Pope Francis — The People’s Pope

Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on Dec. 17, 1936 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the future Pope Francis came from the humblest roots. His Italian-immigrant father Mario was a railroad accountant and his mother Regina raised five children.

Jorge worked odd jobs — cleaning floors, running lab tests at a clinic and even moonlighting as a nightclub bouncer to help the family.

Yet from early on he dreamed big. A tall, kindhearted youth, he wanted to leave the poor and gritty streets of Buenos Aires and see the world.

Love Lost

As a teen, young Jorge fell head over heels in love with Amalia Damonte, who lived just a few blocks away. They attended neighborhood dances together and wrote heartfelt letters. “He was wonderful,” Amalia recalled. “We danced. It was a beautiful time.” But when he proposed, she refused because her parents had learned of their young love and forbid her from ever seeing him again. “My father found the letter and gave me a beating,” recalls Amalia. “I begged Jorge not to see me anymore.” Shocked, he stormed home saying, “If I can’t marry you, I’ll become a priest!”

He kept that vow. Though he would later laugh off such tales, the now pope himself told reporters he once vowed to devote his life to God if spurned by love. Heartbroken or not, Jorge Mario joined the Jesuits in 1958 and was ordained in 1969.

Rising Through the Church Ranks

Bergoglio quietly climbed the clerical ladder. After years teaching literature and theology, he became auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires in 1992. In 1997 he was named coadjutor archbishop of Buenos Aires and a few months later in 1998 he ascended to lead Argentina’s largest diocese.

In 2001, Pope John Paul II elevated him to cardinal. Ever humble, the new Cardinal Bergoglio asked Argentines to “not come to Rome” for his ceremony — instead, he urged, they should donate their travel money to feed the poor.

A famously simple pastor, he continued cooking his own meals and riding city buses as archbishop, often joking that his apartment kitchen was better than any fancy Vatican suite.

Word of his plain lifestyle — and fierce dedication to the downtrodden — began to spread.

The Argentinean Pope

On March 13, 2013, cardinals stunned the world by choosing this unassuming Jesuit as the 266th pope. He became Francis, after St. Francis of Assisi, who had kept a vow of poverty. Latin America exploded with pride, since Francis was the first pope from the Americas, ending nearly 1,300 years of European pontiffs.

U.S. President Barack Obama gushed that he was “a champion of the poor and those most vulnerable among us.”

The new pope walked onto the balcony and greeted the crowd in his first speech: “Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters.” It was a break from tradition — more personal, more casual. His very election, he joked, showed “the cardinals went to the end of the world” to find him.

The globe quickly caught Francis Fever.

Reporters called him an “Argentine slum priest” who lived simply and never allowed scandal inside the Vatican.

Champion of the Poor

True to his name, Francis immediately set a populist tone. “My people are poor and I am one of them,” he declared from the start. He cried out for the poor at every turn — cooking meals side by side with slum dwellers in Buenos Aires and regularly visiting shantytowns in Rome.

He also championed the LGBTQ+ groups — asking “Who am I to judge?” — and vowed to stop climate collapse, saying he heard “the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” as one.

He blasted global capitalism’s excesses, calling the “unfettered pursuit of money” the “dung of the devil.” He demanded a new economic order and said the poor have “sacred rights” to land, housing and work.

Pop Culture Flair

Francis also broke the mold with a light touch. He was a social-media-friendly pope. He admitted he loved soccer — proudly supporting his boyhood team San Lorenzo — and famously met Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona, two Argentine sports legends,

When he said in 2015 that he wanted “to go to a pizzeria … one day without being recognized,” loyal fans baked him a 13-foot pizza for his 81st birthday.

Kids loved him because he’d shake hands for hours, pet dogs or pull a child up on stage at events. More recently he angered traditionalists by authorizing Catholic priests to give “blessings” to same-sex couples, saying “No one should be denied a blessing. Everyone, everyone, everyone should be blessed.”

His Death

In early 2025 Francis had been ill with double pneumonia, but on Easter Sunday he waved joyously to cheering crowds from his open-top popemobile insisting “let’s go out!” He seemed on the mend — but in the pre-dawn of Monday, April 21, he suffered a catastrophic stroke and irreversible cardiac arrest. Vatican spokesman Cardinal Kevin Farrell solemnly announced, “At 7:35 this morning … Francis, Bishop of Rome, returned to the house of the Father.” He was 88.

Argentina declared a week of mourning. In Buenos Aires tens of thousands lit candles at the cathedral. In the tiny slum chapel where he once ministered, an elderly parishioner wept, recalling how they fed the poor together.

In St. Peter’s Square, the faithful lined up for hours to file past his wooden coffin.

Jorge García Cuerva — once Francis’ auxiliary in Buenos Aires — said: “The pope of the poor has left us, the pope of the marginalized — the pope of the people.”