Who Was Pope Francis? The People's Pope

1. Buenos Aires: the making of a Jesuit

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born on 17 December 1936 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the son of Italian immigrants from Piedmont. He studied to become a chemical technician and worked in food processing before joining the Society of Jesus in 1958, after recovering from a severe illness in which part of a lung was removed. He studied humanities, philosophy and theology in Argentina and was ordained a priest on 13 December 1969. He taught literature and psychology at Jesuit schools before taking on leadership roles in the order, serving as provincial of the Argentine Jesuits from 1973 to 1979 and as rector of the Colegio de San José.

His tenure as head of the Argentine Jesuits coincided with the military coup of 1976 and the Dirty War that followed, in which between 10,000 and 30,000 people were disappeared by the military regime. Bergoglio later claimed to have hidden several people from the authorities, even helping some of them to flee the country. In 1976 two Jesuit priests who had worked in poor neighbourhoods were disappeared; they were found alive, but drugged, in a field five months later. Years after the Dirty War, Bergoglio's role in the priests' kidnapping and release generated controversy: some critics faulted him for failing to protect the priests and even accused him of turning them over to the regime, while others accepted his claim that he covertly interceded with the regime to secure their release. A lawsuit against him charging complicity was ultimately dismissed.

In the 1980s he served as a seminary teacher and rector and pursued graduate studies in theology in Germany. In 1992 he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires, became archbishop in 1998, and was created a cardinal in 2001. As archbishop he was known for a simple lifestyle and for his attention to the poor of Buenos Aires, living in a simple apartment rather than the archbishop's residence and travelling by public transport. During Argentina's economic crisis, which culminated in the devaluation of the currency in 2002, he became an outspoken advocate for the poor. His theological conservatism, however, set him at odds with the centre-left governments of the time, and he was a vocal critic of the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Argentina in 2010.

2. The conclave of 2013 and the name Francis

In February 2013 Pope Benedict XVI resigned, citing old age and health concerns — the first papal resignation in almost six centuries. A conclave was convened in early March, and Bergoglio was elected on 13 March 2013, on the fifth ballot, taking the name Francis in honour of Saint Francis of Assisi, who lived a life of humble service to the poor, and also recalling Saint Francis Xavier, a founding member of the Jesuits. He was the first pope to take the name Francis, and he declined to use the Roman numeral I, following the tradition that the numeral is not added until a second pope of the same name is elected.

The choice of name was itself a programme. Saint Francis of Assisi is, for Catholics, the saint of poverty, of peace and of care for creation, and the new pope's first words and gestures made the reference explicit: he asked the crowds in Saint Peter's Square to pray for him before he blessed them, he paid his own hotel bill, and he chose to live in the Vatican guesthouse rather than the Apostolic Palace. Catholics and non-Catholics alike read these gestures as a statement that the papacy would be simpler, closer to ordinary people, and more concerned with the poor than with ceremony.

He took charge of a Church at a crossroads. In the early twenty-first century Roman Catholics constituted more than one-sixth of the world's population, many of them in Latin America and Africa, yet scandals, particularly the clergy sexual abuse scandals that had arisen since the 1980s, had undermined the Church's standing, especially in the United States and Europe. In his earliest addresses he called for spiritual renewal within the Church and greater attention to the plight of the poor, and he warned against the Church becoming a pitiful non-governmental organisation. He also appointed a council of cardinals to advise him on reform, an unprecedented step, and he reached out to political opponents, including the Argentine president he had once criticised.

3. Mercy, the poor, and the field hospital

A central dimension of Francis's papacy was championing the poor and oppressed, and from the start he promoted a broad ministry that aimed to include not only non-Catholic Christians but even non-Christians. He drew criticism from traditionalists soon after taking office when he washed the feet of two young women, including a Muslim, in a juvenile detention centre during the traditional Maundy Thursday ceremony, in which Catholics believe Jesus washed the feet of the Twelve Apostles. Church tradition had held that women could not participate, because the Apostles were men; Francis issued a decree in 2016 revising the Holy Week observances to allow the inclusion of women and girls.

In an interview published in the Jesuit magazine America in September 2013, Francis gave a description of his vision for the Church that became one of the most quoted passages of his pontificate: he said he saw clearly that the thing the Church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful, that it needs nearness and proximity, and that he saw the Church as a field hospital after battle. In November 2013 he issued Evangelii gaudium, The Joy of the Gospel, an apostolic exhortation in which he denounced economic inequality and called upon the Church to embrace its global diversity.

