Pope Francis, 88 years old, left us on April 21, 2025. Who was the one we nicknamed the “Pope of the Poor”.

On March 13, 2013, at the age of 76, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Pope by the 115 cardinals gathered at the Sistine Chapel (Rome). It becomes 266th pope of the Catholic Church, and succeeds Benoit XVI. During his… years of reign, Pope Francis made an impression.

An atypical profile

After being a priest in 1969, Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1999 and Cardinal in 2001 of the hands of John Paul II, in 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope. And when it is elected, it is the general surprise. A few years earlier, Jorge would have explained to his colleagues that he did not want to be a pope. He would even have said that if he was called one day to the highest office in the church, he would die. The second surprising fact of this election is that he is the first pope to be able to speak with his predecessor, Benoît XVI. On January 5, he also went to the burial of the latter and the image is unprecedented since in recent history, a pope had buried his predecessor.

However, what really creates this effect of surprise is above all the order of the religious: Jesuits. “We are witnessing a revolution in the history of the Catholic Church” explains Frédéric Mounier (at the time journalist for the Cross) at France 24 in 2013. It is an atypical profile in the Vatican since Jorge Mario Bergoglio is the first pope coming from the Americas and from the Jesuit community (the Holy See had already known popes from other orders like Benedictines or Dominicans). The Jesuits are distinguished by an extensive intellectual training, Jorge had to study philosophy, psychology and theology for 15 years before becoming fully Jesuit). Frédéric Meunier calls members of the community “the futureologists of the Church”. He says that they are used to thinking further and higher than the others. They are both alongside the poor, but close to intellectuals and thus capture changes in society. ”

The Jesuits place at the center of their teaching the wish of poverty.

The “Pope of the Poor”

From the start Jorge Mario Bergolio illustrated in his fight against poverty. He also chooses to take the name of Pope Francis in honor of Saint Francois d’Assisi, who in order to be a “symbol of dialogue with Islam”, above all made wishes of poverty.

Jorge Mario is in the same way from a modest background. Born on December 17, 1936 in Buenos Aires in Argentina, he was the son of Italian immigrants (Piedmontese). His father (Mario) is an accountant, employed by the railways, while his mother (Regina Sivori) takes care of the house and the education of her five children. Poverty, immigration and rejection, so he experienced it.

In 2001, he surprised the staff of Muñiz hospital in Buenos Aires by washing the feet of twelve patients with AIDS and kissing them, explaining to the journalists present that “society forgets the sick and the poor”. In 2016, Pope Francis wanted to mark European consciences and make people understand that “we are all migrants”. He then moves to Greece (in Lesbos) and visits a refugee camp. On his return, he increases 12 migrants on his plane, including six children. The 3 Muslim families come from Syria.

Like the other Jesuits, Jorge Bergoglio is a missionary. So, like all those of his order, Jorge immerses himself in the local population to carry the voice of Christ and live in town (where the Benedictine and Dominican priests live in monasteries). The pope also shows a typical profile of Jesuits: silent, ascetic and marked by this great spiritual life. She is a simple and humble person.

A humble pope and simple

Pope Francis has a reputation for being a simple and ascetic man, and the first evening of his blessing testifies to this … The new pope appears on the balcony of the Saint-Pierre basilica in simple white cassock, and makes an unusual request: “I ask you to pray the Lord so that he blessed me”. François bowed to the crowd of hundreds of thousands of faithful Place Saint-Pierre. Eight years earlier, Pope Benoît XVI had marked the spirits by presenting himself as “the humble servant in the vine of the Lord”. His successor did the same, in his own way. François then left the balcony decorated with red velvet, before refusing to go up in the Mercedes chartered for him. He thus chose to return to the Sainte-Marthe residence by bus with all the other cardinals, faithful to his habit.

• Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1999, he already had no cars, moved by public transport and refused to stay in the sumptuous archbishopric which is intended for him (which he will resemble for the poorest) preferring a small apartment near the cathedral.
• Cardinal, he prefers his black overcoat with purple clothes. In 2009, he did not hesitate to come and live in a slum with one of his priests threatened with death by drug traffickers.

Jorge has always been an undeniable moral authority in Argentina, he was a fighter of neoliberalism and globalization. During his reign his project remained the same: if we follow Christ, we understand that “trampling on a person’s dignity is a serious sin”.

In 2001 after being created Cardinal by John Paul II, he became a reference point for his strong positions during the dramatic economic crisis which upset his country in 2001.

Pope Francis was a curator, opposed to homosexual marriage and abortion. In 2010, he notably opposed the law legalizing homosexual marriage in Argentina, a country where abortion is prohibited. He also rose against the law granted to transsexuals to change sex in civil status. However in 2012, he surprised by calling priests refusing to baptize children born out of marriage of “hypocrites”.

One thing is certain, its commitments and its simplicity will remain engraved in the memories.