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He became the first pope from the Americas and the Southern Hemisphere, and the first non-European pope since Syrian-born Pope Gregory III in 741.
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His public statements include strong opposition to the death penalty.
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Time magazine named him Person of the Year for 2013.
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He used the word genocide to describe the mass killing of Armenians under Ottoman rule during World War I.
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Time magazine included him in its 100 Most Influential People list in April 2014.
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A polyglot, his native language is Spanish; he spoke Italian, Piedmontese, English, German, Portuguese, French, Ukrainian, and Latin.
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He publicly advocated for environmental measures to combat climate change.
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Elected pope on March 13, 2013 to succeed Pope Benedict XVI who had resigned earlier that year.
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In November 2014, the Vatican hosted an interfaith colloquium on the complementarity of man and woman; in his opening remarks, Pope Francis stated that the decline of the culture of marriage is associated with increased poverty and social ills affecting women, children and the elderly.
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In 2014, he reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s conservative approach by endorsing the Vatican’s criticism of U.S. nuns who were accused of promoting radical feminist themes and ignoring church teachings on same-sex marriage and abortion.
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He excommunicated Father Greg Reynolds of Melbourne, Australia in 2013 for backing women’s ordination and gay marriage.
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Cardinal Blase J. Cupich penned an homage to him in Time’s 100 Most Influential People issue.
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13
In July 2010, then-Cardinal Bergoglio asked Carmelite nuns to pray against a gay marriage bill, calling it an attempt to destroy God’s plan and a move of the Father of Lies.
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During his 2018 visit to Chile, he quoted a few lines from the song Aquรญ by Chilean rock band La Ley.
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He was the first pope since the fifteenth century to succeed an abdicated pontiff since Martin V succeeded Gregory XII in 1417.
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He was the first pope to choose an unused regnal name in over a millennium; the previous was Pope Lando who died in 914.
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He was a vocal critic of capitalism and spoke in favor of wealth redistribution.
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He was the first non-European Pope since Gregory III in 741.
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He was the first Pope from either American continent.
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He denied rumors of abdication, fearing that two consecutive resignations could threaten the papal throne.
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In January 2023, he became the first reigning pope to attend the funeral of a pope emeritus since Pope Boniface VIII attended Pope Emeritus Celestine V’s in 1296.
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He called for a global ban on parenting via surrogacy, calling the practice deplorable and a grave violation of dignity.
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He met with Argentine President Javier Milei in a private audience in 2024, exchanging gifts including dulce de leche and lemon biscuits.
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The Vatican published the declaration Dignitas Infinita in 2024, affirming inherent human dignity and listing assaults such as abortion, surrogacy, euthanasia, and capital punishment.
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During his papacy, the Vatican rejected gender fluidity and declared sex change a threat to human dignity.
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He worked for several years as a chemical technician in the food section of Hickethier-Bachmann Laboratory.
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He once worked as a janitor.
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He was the oldest of five children.
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He used to work as a bouncer at a night club.
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30
At age 21, after life-threatening pneumonia and three cysts, he had part of a lung excised.