His first visit to migrants came in July 2013, when he travelled to the Italian island of Lampedusa, a key destination for thousands of migrants travelling from Africa and the Middle East to Europe, and called for an end to indifference to their plight. A tireless advocate for migrants and many other marginalised people, he shaped the Church from the outset of his papacy according to his vision of a poor Church for the poor. Supporters credit this emphasis on mercy and on the poor as the heart of his pontificate; critics, including some cardinals, argued that the emphasis came at the cost of clarity on questions of doctrine and discipline.

4. Laudato si' and care for creation

In May 2015 Francis issued Laudato si', Praise Be to You, the second encyclical of his papacy, which addresses the climate crisis and champions environmental stewardship. The encyclical proclaims that environmental degradation is a moral issue, spurred by greed and unchecked capitalism, which causes human beings to lose sight of the relationships that bind them together and to neglect Earth, their common home. Promoting the concept of integral ecology, Francis connects actions against the natural world with the economic exploitation of impoverished human beings and the denial of human rights, and the document is also noteworthy for its endorsement of the rights of Indigenous peoples.

Laudato si' was issued a few months before the Paris Climate Agreement of December 2015, and its timing helped stir considerable public interest in the document, which was unusual for a papal encyclical. It initially polarised many Catholics, especially in the United States, but it also spurred change within many dioceses and parishes, involving care for creation groups, creation-themed liturgies, a call to repentance for wasteful consumption, and ecological awareness action plans. It made the Catholic Church a prominent voice on climate change, and it remains one of the most widely read and discussed papal documents of recent times.

His other major writings set out a consistent vision. Fratelli tutti, issued in 2020, set out a vision of fraternity and social friendship, arguing that the world needs a politics of encounter rather than a politics of walls. Amoris laetitia, issued in 2016, addressed the pastoral care of families, and Dilexit nos, issued in 2024, was a reflection on the love of the heart of Jesus. His first encyclical, Lumen fidei in 2013, completed a trilogy on the theological virtues of faith, hope and love begun by Benedict XVI. Together these documents form the teaching record of a pontificate that sought to speak to the modern world in a language of mercy rather than of condemnation.

5. Doctrine, discipline, and the debates of the pontificate

Francis soon became noted for making statements that conveyed an openness to different perspectives on Catholic doctrine, particularly regarding social issues and sexual ethics. In his first papal news conference in 2013 he said, of a gay person who seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge? In a September 2013 interview he criticised the Church for having been obsessed with issues such as homosexuality, abortion and birth control. Such statements were subsequently either toned down by the Vatican or seemingly contradicted by Francis himself: in the following year he spoke out against same-sex marriage and defended the traditional family, and he affirmed the Church's categorical opposition to abortion. Although he spoke sympathetically of women's rights and acknowledged women's historical role in the Church, he did not endorse the ordination of women as priests.

This pattern — a striking statement, followed by clarification or by a statement in the opposite direction — is at the heart of the debate over his pontificate. Supporters argue that he was speaking pastorally, meeting people where they were, and that his teaching, read as a whole, was consistent with Catholic doctrine. Critics, including some cardinals, argued that some of his teachings and decisions created ambiguity on questions of doctrine and discipline, and that the ambiguity itself was harmful, because it left Catholics uncertain about what the Church taught. The debate is not one that this article can settle, and it is presented here as it stands: a genuine disagreement among faithful Catholics, not a question with an agreed answer.

The lingering effects of the Church's sexual abuse scandal constituted another challenge. Supporters point to new accountability rules, such as Vos estis lux mundi in 2019, which set out procedures for handling abuse cases against bishops, and to his historic apologies to survivors of clergy sexual abuse. Critics argue the response was uneven across cases and countries, and that the Vatican was slow to punish and remove priests known to be abusers. Views differ on his handling of the crisis, and this article records both views without taking a side. What is not in dispute is that the crisis shaped his pontificate from its beginning to its end, and that it will shape how his successor is judged as well.

6. The wider world: travel, dialogue, and reform

Francis made pastoral visits to more than sixty countries, including the first papal visit to Iraq in 2021, a journey to a country where Christians had suffered greatly and which no pope had visited before. In 2019 he signed the Document on Human Fraternity with the Grand Imam of al-Azhar in Abu Dhabi, a statement of shared commitment to peace and dialogue between Christians and Muslims. In February 2016 he met the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill in Havana, the first meeting between the leaders of the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches. In 2015 he became the first pope to address the United States Congress, and he canonised John Paul II and John XXIII, Mother Teresa, Oscar Romero and John Henry Newman.

