Francis
(born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on 17 December 1936) is the 266th and current pope
of the Catholic Church, elected on 13 March 2013. As such, he is both head of
the Church and Sovereign of the Vatican City State.
A
native of Buenos Aires, Argentina, he was ordained as a priest in 1969. He
served as head of the Society of Jesus in Argentina from 1973 to 1979. In 1998
he became the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, and in 2001 a cardinal. Following the
resignation of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, on 28 February 2013, the
conclave elected Bergoglio, who chose the papal name Franciscus in honour of
Saint Francis of Assisi. He is the first pope to be a Jesuit, to come from the
Americas, and to come from the Southern Hemisphere. Francis is the first
non-European pope since St. Gregory III, who died in 741.
Early
Life
Jorge
Mario Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires, one of the five children of Mario
José Bergoglio, a railway worker born in Portacomaro (Province of Asti) in Italy's
Piedmont region, and his wife Regina María Sívori, a housewife born in Buenos
Aires to a family of northern Italian (Piedmontese-Genoese) origin. Bergoglio
has been a supporter of the San Lorenzo de Almagro football club since his
childhood.
He graduated
from the technical secondary school Escuelas Técnicas No. 27, Hipólito Yrigoyen
with the qualification of chemical technician. According to some sources (not
including the Vatican), he earned a master's degree in chemistry from the
University of Buenos Aires. At the age of 21, he decided to become a priest and
began his religious studies, being eventually ordained in 1969. In the only
known health crisis of his youth, he suffered from life-threatening pneumonia
and cysts and had part of a lung removed shortly afterwards. According to
Ukrainian Catholic Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Bergoglio was mentored
by Salesian Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest Stefan Czmil and knows the
Byzantine liturgy well.
From: www.wikipedia.org
