Pope Francis

 Since 2013, Pope Francis, born Jorge Bergoglio, has served as the head of the Catholic Church and the ruler of the Vatican City State. Francis is the first pope from the Americas, the first from the Southern Hemisphere, and the first since Gregory III, a Syrian who ruled in the eighth century, to be a member of the Society of Jesus.

Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and as a young man worked as a bouncer and janitor before studying chemistry and working as a technician in a food science laboratory. He was motivated to join the Society of Jesus in 1958 after recuperating from a serious illness. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1969 and served as the Jesuit provincial superior in Argentina from 1973 until 1979. In 1998, he was named Archbishop of Buenos Aires, and Pope John Paul II made him a cardinal in 2001. During the Argentine riots in December 2001, he headed the Argentine Church. Néstor Kirchner's and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's governments saw him as a political adversary. Following Pope Benedict XVI's retirement on February 28, 2013, a papal conclave chose Bergoglio as his successor on March 13, 2013. In honor of Saint Francis of Assisi, he selected Francis as his papal name. Francis has been praised for his humility, focus on God's compassion, worldwide presence as Pope, care for the poor, and dedication to interreligious dialogue throughout his public life. He is said to have taken a less formal approach to the papacy than his predecessors, opting to live at the Domus Sanctae Marthae guesthouse rather than the papal apartments of the Apostolic Palace, as previous popes had done.