Pope Francis

Pope Francis

Pope Francis (Latin: Franciscus; Italian: Francesco; Spanish: Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on 17 December 1936) is the head of the Catholic Church, the bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State. Francis is the first pope to be a member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), the first from the Americas, the first from the Southern Hemisphere, and the first pope from outside Europe since the 8th century papacy of Syrian pope Gregory III. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Bergoglio worked for a time as a bouncer and a janitor as a young man before training to be a chemist and working as a technician in a food science laboratory. After recovering from a severe illness of pneumonia and cysts, he was inspired to join the Jesuits in 1958. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Pope Francis has received more than 27,393,728 page views. His biography is available in 155 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 153 in 2019). Pope Francis is the 7th most popular religious figure (up from 9th in 2019), the 2nd most popular biography from Argentina and the most popular Argentinean Religious Figure.

Pope Francis is most famous for being the first non-European pope in over 1,200 years. He is also famous for his simple lifestyle and his focus on social justice and environmentalism.