He reformed Vatican finances, issuing rules for handling abuse cases against bishops, and convened the Synod on Synodality, a worldwide consultation that ran from 2021 to 2024, inviting Catholics around the world to discuss the future of the Church. Supporters credit his reform of Vatican governance and his efforts to make the Church's decision-making more consultative; critics argued that his reforms of the Curia moved slowly and that the synodal process raised expectations it could not fulfil. His pontificate also saw the first papal visit to the Arabian Peninsula and sustained efforts for dialogue with other Christian churches and other religions.

His approach to the world was consistent with his approach to the Church: encounter before condemnation, dialogue before judgement, and a preference for the peripheries — the poor, the migrant, the prisoner, the forgotten — over the centres of power. Whether that approach strengthened the Church or weakened it is a question on which Catholics disagree, and the disagreement will outlive him. What is clear is that he changed the tone of the papacy, and that the tone was itself a form of teaching: a Church that went out to the margins, that listened before it spoke, and that presented itself as a field hospital rather than a fortress.

7. The final months, the death, and the succession

In February 2025 Francis was admitted to hospital with bilateral pneumonia and spent thirty-eight days there, the longest hospitalisation of his pontificate. He made his last public appearance on Easter Sunday, 20 April 2025, giving the Urbi et Orbi blessing from the balcony of Saint Peter's Basilica, and died the following day, Easter Monday, at the age of 88. The timing of his death — on the morning after the Church's greatest feast — was noted by Catholics around the world as a fitting end to a pontificate that had begun with a call to joy and ended, in the words of the Easter liturgy, with the proclamation that death has been overcome.

He was buried at the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome, the first pope in over a century to be buried outside the Vatican, in accordance with his own wishes. The choice was characteristic: Saint Mary Major is a church of the people of Rome, and his burial there, rather than in Saint Peter's, was a final statement of the simplicity he had practised throughout his pontificate. The conclave that followed elected Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost of the United States, who took the name Leo XIV, on 8 May 2025 — the first American pope, and the second pope from the Americas after Francis himself.

Francis is remembered as the first pope from the Americas, the first Jesuit pope, and the first pope from outside Europe in more than 1,200 years. Supporters credit his emphasis on mercy, care for the poor and for creation, and his reform of Vatican governance; critics, including some cardinals, argued that some of his teachings and decisions created ambiguity on questions of doctrine and discipline, and that his reforms of the Curia moved slowly. His pontificate is also assessed in the light of his handling of the clerical sexual abuse crisis, where supporters point to new accountability rules and critics argue the response was uneven. Because his pontificate is complete, historians can now begin the work of judging it — but the judgement will take years, and it will depend on what his successor does with the Church Francis left behind.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and further reading

• Vatican — Biography of Pope Francis (official)
• Encyclopaedia Britannica — Francis I, pope
• Wikipedia — Pope Francis

