BUT CHOSEN

KEVIN COTTER

LOWLY,
An Introduction to Pope Francis

BUT CHOSEN
An Introduction to Pope Francis

LOWLY,

KEVIN COTTER

Lowly, but Chosen

On February 11, 2013, Pope Benedict XVI shocked the world by announcing his resignation from the papacy. Beginning February 28, 2013, he would no longer be the leader of the Catholic Church. While the world came to grips with the first papal resignation in six centuries, it also began to look forward to the election of the next pope. Many questions swirled: What kind of leader did the Catholic Church need? What challenges would the next pope face? Would he significantly change Church teaching? Who was capable of leading 1.2 billion people? As these questions were discussed, plausible candidates were considered, analyzed, and scrutinized; newspapers released their lists of papabili; journalists published rumors; bookies made odds. The world watched and waited. Then, on March 13, 2013, at 7:06 p.m. Rome time, white smoke streamed out of the chimney atop the Sistine Chapel. On the fifth vote of the conclave, the cardinal electors had chosen a new pope. Just over an hour later, the cardinal protodeacon, Jean-Louis Cardinal Tauran, announced to the world the next leader of the Catholic Church: Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio, who had taken the name Pope Francis. The course of events was surprising on many levels.
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Few had even discussed Cardinal Bergoglio as a serious candidate for the papacy: He was 76 years old and considered too old for a job that had just been vacated by an 85-year-old. Not only this, but he was a pope of many firsts: the first pope from Latin America, the first Jesuit pope, and the first to choose the name Francis. To top it off, Pope Francis made an immediate impression with his humble style, as he asked the crowd to bless him before he gave the traditional blessing to the city of Rome and to the world. Pope Francis stunning introduction caused many to wonder: Who is this man? This e-Booklet offers a brief history of the life of Pope Francis with the hope that, by understanding his past, we may better contemplate the future of our Church with our new Holy Father.

Early Life
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on December 17, 1936, to Mario Jose and Regina Maria (Sivori) Bergoglio. The families of Mario Jose and Regina Maria both immigrated to Argentina from northern Italy. Mario Joses family left Italy in order to flee from the reign of Mussolini in the 1920s; they joined other relatives in Argentina and together ran a small business. When the economy went south, the family was forced to abandon the business and sell everything to survive. Eventually, Mario Jose would become a railway worker in Argentina. This working4

class upbringing had a profound effect on the young Pope Francis and his later work with the poor. The oldest of five, Jorge quickly learned the power of work and service at a young age. During the birth of his youngest sibling, his mother was partially paralyzed. As a result, at the age of twelve, he quickly became responsible for household chores, including making meals for his family. At thirteen, his father encouraged him to get a job at the local factory where he took on cleaning, maintenance, and eventually administrative duties. As a teenager, Jorge had a fairly typical upbringing. He was a practicing Catholic and enjoyed many of the things that his peers enjoyed at the time: basketball, opera, classical Argentinian cinema, and tango. But, at the age of 17, he received a call that was far from ordinaryone that would change his life forever. One day during his summer break, while Jorge was planning to spend time with his friends around town, he suddenly felt the need to go to Church instead. Upon arriving at his local parish, he noticed a new priest there and felt an indescribable urge to have the priest hear his confession. Following the confession, Jorge was overwhelmed by the nature of Gods mercy and tenderness. This feeling of love and mercy, combined with the powerful sense of Gods providence during the course of events, moved him deeply. He decided not to
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meet up with his friends and instead spent the rest of the day contemplating what had happened. It was then that he decided that he was called to the priesthood. The day was September 21, the feast of St. Matthew. During his recollection of the event, Pope Francis compared his encounter with the priest to Jesus experience with St. Matthew when our Lord looked at him with love and said Follow me (Mark 10:21). Although thoroughly convicted of his call to the priesthood, he kept this experience to himself. He continued to excel as a student while growing in his spiritual life. At the age of 21, he came down with a severe case of pneumonia, and complications required that his right lung be removed. It was during this time that he learned to grow in his faith through suffering, while a nun working at the hospital counseled him through the experience.

