Pope Francis (1936–2025): A Legacy of Humility, Reform, and Global Compassion
Introduction
Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on December 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, served as the head of the Catholic Church and the sovereign of Vatican City from March 13, 2013, until his death on April 21, 2025. He was the first pope from the Society of Jesus, the first from the Americas and the Southern Hemisphere, and the first non-European pope in over 1,200 years. His papacy was marked by a commitment to simplicity, social justice, interfaith dialogue, and bold institutional reforms. His unexpected death on Easter Monday 2025 at age 88 brought to a close a transformative era in the history of the Catholic Church.
Early Life and Vocation
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born into a family of Italian immigrants in the working-class neighborhood of Flores, Buenos Aires. His father, Mario José Bergoglio, was an accountant from Piedmont, Italy, and his mother, Regina María Sívori, was a homemaker of Italian descent. The young Jorge was the eldest of five siblings. Raised in a Catholic household, he grew up in post-war Argentina amid deep political and economic upheavals that later shaped his theological and social worldview.
He attended a technical high school and earned a diploma as a chemical technician. For a period, Bergoglio worked in a food laboratory and also held jobs as a janitor and nightclub bouncer—experiences that lent him an unorthodox path to the priesthood. At the age of 21, he suffered from a severe respiratory illness that led to the removal of part of one lung, a health issue that never seriously hindered his ministry but added to the aura of personal sacrifice around him.
In 1958, he joined the Jesuit novitiate, drawn to the Society of Jesus for its intellectual rigor, missionary zeal, and commitment to education and justice. He was ordained as a priest in 1969, following studies in theology and philosophy. In 1973, at just 36, he became the provincial superior of the Jesuits in Argentina, overseeing the order during the country’s turbulent Dirty War—a period of state terrorism that left lasting scars on Argentine society and the Church.