Pope Francis (1936 - 2025), born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was the 266th pope of the Catholic Church, serving from 2013 until his death in 2025. [1] He was the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas, and the first from the Southern Hemisphere, and took his papal name from Francis of Assisi. [2] His papacy emphasised poverty, migration, and the environment, pursued reform of the Roman Curia and Vatican finances, and adopted a markedly simpler personal style than his predecessors. [3]
Early life and priesthood
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born on 17 December 1936 in the Flores district of Buenos Aires, the eldest of five children of Italian immigrant parents; his father worked for the railways. He trained as a chemical technician before entering the seminary. [1]
He joined the Society of Jesus in 1958, studied philosophy and theology in Argentina and later in Germany, taught literature and psychology, and was ordained a priest in 1969. At thirty-six he became provincial superior of the Jesuits in Argentina, a role he held through the country's military dictatorship, a period that later drew scrutiny of his conduct and of the Argentine church's response to state repression. [2]
Bishop and cardinal
Bergoglio was appointed an auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires in 1992 and became archbishop in 1998. He was created a cardinal by John Paul II in 2001. In Buenos Aires he lived simply, travelled by public transport, and gave particular attention to the city's shanty towns. [1]
Papacy
Following the resignation of Benedict XVI, Bergoglio was elected pope on 13 March 2013 and chose the name Francis. He declined several customary trappings of the office, living in the Vatican guesthouse rather than the Apostolic Palace. [2]
His teaching documents included the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (2013), which set out a vision of a church oriented towards the poor and critical of unregulated market economics, and the encyclical Laudato Si' (2015), on ecology and climate change, which was addressed to all people rather than to Catholics alone and was widely cited in international environmental debate. [3]
Francis reformed the Vatican's financial administration and, in 2022, promulgated a new constitution for the Roman Curia that opened senior curial positions to lay people. He convened synods on the family, on the Amazon region, and on synodality itself, expanding consultation of laity within church governance. He made migration a recurring priority, visiting Lampedusa in his first months in office and the Greek island of Lesbos in 2016. [1]
He travelled extensively, including to Cuba, Myanmar, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, and South Sudan. He signed the Document on Human Fraternity with the Grand Imam of al-Azhar in 2019 and pursued dialogue with Orthodox and Muslim leaders. On doctrinal questions he maintained established Catholic teaching while adopting a more pastoral tone, particularly towards divorced and remarried Catholics and towards LGBT people. [2]
His papacy also confronted the continuing crisis over clerical sexual abuse. He convened a summit of bishops on the protection of minors in 2019 and abolished the pontifical secret covering abuse cases, measures that survivors' groups regarded as significant but in several respects incomplete. [4]
Death and legacy
Francis died in Vatican City on 21 April 2025. [1] Assessments of his twelve-year papacy centre on his reorientation of Catholic public engagement towards poverty, migration, and climate, and on debates within the church over how far his approach altered doctrine as against emphasis and governance. [2]