Father Jorge
Jorge would eventually receive a degree in chemistry, and soon after, he entered the seminary. Jorge had chosen to join the Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuits, because of their simplicity, obedience, and discipline. While his father was excited about the news, his mother was not as encouraging: She was worried that Jorge was wasting his education and had made the decision too hastily.
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Nevertheless, Jorges time in seminary was filled with learning and teaching. He taught literature and psychology at the high school and college level while he pursued a degree in philosophy. During this time, he recalls meeting a young girl his age at his uncles wedding. He was so enthralled with her that he was unable to pray for a week and even questioned his call to the priesthood. Eventually, however, he would go on to finish his seminary work and was ordained a priest on December 13, 1969. After his ordination, he was given assignments with increasing amounts of responsibility. First, he became master of novices for his Jesuit province and a professor of theology. Then, in 1973, Father Jorge took his perpetual vows in the Society of Jesus and was named the provincial superior in Argentina. During his early priesthood, Argentina was rocked by economic and political tumult. A military dictatorship ruled the nation and had as many as 30,000 people kidnapped or killed. The Catholic clergy at the time responded in various ways: Some opposed the dictatorship outright; others kept quiet publicly while secretly helping those at risk; still others aided and abetted the juntas violations of human rights. Father Jorge himself hid refugees in his parish church; once, he disguised a man in his clothing and gave him his personal ID card, so that the man could escape the country.
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As the Jesuit provincial superior at the time, Father Jorge had many clergy under his care. Two of these priests were at one point kidnapped and imprisoned. Initially, Father Jorge was accused of working with the government to do violence to these priests, but evidence eventually surfaced of his efforts to help them and gain their release. While the accusations against him resurfaced upon his election to the papacy, the matter was decisively settled some time ago. Father Jorges time as a priest was not only spent in seminaries and graduate school but also with the poorest of the poor. He often spent time in Buenos Aires villasthe slum neighborhoods. Filled with crime, poverty, drug abuse, and unemployment, the villas are places where even ambulances will not go. But Father Jorge would often spend Sundays and holidays here, inviting his fellow priests to work in the slums along with him. He eventually gathered more than twenty priests to work in the villas. While working with the poor, he continued his teaching and academic pursuits. After seven years of service as the provincial superior, he became a rector of a seminary and continued working on advanced theological degrees.

Bishop Bergoglio
In 1992, Father Jorge was named the auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires. Just as in his career as a priest, Bishop
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Bergoglio quickly gained assignments with increased responsibility. In 1997, he was named coadjutor archbishop of Buenos Aires and took over the position on his own in 1998. In 2001, he was named cardinal by Blessed John Paul II. In 2005, he was elected by his fellow Argentinian bishops as the president of the Argentinian Bishops Conference. In 2005, he was rumored to be the only other potential candidate during the conclave that elected Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger as pope. In 2008, he was re-elected by his peers as the president of the Argentinian Bishops Conference. But even with the increased honors and responsibilities, his time as bishop was marked by its simplicity. Rather than living in the spacious quarters of the previous bishop, Archbishop Bergoglio chose to live in a simple apartment. During his time as cardinal, when he served as a member of several congregations in the Roman Curia (including those on Divine Worship, Clergy, and Latin America), he tried to spend as little time in Rome as possible. He was known for always taking the bus or
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subway rather than having a car and driver. Drawing from his experience cooking for his family as a child, he often made his own meals; when he accepted invitations from his friends to go out for meals, he usually ordered a simple bowl of soup. This dedication to simplicity gave him a reputation as a bishop for the people: He often knew their cares and anxieties, because he conversed and interacted with them on a daily basis. Bergoglios care for the poor continued, and was even augmented, with his appointment as bishop. When some of his brother priests refused to baptize children born out of wedlock, he chastised them, saying they were [separating] the people of God from salvation, and that everyone deserved to be treated with the same respect and love. Every Holy Thursday, he would go to the poor of Argentina to celebrate Mass, washing the feet of drug addicts, those infected with HIV, and prisoners. He often encouraged his brother priests to do the same, telling them: Jesus teaches us another way: Go out. Go out and share your testimony, go out and interact with your brothers, go out and share, go out and ask. Become the Word in body as well as spirit. Bishop Bergoglio also worked alongside evangelical Protestants in the evangelization of Argentina. Luis Palau, a Billy Grahamstyle evangelist in Latin America, once remarked on the cardinals devotion to prayer, the poor, youth, and evangelization: While we were at a youth convention on the beach in Argentina we
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stopped and prayed and talked, and I asked him before the convention, Any word of counsel? And he said, Listen, 80 percent of those young people dont know Jesus personally. So give them the Gospel. His time as bishop was also marked by clashes with the Argentinian government, where he was an outspoken voice for the sanctity of marriage and the protection of life from conception to death. While some of these calls were ignored, he continued to be a clear voice for life in a hostile political environment.

