POPE FRANCIS
Jorge Mario Beroglio was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on December 17, 1936, the son of Piedmontese Italian immigrants: his father, Mario Bergoglio, was an accountant, employed in railroad, while his mother, Regina Sivori, took care of the house and the education of the five children.
He was baptized during the Christmas night of 1936, at the baptismal font of the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians and St. Charles of Buenos Aires, by the Salesian priest Enrique Pozzoli. On October 8, 1944 he made his First Communion. On more than one occasion he has spoken of the importance of his paternal grandmother, Rosa Marguerita Vasallo in his formation in the faith.
He graduated as a chemical engineering technician when he discovered the call to religious life and when he was 20 years old he entered the Society of Jesus. He completed his studies in humanities in Chile and in 1963, upon returning to Argentina, he graduated in philosophy at the San José School in San Miguel. Between 1964 and 1965 he was professor of literature and psychology at the College of the Immaculate Conception of Santa Fe and in 1966 he taught the same subjects at the Colegio del Salvador in Buenos Aires. From 1967 to 1970 he studied theology at the San José College, and obtained a degree.
Jorge Bergoglio was always a simple man, austere, low profile but energetic preaching, courageous defender of life from conception to natural death, lover of music, literature and as a good Argentine, football.
Pope Francis is the first Pope of America, the first Spanish speaker, the first Jesuit to be Pontiff and the first to choose the name of the saint of Assisi and the great evangelizer of the Society of Jesus, Saint Francis Xavier. In 1992, the Pope John Paul II appointed him Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires. As episcopal motto he chose Miserando atque eligendo and on the shield he includes the ihs cristogram, symbol of the Society of Jesus.
