Pope Francis was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Dec. 17, 1936. He is well known for his devotion to the poor and his progressive views. Bergoglio joined the Society of Jesus in 1958. He was named the archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and was created a cardinal in 2001. In 2013 he was elected pope, becoming the first Jesuit pope in nearly 500 years.
1936 - Pope Francis was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This document is a copy of his baptismal certificate.
Undated - He's pictured here, left, with one of his siblings. Pope Francis was the eldest of five children.
A young Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who would go on to become Pope Francis, in an undated photograph.
In this undated collect photograph (courtesy of the Jesuit General Curia in Rome), a young Jorge Mario Bergoglio (fourth from left, third row) poses for a group picture at his primary school in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Franco Origlia//Getty Images
Circa 1969
He was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1969.
Franco Origlia//Getty Images
Undated - after he was ordained, "he was novice master at Villa Barilari, San Miguel; professor at the Faculty of Theology of San Miguel; consultor to the Province of the Society of Jesus and also Rector of the Colegio Máximo of the Faculty of Philosophy and Theology." - According to his official Vatican biography.
undated - photograph shows a young Pope Francis (then Jorge Bergoglio) with his family. From left to right, standing: his brother Alberto Horacio, Jorge himself, brother Oscar Adrian and sister Marta Regina. Sitting: his sister Maria Elena, mother Regina and father Mario Jose Francisco.
1976 Pope Francis is at center in this photograph with his colleagues.
API//Getty Images
Undated - Jorge Mario Bergoglio (left) attends Mass with the Jesuit superior general Pedro Arrupe (right).
Undated - photograph of Jorge Mario Bergoglio at the pulpit.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio pictured at the the San Lorenzo Futbol Club, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Cardinal Bergoglio takes the subway as he heads to the celebration of the traditional Tedeum mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral. Emiliano Lasalvia//Getty Images 2008
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, second from left, riding the subway in Buenos Aires in 2008. The cardinal, who became Pope Francis in 2013, was known for taking the train.
Pope John Paul II names Jorge Mario Bergoglio as cardinal during a consistory in St. Peter's Square, Feb. 21, 2001, in Vatican City, Vatican.
Franco Origlia/Getty Images
Cardinal Bergoglio kissing a foot during a Holy Thursday service with poor people and people with drug addictions in Buenos Aires in 2008.
2001 -The original caption for this photograph reads: "Beroglio is an Argentinian intellectual Jesuit who is considered as a conservative on doctrinal and spiritual matters."
Circa 2001
At the time, he was one of ten new Cardinals named in Latin America.
Argentina's Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio giving a mass outside San Cayetano church in Buenos Aires, Aug. 7, 2009. Bergoglio, who took the name of Pope Francis, was elected on March 13, 2013 the 266th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.
Natacha Pisarenko/AP Photo
In this Aug. 7, 2009 file photo, Argentina’s Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio gives a Mass outside the San Cayetano church where an Argentine flag hangs behind in Buenos Aires, Argentina. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko, file)
2005 - Cardinal Bergoglio takes part in a holy mass in Buenos Aires following the death of Pope John Paul II.
STF//Getty Images
Bergoglio, pictured here in front of the Basilica of Lujan in Argentina. 2008
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2013 Argentina's Jorge Mario Bergoglio,
was elected pope following the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI. Here, Pope Francis appears for the first time on the central balcony of St Peter's Basilica.
Peter Macdiarmid//Getty Images
Newly elected Pope Francis I, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, leads Mass with cardinals at the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican, March 14, 2013, in Rome. In his first public Mass, Pope Francis urged the Catholic Church to stick to its Gospel roots and shun modern temptations, warning that it would become just another charitable group if it forgot its true mission.
Osservatore Romano/Reuters
Pope Francis walks past the alter in front of St Peter's Basilica in St Peter's Square after his inauguration Mass at the Vatican on March 19, 2013. [Gregorio Borgia/AP Photo]
Pope Francis speaks during his "Urbi et Orbi" (To the City and the World) address from a balcony in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, March 31, 2013, in Rome.
Osservatore Romano/Reuters
Pope Francis holds the pastoral staff as he leaves after celebrating a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, at the Vatican, to mark Epiphany, Monday, Jan. 6, 2014. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, file)
Pope Francis arrives to meet with Sheik Ahmed el-Tayyib, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque, at the al-Azhar Headquarters, in Cairo, Egypt, on April 28, 2017. Pope Francis came to Egypt for a...Show More
Nariman El-Mofty/AP Photo
Members of Congress welcomed Francis to the Speaker’s Balcony of the U.S. Capitol in 2015
Pope Francis greets a child as he walks in procession at the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe before celebrating Mass in Mexico City, Feb. 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)
Pope Francis wears a traditional Mexican sombrero hat he received as a gift by a Mexican journalist aboard the plane during the flight from Rome to Habana, Cuba, on his way to a week-long trip to Mexico, Friday, Feb. 12, 2016. (Alessandro Di Meo/Pool Photo via AP, File)
Pope Francis drinks from a mate gourd at the end of his weekly general audience, in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, on April 6, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, file)
Handheld candles burn in the background as Pope Francis touches the figure representing Our Lady of Fatima during his visit to the Chapel of the Apparitions at the Shrine of Fatima, in Fatima, Portugal, on May 12, 2017 Patricia De Melo Moreira / AFP / Getty
Pope Francis prays at Israel’s separation barrier on his way to a mass in Manger Square next to the Church of the Nativity, traditionally believed to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Sunday, May 25, 2014. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, file)
Pope Francis prays as he holds an envelope before placing it in on of the cracks between the stones of the Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray, in the old city of Jerusalem, Israel, Monday, May 26, 2014. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, Pool, file)
Pope Francis greets a group of Mexican pilgrims in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican during his weekly general audience, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2019. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)
Embracing Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI at the Vatican in 2017. Francis tried to bring order to the Vatican, an institution that was troubled with power struggles and shocked by Benedict’s resignation in 2013.
