Francis
Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, a Jesuit, elected pope on 13 March 2013 after the resignation of Benedict XVI. The Holy See’s biography calls him the first pope to come from the Americas. He died on 21 April 2025.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires on 17 December 1936, the son of immigrants from Piedmont (Holy See, Biography of Pope Francis). He entered the Society of Jesus in 1958, was ordained a priest in 1969, and became archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and a cardinal in 2001 (Holy See, Biography of Pope Francis). The conclave elected him pope on 13 March 2013, and he took the name Francis after Francis of Assisi; the Holy See’s biography calls him the first pope to come from the Americas (Holy See, Biography of Pope Francis). On the evening of his election he asked the crowd to pray for him before he blessed them (Francis, First Greeting (13 March 2013)); see Benedict XVI Resigns and Francis Is Elected.
In Evangelii gaudium he asked for a church turned towards mission and spoke of a “conversion of the papacy” (Francis, Evangelii gaudium 27, 32). In 2016 he met Patriarch Kirill of Moscow at Havana (Joint Declaration of Francis and Kirill (Havana, 2016) 1) and signed a joint statement with the Lutheran World Federation’s president at Lund (Lutheran World Federation, report of the Lund commemoration (1 November 2016)); see Catholics and Lutherans Mark 500 Years of the Reformation Together. In 2019 he made it a duty for clerics and religious to report sexual abuse and set a procedure for investigating bishops (Francis, Vos estis lux mundi arts. 1, 3, 6); see the Clergy Sexual Abuse Crisis.
He died in the Vatican on Easter Monday, 21 April 2025 (Holy See, Biography of Pope Francis). See Leo XIV, the First Pope from the United States for the election of his successor, Leo XIV.
In the timeline
- 6 January 2002, firm dateThe Clergy Sexual Abuse Crisis
From January 2002, reports from Boston and then official inquiries in the United States, Ireland and Australia document the sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy and its concealment by church authorities. Popes change church law. Reports on other churches follow.
- 11 February 2013, firm dateBenedict XVI Resigns and Francis Is Elected
Benedict XVI tells the cardinals that his strength is no longer equal to the office and renounces it from 28 February 2013. On 13 March the conclave elects Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, a Jesuit, who takes the name Francis.
- 15 February 2015, firm dateThe Twenty-One Martyrs of Libya
In February 2015 twenty-one Christian workers, twenty Egyptian Copts and one man from Ghana, are beheaded on the coast of Libya. The Coptic Orthodox Church enters them in its Synaxarium within a week, and in 2023 Pope Francis announces their inclusion in the Roman Martyrology.
- 31 October 2016, firm dateCatholics and Lutherans Mark 500 Years of the Reformation Together
Pope Francis and the leaders of the Lutheran World Federation open the five-hundredth anniversary year of the Reformation with a common prayer in Lund Cathedral, and sign a statement of thanks, repentance and commitment to common witness.
- 8 May 2025, firm dateLeo XIV, the First Pope from the United States
After the death of Pope Francis on Easter Monday 2025 the cardinals elect Robert Francis Prevost, an Augustinian friar born in Chicago who had been a missionary and bishop in Peru. He takes the name Leo XIV.