Pope Francis

Newly elected Pope Francis I, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina

Francis born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on 17 December 1936 is the 266th and current pope of the Catholic Church. A native of Buenos Aires, Argentina, he was ordained as a priest in 1969. In 1998 he became the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, and in 2001 a cardinal. He was elected pope on 13 March 2013, following his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI's resignation on 28 February, and chose the name Francis (the first time a pope has taken that name) in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi. He is both the first Jesuit priest and the first native of the Americas to be elected Pope. He is also the first pope from outside Europe since Gregory III in the 8th century.

Early life

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires, one of the five children of Italian immigrants Mario José Bergoglio, a railway worker, and his wife Regina María Sívori, a housewife. As a teenager, Bergoglio had a lung removed as a result of an infection. He studied and received a master's degree in chemistry at the University of Buenos Aires before he decided to pursue an ecclesiastical career. According to another reference, he graduated from a technical school as a chemical technician and at the age of 21 decided to become a priest.

Pre-papal career

Jesuit

Bergoglio entered the Society of Jesus on 11 March 1958 and studied to become a priest at the Jesuit seminary in Villa Devoto. In 1960, Bergoglio obtained a licentiate in philosophy from the Colegio Máximo San José in San Miguel; 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.

In 1967, Bergoglio finished his theological studies and was ordained to the priesthood on 13 December 1969, by Archbishop Ramón José Castellano. He attended the Facultades de Filosofía y Teología de San Miguel (Philosophical and Theological Faculty of San Miguel), a seminary in San Miguel, Buenos Aires province. Bergoglio attained the position of novice master there and became professor of theology.

The Society of Jesus promoted Bergoglio and he served as provincial for Argentina from 1973 to 1979. He was transferred in 1980 to become the rector of the seminary in San Miguel, and served in that capacity until 1986. He completed his doctoral dissertation in Germany and returned to Argentina to serve as confessor and spiritual director in Córdoba.

Bishop

Bergoglio was named Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires in 1992 and was ordained on 27 June 1992 as Titular Bishop of Auca, with His Eminence, Antonio Cardinal Quarracino, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, serving as principal consecrator.

Bergoglio succeeded Cardinal Quarracino as Archbishop of Buenos Aires on 28 February 1998 and was concurrently named ordinary for Eastern Catholics in Argentina, who had lacked their own prelate.

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. As cardinal, Bergoglio was appointed to several administrative positions in the Roman Curia:

• Member of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments
• Member of the Congregation for the Clergy
• Member of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life
• Member of the Pontifical Council for the Family
• Member of the Commission for Latin America

Cardinal Bergoglio became known for personal humility, doctrinal conservatism and a commitment to social justice. A simple lifestyle contributed to his reputation for humility. He lived in a small apartment, rather than in the palatial bishop's residence. He gave up his chauffeured limousine in favor of public transportation.

On the death of Pope John Paul II, Bergoglio was considered one of the papabile cardinals ^[. He participated as a cardinal elector in the 2005 papal conclave that selected Pope Benedict XVI. La Stampa reported that Bergoglio was in close contention with Ratzinger during the election, until he made an emotional plea ^[that the cardinals should not vote for him. Earlier, he had participated in the funeral of Pope John Paul II and acted as a regent alongside the College of Cardinals, governing the Holy See and the Roman Catholic Church during the interregnum sede vacante period.

During the 2005 Synod of Bishops, he was elected a member of the Post-Synodal council. Catholic journalist John L. Allen, Jr. reported^[that Bergoglio was a frontrunner in the 2005 Conclave. An unauthorized diary of uncertain authenticity released in September 2005 confirmed that Bergoglio was the runner-up and main challenger of Cardinal Ratzinger at that conclave. The purported diary of the anonymous cardinal claimed Bergoglio received 40 votes in the third ballot, but fell back to 26 at the fourth and decisive ballot.

On 8 November 2005, Bergoglio was elected President of the Argentine Episcopal Conference for a three-year term (2005–2008) by a large majority of the Argentine bishops, which according to reports confirms his local leadership and the international prestige earned by his alleged performance in the conclave. He was reelected on 11 November 2008.

As a cardinal, Bergoglio was associated with Communion and Liberation, a conservative Catholic association of the faithful.^[18]

As priest

On 15 April 2005, a human rights lawyer filed a criminal complaint against Bergoglio, as superior in the Society of Jesus of Argentina, accusing him of involvement in the kidnapping by the Navy in May 1976 (during the Dirty War) of two Jesuit priests. The priests, Orlando Yorio and Franz Jalics, were tortured, but found alive five months later, drugged and semi-naked. Yorio accused Bergoglio of effectively handing them over to the death squads by declining to tell the regime that he endorsed their work. Jalics refused to discuss it after moving into seclusion in a German monastery. Horacio Verbitsky, an Argentine investigative journalist and former montonero, wrote a book about this and other related events titled El Silencio: de Paulo VI a Bergoglio: las relaciones secretas de la Iglesia con la ESMA. Verbitsky also writes that the Argentine Navy with the help of Cardinal Bergoglio hid the dictatorship's political prisoners in Bergoglio's holiday home from a visiting delegation of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission.

According to the book, after their release Yorio accused Bergoglio, then-Provincial of his San Miguel Jesuit order, of having denounced him. Father General Pedro Arrupe in Rome was informed by letter or during the abduction , both Jalics and Orlando Yorio were excluded from the Jesuit Order.

Bergoglio told his authorized biographer, Sergio Rubin, that after the priests' imprisonment, he worked behind the scenes for their release; Bergoglio's intercession with dictator Jorge Rafael Videla on their behalf may have saved their lives. "The [now] cardinal could not justify why these two priests were in a state of helplessness and exposed," according to Luis Zamora, who said that Bergoglio's testimony "demonstrates the role of the Church during the last military dictatorship."

