Biography
Pope Francis was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on Decembe 17, 1936. He is the current Pope of the Catholic Church, a title he holds as the Bishop of Romeand as the Sovereign of the Vatican City.
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Bergoglio worked briefly as a chemical technician and nightclub bouncerbefore beginning seminary studies. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1969 and from 1973 to 1979 was Argentina's provincial superior of the Society of Jesus(the Jesuits). He became the Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and was created a cardinal in 2001 by Pope John Paul II. Following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI on February 28, 2013, a papal conclave elected him as his successor on March 13. He chose Francis as his papal name in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi. Francis is the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas, the first from the Southern Hemisphere and the first non-European pope since the Syrian Gregory III in 741.
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Quotes by Pope Francis
A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: 'Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?' We must always consider the person.
Wretched are those who are vindictive and spiteful.
Human rights are not only violated by terrorism, repression or assassination, but also by unfair economic structures that creates huge inequalities.
If investments in banks fall, it is a tragedy, and people say, 'What are we going to do?' but if people die of hunger, have nothing to eat or suffer from poor health, that's nothing.
We all have the duty to do good.
The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but the Pope has the duty, in Christ's name, to remind the rich to help the poor, to respect them, to promote them.
I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.
To say that you can kill in the name of God is blasphemy.
Although the life of a person is in a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.
Every man, every woman who has to take up the service of government, must ask themselves two questions: 'Do I love my people in order to serve them better? Am I humble and do I listen to everybody, to diverse opinions in order to choose the best path?' If you don't ask those questions, your governance will not be good.
Money has to serve, not to rule.
If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge? We shouldn't marginalize people for this. They must be integrated into society.
Since many of you do not belong to the Catholic Church and others are non-believers, from the bottom of my heart I give this silent blessing to each and every one of you, respecting the conscience of each one of you but knowing that each one of you is a child of God.
You cannot be in a position of power and destroy the life of another person.
Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is good... Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.
Life is a journey. When we stop, things don't go right.
We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace.
I believe in God - not in a Catholic God; there is no Catholic God. There is God, and I believe in Jesus Christ, his incarnation. Jesus is my teacher and my pastor, but God, the Father, Abba, is the light and the Creator. This is my Being.
We have observed that, in society and the world in which we live, selfishness has increased more than love for others, and that men of good will must work, each with his own strengths and expertise, to ensure that love for others increases until it is equal and possibly exceeds love for oneself.
From my point of view, God is the light that illuminates the darkness, even if it does not dissolve it, and a spark of divine light is within each of us.
Together with a culture of work, there must be a culture of leisure as gratification. To put it another way: people who work must take the time to relax, to be with their families, to enjoy themselves, read, listen to music, play a sport.
A little bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just.
This is me, a sinner on whom the Lord has turned his gaze. And this is what I said when they asked me if I would accept my election as pontiff. I am a sinner, but I trust in the infinite mercy and patience of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I accept in a spirit of penance.
These days there is a lot of poverty in the world, and that's a scandal when we have so many riches and resources to give to everyone. We all have to think about how we can become a little poorer.
Where there is no work, there is no dignity.
There is a need for financial reform along ethical lines that would produce in its turn an economic reform to benefit everyone. This would nevertheless require a courageous change of attitude on the part of political leaders.
Sometimes negative news does come out, but it is often exaggerated and manipulated to spread scandal. Journalists sometimes risk... the tendency to focus on the negative rather than the positive aspects.
Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?... It is necessary to accompany them with mercy.
This is important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas. The world is crisscrossed by roads that come closer together and move apart, but the important thing is that they lead towards the Good.
I see clearly that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity.
Among us, who is above must be in service of the others. This doesn't mean we have to wash each other's feet every day, but we must help one another.
Work ends up dehumanizing people.
Worshiping the Lord means giving Him the place that he must have; worshiping the Lord means stating, believing - not only by our words - that He alone truly guides our lives; worshiping the Lord means that we are convinced before Him that He is the only God, the God of our lives, the God of our history.