Pope Francis was born on December 17, 1936, as Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Pope Francis is the head of the Catholic Church, the bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State. He happens to be the first pope who is a member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits).
He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and at a point in time, he worked as a bouncer, janitor, a chemist as well as as a technician in a food science laboratory. Pope Francis decided to join the Jesuits in 1958 after recovering from a severe illness of pneumonia and cysts.
He got ordained as a Catholic priest in 1969 and he became the Jesuit provincial superior in Argentina between 1973 and 1979. It was in 1998 that became Archbishop of Buenos Aires and a cardinal in 2001. Pope Francis was instrumental in the December 2001 riots in Argentina as he led the Argentine Church and he was considered a political rival by the administrations of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
Pope Francis was elected as the successor of Pope Benedict XVI after his resignation on February 28, 2013. Pope Francis has always been noted for his humility, emphasis on God’s mercy, international visibility as pope, concern for the poor, and commitment to interreligious dialogue and he chose Francis as his papal name in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi.
Pope Francis has made women full members of dicasteries in the Roman Curia and he is of the belief that the Catholic church should show sympathy to members of the LGBT community and has also called for the decriminalization of homosexuality.
He is noted to have fostered full diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba as well as a deal with China to define how much influence the Communist Party has in appointing Chinese bishops and has supported the cause of refugees during the European and Central American migrant crises, calling on the Western World to increase significantly immigration levels.
Pope Francis apologized for the church’s role in the “cultural genocide” of the Canadian indigenous peoples in 2022.
Pope Francis Brothers and Sisters
Pope Francis was the eldest of five children of his parents. His parents were Mario José Bergoglio (1908–1959) and Regina María Sívori (1911–1981).
The siblings of Pope Francis were Oscar Adrián (1938–deceased), Marta Regina (1940–2007), and Alberto Horacio (1942–2010) and one other sibling.
Pope Francis attended Wilfrid Barón de los Santos Ángeles as well as the technical secondary school Escuela Técnica Industrial N° 27 Hipólito Yrigoyen, named after a past Argentine president, and graduated with a chemical technician’s diploma.