In 2010, Bergoglio told Sergio Rubin that had he often sheltered people from the dictatorship on church property, and once gave his own identity papers to a man who looked like him, so he could flee Argentina.

After becoming bishop

As detailed below, on presenting the Aparecida Document Bergoglio, in addition to commenting on social problems, exhorted "legislators, heads of government, and health professionals" to act according to Catholic principles regarding abortion and other issues and said that "people cannot receive Holy Communion and at the same time ... [commit] serious crimes against life and family. This responsibility applies particularly to legislators, governors, and health professionals." He referred to a topical Argentine abortion case. Argentina's government opposed this: Human Rights Undersecretary of Buenos Aires, Guillermo Guerin said that "the diagnosis of the Church in relation to social problems in Argentina is correct, but to mix that with abortion and euthanasia, is at least a clear example of ideological malfeasance."

His opposition to same-sex marriage has led to conflict with Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who said the church's tone was reminiscent of "medieval times and the Inquisition."

Bergoglio was elected pope on 13 March 2013, the second day of the 2013 papal conclave, taking the papal name Francis. Vatican deputy spokesman Thomas Rosica said the same day that the new pontiff had chosen the name in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi, and had done so because the new pontiff was a lover of the poor. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, a first-person witness and participant in the proceedings of the Conclave, confirmed that immediately after the selection was announced, the new Pope said, "I choose the name Francis, in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi." Some of those not initially aware of the statement made by the new Pope in the Conclave mistakenly believed that, as a Jesuit, he chose Francis in recognition of Francis Xavier.

On the day of his election, the Vatican clarified that his official papal name was Francis, not "Francis I". A Vatican spokesman said that the name would become Francis I if and when there is a Francis II.

His choice of the name "Francis" marked the first time in papal history that this name had been used, and along with Pope John Paul I is one of only two times since Pope Lando's brief 913 reign that a serving pope held a name unused by a predecessor.

Bergoglio is the first Jesuit priest chosen to be pope. He is also the first pope from the Americas, the New World, and the Southern Hemisphere. He is the first pope from outside Europe in 1,272 years. The previous non-European pope, St. Gregory III, was born in Syria and reined from 731 to 741.

At the time of his election, Francis was fluent in Spanish (his mother tongue), Latin, Italian, and German.

Positions on moral and political issues

Poverty and economic inequality

On 30 September 2009, Bergoglio spoke at a conference organized by the Argentina City Postgraduate School (EPOCA) at the Alvear Palace Hotel titled "Las deudas sociales de nuestro tiempo" ("The Social Debts of Our Time") in which he quoted the 1992 "Documento de Santo Domingo" by the Latin American Episcopal Conference, saying "extreme poverty and unjust economic structures that cause great inequalities" are violations of human rights.^[44][45] He went on to describe social debt as "immoral, unjust and illegitimate".

During a 48-hour public servant strike in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Bergoglio observed the differences between "poor people who are persecuted for demanding work, and rich people who are applauded for fleeing from justice." During a May 2010 speech in Argentina regarding the poor, he directed his message to the wealthy by saying: "You avoid taking into account the poor. We have no right to duck down, to lower the arms carried by those in despair. We must reclaim the memory of our country that has a mother, recover the memory of our Mother".

Vulnerable people

In 2007, Bergoglio denounced what he characterized as a cultural tolerance of child abuse and "discarding of the elderly". He spoke strongly against the abuse of children as "demographic terrorism" and decried their exploitation. "Children are mistreated, and are not educated or fed. Many are made into prostitutes and exploited" and against a "culture of discarding" the elderly and treating them as if they are disposable and worthless due to their advanced age.

Doctrinal compliance on abortion, euthanasia, and contraception

In 2007, as Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio presented the final version of a joint statement of the bishops of Latin America – the "Aparecida Document" – upon its approval by Pope Benedict XVI. The document links worthiness to receive the Eucharist, to compliance and acceptance of Church teaching against "abominable crimes" such as abortion and euthanasia:

"We hope that legislators, heads of government, and health professionals, conscious of the dignity of human life and of the rootedness of the family in our peoples, will defend and protect it from the abominable crimes of abortion and euthanasia; that is their responsibility ... We should commit ourselves to 'eucharistic coherence', that is, we should be conscious that people cannot receive Holy Communion and at the same time act or speak against the commandments, in particular when abortion, euthanasia, and other serious crimes against life and family are facilitated. This responsibility applies particularly to legislators, governors, and health professionals."

Bergoglio has also encouraged his clergy and laity to oppose both abortion and euthanasia, describing the pro-choice movement as a "culture of death", and had opposed the free distribution of contraceptives in Argentina.

Homosexuality

Bergoglio has affirmed church teaching on homosexuality specifically that homosexual actions are immoral. He opposes same-sex marriage, and unsuccessfully opposed legislation introduced in 2010 to allow same-sex marriage in Argentina, calling it a "real and dire anthropological throwback." In a letter to the monasteries of Buenos Aires, he wrote: "Let's not be naïve, we're not talking about a simple political battle; it is a destructive pretension against the plan of God. We are not talking about a mere bill, but rather a machination of the Father of Lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God." In this context, Bergoglio also opposed adoption by same-sex couples, arguing that it threatened the "identity and the survival of the family: father, mother and children." He stated that "children are discriminated against in advance depriving them of human growth that God would be given to a father and a mother.

Views on Catholic traditionalism

Even though Cardinal Bergoglio has expressed traditionalist views regarding homosexuality, abortion, and euthenasia, within his own archdiocese of Argentina, he has not supported any return to the old Latin mass as had been encouraged by Benedict XVI, much to the dismay of many Roman Catholic traditionalists.