Posted on 03/13/2013 2:51:09 PM PDT by Morgana
March 13, 2013 (ActonInstitute) - Early today, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina was elected as the 266th pope of the Catholic Church. Here are nine things you should know about Pope Francis.
1. Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires in 1936. His father was an Italian immigrant
2. Hes the first pope from South America. The only remaining continents that have never had a pope come from their lands are Australia, Antarctica, and North America.
3. Hes the first Jesuit pope.
4. He only has one lung. His other lung was removed due to infection when he was a teenager
5. Bergoglio is known for his personal simplicity. In Argentina he lived in a simple apartment rather than the archbishops palace, cooked his own meals, and gave up his chauffeured limousine in favor of taking the bus to work.
6. In 2010, when Argentina became the first Latin American country to legalize same-sex marriage, Bergoglio encouraged clergy across the country to tell Catholics to protest against the legislation because, if enacted, it could seriously injure the family and that gay adoption would be depriving (children) of the human growth that God wanted them given by a father and a mother.
7. He studied and received a masters degree in chemistry at the University of Buenos Aires, but later decided to become a Jesuit priest and studied liberal arts at the Catholic seminary in Santiago, Chile.
8. At the age of 76, Francis is the ninth oldest pope of those elected after 1295. (Benedict, who was elected at the age of 78, was fifth oldest.)
9. Last year, Bergoglio compared Catholic priests who refused to baptize the children of unwed mothers to the Pharisees of Jesus day. These are todays hypocrites. Those who clericalize the Church, he said, adding, 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.
There was an Asian pope?
Pray for the new Pope
Why do I keep hearing there’s never been a pope from Africa?
An evangelizer, most likely one of the reasons he was elected.
How does he square with the St Malachy prophecy one might wonder.
There was an Asian pope?
Probably from Antioch or Alexandria in the early days of the Church.
As another FR poster pointed out, Peter was the first Pope. He was from Judea (modern Israel). Technically the M.E. is part of the Asian continent
Much of Russia and its ancient provinces are in Asia.
Well for starters, the first pope was from Asia.
Pope St Gregory III was the last Asian pope, from Syria. (I guess that counts as part of Asia, I’m always a little confused about the Middle East.)
Quite a few early Popes were from Syria and a couple from Jerusalem, if I recall.
Because, according to the media, if you are not from sub-Saharan Africa, you’re not African.
Ah, okay. I guess that counts.
Is he supposed to?
He’s the first pope since 897 with a completely new name never used before (since John Paul I was honoring two recent popes, John XXIII and Paul VI).
well, he’s a pope, so that’s like Peter, and the Vatican’s in Rome, so... ahh, Malachy just put that in there because he was a wise guy.
This is really unfair to the indigenous people of Antarctica. They are a gentle folk who have never gone to war.
“This is really unfair to the indigenous people of Antarctica. They are a gentle folk who have never gone to war.”
That’s because they are penguins.
Thats because they are penguins.
Don’t hate!
;-)
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