Clockwise, from top: In this 1966 photo, seminarian Jorge Mario Bergoglio smiles for a portrait at the El Salvador School in Buenos Aires, where he taught literature and psychology. • Then-Cardinal Bergoglio greets the faithful outside the sanctuary of Liniers. • In this photo taken Jan. 13, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI shakes hands with the man who would become his successor. • Jorge Mario Bergoglio (back, second from left) is pictured as a young man with family members in this undated photo.
A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF POPE FRANCIS JORGE MARIO Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, was born Dec. 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was one of five children, and his father, an Italian immigrant from the region around Turin, worked as a railroad employee. After earning a degree as a chemical technician, Bergoglio discerned a vocation to the priesthood and entered seminary. He entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in 1958 and studied in Chile. He returned to Buenos Aires in 1963 and earned a degree in philosophy at the St. Joseph Major Seminary of San Miguel, where he later earned a degree in theology. 20 ♦ C O L U M B I A ♦
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Bergoglio was ordained to the priesthood on Dec. 13, 1969, and from 1972 to 1973, he served as the novice master at Villa Varilari in San Miguel. Shortly after making his perpetual vows, he was elected Jesuit Provincial for Argentina on July 31, 1973. After serving in this role for six years, he went on to be rector of the philosophical and theological faculty of San Miguel and pastor of Patriarca San Jose Parish. In 1986, he was sent to Germany to complete his doctoral thesis. He later served at the University of El Salvador in Buenos Aires and in Cordoba as a confessor and spiritual director.
Pope John Paul II appointed Father Bergoglio as an auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires on May 20, 1992, and archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998. Archbishop Bergoglio was also appointed the ordinary of Eastern-rite Catholics in Argentina. He became a cardinal in 2001 and served as president of the Bishops’ Conference of Argentina from 2005 until 2011. Elected the 266th successor of St. Peter on March 13, 2013, Cardinal Bergoglio took the name Francis in reference to St. Francis of Assisi. He is the first non-European pope in modern history, and the first ever from the Americas.♦