He opposed the ordination of women, declaring that Pope John Paul II had ruled out that possibility once and for all.
And, although he initially seemed to admit that contraception could be used to prevent disease, he praised Paul VI’s teachings on the subject—which warned that it could reduce women to instruments of male satisfaction.
In 2015, Pope Francis told an audience in the Philippines that contraception involved “the destruction of the family by depriving it of children.” It was not the absence of children itself that he considered so harmful, but the deliberate decision to avoid them.
Source: BBC