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• Who Was Alexander the Great? — Alexander the Great built one of history's largest empires before dying at 32. This explains his conquests, his cities and the debate over his legacy.
• Who Was Alfred Nobel? — Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, held 355 patents and founded the Nobel Prizes. This explains his explosives empire, his will and the prizes' legacy.
• Who Was Allama Iqbal? — Allama Iqbal was Pakistan's national poet, whose ideas shaped the case for Pakistan. This explains his poetry, his philosophy and his legacy.
• Who Was Benazir Bhutto? — Benazir Bhutto was the first woman to lead a Muslim-majority country, serving as prime minister of Pakistan in 1988-90 and 1993-96.
• Who Was Bob Marley? — Bob Marley took reggae from Jamaica to the world and became a symbol of peace, resistance and unity. This explains his life, his music and his legacy.
• Who Was Bruce Lee? — Bruce Lee was the martial artist and actor who carried Hong Kong action cinema to the world and founded Jeet Kune Do, leaving a lasting influence.
• Who Was Charles Darwin? — Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, published in On the Origin of Species in 1859, became the foundation of modern biology.
• Who Was Charles Dickens? — Charles Dickens was the greatest novelist of the Victorian era, whose serialised novels mixed comedy, social criticism and unforgettable characters.
• Who Was Charlie Chaplin? — Charlie Chaplin created the Little Tramp, the most famous screen character of the silent era, and directed classics City Lights and The Great Dictator.
• Who Was Cleopatra? — Cleopatra VII was the last ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt, a multilingual stateswoman who kept her kingdom independent for 21 years before Rome annexed it.
• Who Was Diego Maradona? — Diego Maradona was an Argentine footballer who captained Argentina to the 1986 World Cup and is widely regarded as one of the greatest players in history.
• Who Was Don Bradman? — Don Bradman was an Australian cricketer who averaged 99.94 in Test cricket, a record so far ahead of any other batsman that it remains famous in sport.
• Who Was Elvis Presley? — Elvis Presley took gospel, country and rhythm and blues and turned them into rock and roll, becoming the most famous singer of his century.
• Who Was Emily Dickinson? — Emily Dickinson was an American poet who wrote nearly 1,800 poems in private in Amherst, Massachusetts, and was barely published in her lifetime.
• Who Was Faiz Ahmed Faiz? — Faiz Ahmed Faiz was Pakistan's most celebrated modern Urdu poet, whose verse joined romantic lyricism with resistance to injustice.
• Who Was Franz Beckenbauer? — Franz Beckenbauer was a German footballer known as Der Kaiser, who won the World Cup as captain in 1974 and as manager in 1990.
• Who Was Freddie Mercury? — Freddie Mercury was the lead singer of Queen, a four-octave voice and fearless showman who wrote Bohemian Rhapsody and We Are the Champions.
• Who Was Frida Kahlo? — Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter known for uncompromising, brilliantly coloured self-portraits exploring identity, the body and death.
• Who Was Galileo Galilei? — Galileo Galilei reshaped astronomy with his telescopic discoveries of 1610, defended a Sun-centred universe, and was tried by the Inquisition in 1633.
• Who Was Genghis Khan? — Genghis Khan united the Mongol tribes and built the largest contiguous land empire in history, a conqueror and lawgiver whose legacy is still argued over.
• Who Was George Washington? — George Washington won American independence, presided over the Constitutional Convention, and as first president defined the office — then walked away.
• Who Was Guglielmo Marconi? — Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor who built the first practical wireless telegraph and sent the first transatlantic radio signal in 1901.
• Who Was Henry Ford? — Henry Ford was an American industrialist who founded the Ford Motor Company, built the Model T and perfected the moving assembly line.
• Who Was Isaac Newton? — Isaac Newton wrote the laws of motion and universal gravitation, invented calculus and transformed optics, leaving a lasting legacy in science.
• Who Was James Watt? — James Watt did not invent the steam engine, but his separate condenser of 1765 made it efficient enough to power the Industrial Revolution.
• Who Was Jane Austen? — Jane Austen published six novels in her lifetime, anonymously, and died at 41. This explains her life, her novels, her irony and her growing reputation.
• Who Was Jesus Christ? — Jesus of Nazareth is the central figure of Christianity, the world's largest religion. This explains his life in the Gospels, his teachings and his legacy.
• Who Was Johan Cruyff? — Johan Cruyff was the star of Total Football, won three Ballon d'Or awards, and as a manager built the Barcelona team that shaped modern football.
• Who Was Johannes Gutenberg? — Johannes Gutenberg built the first mechanised printing press in Europe and printed the Gutenberg Bible around 1455, changing how the world shared ideas.
• Who Was John Keats? — John Keats died of tuberculosis in Rome at 25, having written his six great odes in a single year. This explains his short life, his poetry and his fame.
• Who Was Joseph Stalin? — Joseph Stalin led the Soviet Union from the 1920s until 1953, industrialised the country and led it through the Second World War, ruling through terror.
• Who Was Julius Caesar? — Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, crossed the Rubicon and remade Rome's calendar and government, and was murdered by senators who feared he would be king.
• Who Was Kobe Bryant? — Kobe Bryant won five NBA championships with the Los Angeles Lakers and became known for the Mamba Mentality, on and off the court.
• Who Was Leo Tolstoy? — Leo Tolstoy wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina, then abandoned literary fame for a radical moral philosophy that influenced Gandhi and the world.
• Who Was Leonardo da Vinci? — Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper and filled notebooks with anatomy and engineering, becoming the symbol of the Renaissance.