Pope Francis
On March 13, 2013, the announcement that Cardinal Bergoglio was now Pope Francis stunned the world. His choice to honor St. Francis of Assisi by taking his namethe first pope in history to do sowas particularly well-received: St. Francis was known for working with the poor, preaching the Gospel, living simply, and reforming the Church in a time of crisis and abuse. When asked why he chose the name, Pope Francis recalled a moment after his election when one of his brother bishops told him not to forget the poor. The reminder struck him, and he later said that he would like a poor Church, and for the poor. From his first moments on the balcony of St. Peters, Pope Francis impressed the world with his simplicity. One of his first orders of business was to personally
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return to his hotel in Rome to pay for his room and collect his belongings. When the cardinals went out for a celebratory dinner after his election, Pope Francis joined them on their bus rather than taking his own papal transportation. He personally called the superior of the Jesuits in Rome to thank him for his letter of support; later, he phoned Argentina to cancel his dentist appointments and his newspaper subscription. Sticking with the theme of humility and simplicity, Pope Francis kept his episcopal motto when he became pope: lowly, but chosen. His papal crest bears important symbols representing his Jesuit heritage and devotion to the Holy Family: In the middle of the crest is the Jesuit seala sun with the letters IHS, which stands for the Latin Iesus Hominum Salvator (Jesus, savior of man). On the bottom left, the star represents Mary, the Mother of Christ and the Church. On the bottom right, the nard flower represents St. Joseph, Patron of the universal Church. At the bottom of the crest is his Papal motto: miserando atque eligendo (lowly, but chosen).

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The Future
Pope Francis is sure to face many challenges during his papacy: the Churchs loss of credibility over the abuse scandal , the rise of secularism in the Western world, converts to Protestantism in South America, and strong opposition from Islam, to name only a few. The world looks to the pope for guidance on all these issues, while expecting him to travel the world and make himself ever more available through social media. Pope Francis has responded to the challenge with a refreshing message of simplicity and humilitya message that has resounded across the globe. With the eyes of the world upon him, may God bless His humble servant Pope Francis as he seeks to spread the Gospel to the physically and spiritually poor throughout the world!
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Bibliography
Books Pope to the Poor: The Life and Times of Pope Francis (Jorge Mario Bergoglio) by Paul Brody News Articles http://world.time.com/2013/03/13/pope-of-theamericas/2/ http://www.relevantmagazine.com/current/global/ what-new-pope-means-evangelicals h t t p : / / w w w. c h r i s t i a n p o s t . c o m / n e w s / p o p e s commitment-to-the-poor-a-model-forevangelicals-92183/ http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/popefrancis-biography-key-facts-life-in-latin-america-andbackground-88818.html#ixzz2OZspek6p http://news.sky.com/story/1065708/pope-francisfond-memories-in-the-slums h t t p : / / w w w. p at h eo s .c o m / b l o g s / publiccatholic/2013/03/pope-keeps-motto-inspiredby-his-call-to-the-priesthood/

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http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/francis-jesuitsand-dirty-war http://theweek.com/article/index/241442/everythingyou-need-to-know-about-pope-francis-and-argentinasdirty-war#

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