Pope Francis

Pope Francis (Latin: Franciscus; Italian: Francesco; Spanish: Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio[lower-alpha 2] on 17 December 1936) is the head of the Catholic Church, the bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State. Francis is the first pope to be a member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), the first from the Americas, the first from the Southern Hemisphere, and the first pope from outside Europe since the 8th century papacy of Syrian pope Gregory III.

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Pope Francis
Bishop of Rome
Pope Francis in 2021
Church	Catholic Church
Papacy began	13 March 2013
Predecessor	Benedict XVI
Orders
Ordination	13 December 1969 by Ramón José Castellano
Consecration	27 June 1992 by Antonio Quarracino
Created cardinal	21 February 2001 by John Paul II
Personal details
Born	Jorge Mario Bergoglio (1936-12-17) 17 December 1936 (age 86) Buenos Aires, Argentina
Nationality	Argentine (with Vatican citizenship)
Denomination	Catholic
Residence	Domus Sanctae Marthae
Previous post(s)	Provincial Superior of the Society of Jesus in Argentina (1973–1979) Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires (1992–1997) Titular Bishop of Auca (1992–1997) Archbishop of Buenos Aires (1998–2013) Cardinal Priest of San Roberto Bellarmino (2001–2013) Ordinary for the Faithful of the Eastern Rites in Argentina (1998–2013) President of the Argentine Episcopal Conference (2005–2011)
Education	Maximum College of St. Joseph Philosophical and Theological Faculty of San Miguel Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology
Motto	Miserando atque eligendo[lower-alpha 1]
Signature
Coat of arms
Ordination history
History Priestly ordination Ordained by Ramón José Castellano Date 13 December 1969 Episcopal consecration Principal consecrator Antonio Cardinal Quarracino Co-consecrators Ubaldo Calabresi and Emilio Ogñénovich Date 27 June 1992 Place Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral , Buenos Aires  Cardinalate Elevated by Pope John Paul II Date 21 February 2001
Episcopal succession Bishops consecrated by Pope Francis as principal consecrator Horacio Ernesto Benites Astoul 1 May 1999 Jorge Rubén Lugones 30 July 1999 Jorge Eduardo Lozano 25 March 2000 Joaquín Mariano Sucunza 21 October 2000 José Antonio Gentico 28 April 2001 Fernando Carlos Maletti 18 September 2001 Andrés Stanovnik 16 December 2001 Mario Aurelio Poli 20 April 2002 Eduardo Horacio García 16 August 2003 Adolfo Armando Uriona 8 May 2004 Eduardo Maria Taussig 25 September 2004 Raúl Martín 20 May 2006 Hugo Manuel Salaberry Goyeneche 21 August 2006 Óscar Vicente Ojea Quintana 2 September 2006 Hugo Nicolás Barbaro 4 July 2008 Enrique Eguía Seguí 11 October 2008 Ariel Edgardo Torrado Mosconi 13 December 2008 Luis Alberto Fernández Alara 27 March 2009 Vicente Bokalic Iglic 29 May 2010 Alfredo Horacio Zecca 18 August 2011 Jean-Marie Antoine Joseph Speich 24 October 2013 Giampiero Gloder 24 October 2013 Fernando Vérgez Alzaga 15 November 2013 Fabio Fabene 30 May 2014 Angelo De Donatis 9 November 2015 Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot 19 March 2016 Peter Bryan Wells 19 March 2016 Waldemar Stanisław Sommertag 19 March 2018 Alfred Xuereb 19 March 2018 José Avelino Bettencourt 19 March 2018 Alberto Ricardo Lorenzelli Rossi 22 June 2019 Michael F. Czerny 4 October 2019 Paolo Borgia 4 October 2019 Antoine Camilleri 4 October 2019 Paolo Rudelli 4 October 2019 Guido Marini 17 October 2021 Andrés Gabriel Ferrada Moreira 17 October 2021

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Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Bergoglio worked for a time as a bouncer and a janitor as a young man before training to be a chemist and working as a technician in a food science laboratory. After recovering from a severe illness of pneumonia and cysts, he was inspired to join the Jesuits in 1958. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1969, and from 1973 to 1979 was the Jesuit provincial superior in Argentina. He became the Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and was created a cardinal in 2001 by Pope John Paul II. He led the Argentine Church during the December 2001 riots in Argentina. The administrations of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner considered him to be a political rival. Following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI on 28 February 2013, a papal conclave elected Bergoglio as his successor on 13 March. He chose Francis as his papal name in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi. Throughout his public life, Francis has been noted for his humility, emphasis on God's mercy, international visibility as pope, concern for the poor, and commitment to interreligious dialogue. He is credited with having a less formal approach to the papacy than his predecessors, for instance choosing to reside in the Domus Sanctae Marthae guesthouse rather than in the papal apartments of the Apostolic Palace used by previous popes.

Francis maintains the views of the Church regarding the ordination of women as priests, but has initiated dialogue on the possibility of deaconesses and has made women full members of dicasteries in the Roman Curia. He maintains that the Church should be more open and welcoming for members of the LGBT community, and has called for the decriminalization of homosexuality worldwide.[2] Francis is an outspoken critic of unbridled capitalism and free market economics, consumerism, and overdevelopment;[3] he advocates taking action on climate change, a focus of his papacy.[4] In the encyclical Fratelli tutti, Francis termed the death penalty "inadmissible" and committed the Catholic Church to its global abolition. In international diplomacy, he helped to restore full diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba, supported the cause of refugees during the European and Central American migrant crises, and made a deal with China to define how much influence the nation has in appointing their Catholic bishops. He has faced criticism from theological conservatives on many questions, especially what some interpret as his suggestion in a footnote of Amoris laetitia that divorced and remarried Catholics may be admitted to receive the Eucharist.[5]