• Who Was Ludwig van Beethoven? — Ludwig van Beethoven wrote nine symphonies, 32 piano sonatas and the Missa Solemnis, much of it while deaf. This explains his life and legacy.
• Who Was Mahatma Gandhi? — Mahatma Gandhi led India to independence through nonviolent resistance, and his ideas shaped civil-rights movements worldwide.
• Who Was Mao Zedong? — Mao Zedong founded the People's Republic of China in 1949 and led it until 1976, bringing unification and the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution.
• Who Was Margaret Thatcher? — Margaret Thatcher was the first woman to serve as British prime minister, leading the UK from 1979 to 1990 through reform, the Falklands War and division.
• Who Was Marie Curie? — Marie Curie discovered polonium and radium and remains the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences, a pioneer of radioactivity research.
• Who Was Marilyn Monroe? — Marilyn Monroe was the biggest star of the 1950s, the blonde bombshell of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Some Like It Hot, who fought the studio system.
• Who Was Mark Twain? — Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, wrote Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and became America's most famous humorist.
• Who Was Maya Angelou? — Maya Angelou was a poet, memoirist and civil rights activist whose autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings made her widely read.
• Who Was Michael Jackson? — Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, made Thriller, the best-selling album in history, and changed music video, dance and pop stardom.
• Who Was Mirza Ghalib? — Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869) is the pre-eminent Urdu and Persian poet of the last Mughal era, whose ghazals on love, loss and doubt are still recited.
• Who Was Muhammad Ali Jinnah? — Muhammad Ali Jinnah was the barrister and statesman who led the All-India Muslim League and became Pakistan's first Governor-General in 1947.
• Who Was Muhammad Ali? — Muhammad Ali was the three-time heavyweight champion who called himself The Greatest, and the most famous athlete of the twentieth century.
• Who Was Napoleon Bonaparte? — Napoleon Bonaparte rose from Corsica to Emperor of the French, redrew the map of Europe, and left a legal code that still shapes law across the world.
• Who Was Nelson Mandela? — Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison under apartheid, then became South Africa's first democratically elected president and a Nobel Peace laureate.
• Who Was Nikola Tesla? — Nikola Tesla developed the alternating-current power system, the induction motor and the Tesla coil, making long-distance electric power practical.
• Who Was Osama bin Laden? — Osama bin Laden founded al-Qaeda in 1988 and organised the September 11, 2001 attacks, in which nearly 3,000 people were killed.
• Who Was Pablo Neruda? — Pablo Neruda was Chile's great poet, a Nobel laureate, a communist senator and a diplomat. This explains his poetry, his politics and his death.
• Who Was Pablo Picasso? — Pablo Picasso co-founded Cubism, painted Guernica, and spent 75 years breaking the rules of art — the most influential artist of the twentieth century.
• Who Was Pelé? — Pele is the only footballer to win three World Cups, the youngest winner, and the game's first global icon. This is his life, his goals and his legacy.
• Who Was Prophet Muhammad? — The Prophet Muhammad is the founder of Islam, the world's second-largest religion. This explains his life, his teachings and his legacy.
• Who Was Queen Elizabeth II? — Queen Elizabeth II reigned for 70 years, from 1952 to 2022 — the longest reign in British history. This explains her life, her reign and her legacy.
• Who Was Rabindranath Tagore? — Rabindranath Tagore was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the author of the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.
• Who Was Rosa Parks? — Rosa Parks was not a tired seamstress who acted on impulse. She was a trained activist and NAACP secretary whose bus refusal was a deliberate act.
• Who Was Rosalind Franklin? — Rosalind Franklin's X-ray image, Photograph 51, gave Watson and Crick the key evidence for the double helix. This is her life and the credit debate.
• Who Was Rumi? — Rumi, the thirteenth-century Persian poet of Konya, wrote the Masnavi and the Divan-e Shams, and became the most widely read poet in the world.
• Who Was Shane Warne? — Shane Warne took 708 Test wickets, bowled the Ball of the Century in 1993 and won the 1999 World Cup with Australia. This explains his career.
• Who Was Stephen Hawking? — Stephen Hawking was a theoretical physicist who showed that black holes emit radiation and wrote A Brief History of Time. He died in 2018, aged 76.
• Who Was Steve Jobs? — Steve Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976, was forced out in 1985, built Pixar, and returned to launch the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. He died in 2011, aged 56.
• Who Was Thomas Edison? — Thomas Edison held 1,093 US patents, invented the phonograph and the practical incandescent lamp, and built the first commercial electric power system.
• Who Was Vincent van Gogh? — Vincent van Gogh produced about 2,100 artworks in a single decade, including The Starry Night and Sunflowers, and became famous only after his death at 37.
• Who Was William Shakespeare? — William Shakespeare is the most performed playwright in history, yet almost nothing is reliably known about his private life.
• Who Was William Wordsworth? — William Wordsworth launched English Romanticism with Lyrical Ballads and wrote The Prelude, the great autobiographical poem. This explains his life.
• Who Was Winston Churchill? — Winston Churchill led Britain through the Second World War and won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and his record on empire is still debated.
• Who Was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart? — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a child prodigy who composed more than 600 works before his death at 35, defining the Classical era.
• Why Van Gogh Became Famous After Death — Vincent van Gogh died in 1890 almost unknown, and within a few decades his paintings were among the most loved in the world.