Celebrating Good Friday from an empty St. Peter’s Square in 2020, as much of the world imposed social-distancing measures to stop the spread of Covid-19.
Pope Francis, white figure standing alone at center, delivers an Urbi et orbi prayer from the empty St. Peter’s Square, at the Vatican, Friday, March 27, 2020. (Yara Nardi/Pool Photo via AP, File)
Pope Francis speaks with the crew aboard the International Space Station from the Vatican, on October 26, 2017. #
L'Osservatore Romano / AP
Pope Francis walks through the gate of the former Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz in Oswiecim, Poland, Friday, July 29, 2016. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, file)
Pope Francis waves as he rides through Central Park in the popemobile, on Sept. 25, 2015, in New York City. The pope was in New York for a two-day visit, speaking earlier at the United Nations G...Show More
Carl Court/Getty Images
Celebrating the funeral Mass for Benedict XVI in St. Peter’s Square in 2023.
A moment of reflection in 2022 at a cemetery where children from residential schools were buried in Maskwacis, Canada. Francis continued to travel in his later years even as knee problems and sciatica led him to use a cane and then a wheelchair.
Pope Francis and Scholas Occurrentes’ President Jose Maria Del Corral, left, look at Newell’s Old Boys captain, Argentine midfielder Maxi Rodriguez juggling a soccer ball at the launch of the ‘Scholas Occurrentes’ (Latin for, schools of meeting) international educational movement at the pontifical Urbaniana University in Rome, Thursday, May 19, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Pope Francis hugs a child refugee from Ukraine as he presides over "The Cortile dei Bambini" (The Children's Courtyard) encounter with children coming from all over Italy, June 4, 2022, at San...Show More
Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty Images
Pope Francis, centre, sits as the coffin of late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI St. Peter’s Square is carrying during a funeral mass at the Vatican, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, file)
2024 Francis smiles with nuns during his weekly audience at the Paul VI Hall in Vatican City. Vatican Pool//Getty Images
Pope Francis tries to catch his cap as wind blows it away while arriving for his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Wednesday, March 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)
A seagull flies in front of Pope Francis as he speaks to the faithful gathered under pouring rain in St. Peter’s Square at The Vatican for the traditional Sunday’s noon blessing after the Angelus prayer, Sunday, June 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, file)
Pope Francis consoles Serena Subania, who lost her daughter, 5-year-old Angelica, the day before, as he leaves the Agostino Gemelli University Hospital in Rome, on April 1, 2023, after receiving treatment for bronchitis
Pope Francis waves to the faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square during his Sunday Angelus blessing on World Youth Day on November 24, 2024, in Vatican City.
Vatican Media / Getty
Visiting a school near Vanimo, Papua New Guinea, in 2024. The Asia-Pacific trip, an 11-day tour, was the longest and most complicated of his tenure.
Pope Francis gestures as he attends an annual gathering of pro-family organisations at the Auditorium della Conciliazione, in Rome, Friday, May 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)
Pope Francis is presented with a cake by Valentina Alazraki, correspondent for TeleVisa Univision, to celebrate his upcoming Dec. 17, 88th birthday, on the flight back to
Francis sits with nuns at his weekly general audience at the Vatican on February 5, 2025. [Remo Casilli/Reuters]
2025 His last public appearance before his hospitalization was the weekly general audience in the Vatican, on February 12, 2025. NurPhoto//Getty Images
Pope Francis arrives in a wheelchair at the end of a mass in St. Peter’s Square, part of the Jubilee of the sick and the health workers, at the Vatican, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, file)
Pope Francis waves to the crowd from the popemobile after the Easter mass, at St Peter's square in the Vatican on April 20, 2025. [Andreas Solaro/AFP]
April 20 2025 Pope Francis was pictrued at the main balcony of St. Peter's basilica for the Urbi et Orbi message and blessing to the city and the world as part of Easter celebrations, a day before he passed away. ANDREAS SOLARO//Getty Images
Pope Francis' body is seen in a coffin in the chapel of the Santa Marta residence at the Vatican, where the late pontiff resided and then died at the age of 88, on April 21, 2025.Handout/Vatican News service
Cardinals pay their respects to Pope Francis inside St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, where his body will lie in state for three days, April 23, 2025.ANDREW MEDICHINI/POOL/AFP/Getty