Argentine Jorge Bergoglio elected Pope Francis

Argentine Jorge Bergoglio has been elected pope. He chose the name Francis.

Pope Francis is the first ever from the Americas, an austere Jesuit intellectual who modernized Argentina’s conservative Catholic church.

Pictured: Looking stunned, Francis shyly waved to the crowd of tens of thousands of people who gathered in St. Peter’s Square.

Read the full biography.

Groups of supporters waved Argentine flags in St. Peter’s Square as Francis, wearing simple white robes, made his first public appearance as pope.
‘‘Ladies and Gentlemen, good evening,’’ he said before making a reference to his roots in Latin America, which accounts for about 40 percent of the world’s Roman Catholics.

Elected on the fifth ballot, Francis was chosen in one of the fastest conclaves in years, remarkable given that there was no clear front-runner going into the vote.

The former Jorge Mario Bergoglio reportedly got the second-most votes after Joseph Ratzinger, the last pope, in the 2005 papal election.

Pictured: Pope Benedict XVI greeted then Archbishop of Buenos Aires Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (right) at the Vatican on Jan. 13, 2007.

Known until elected as a new pope, Jorge Bergoglio,76, is known as a humble man who denied himself the luxuries that previous Buenos Aires cardinals enjoyed.
Bergoglio often rode the bus to work, cooked his own meals, and regularly visited the slums that ring Argentina’s capital. He considers social outreach, rather than doctrinal battles, to be the essential business of the church.

Bergoglio has stood out for his austerity. Even after he became Argentina’s top church official in 2001, he never lived in the ornate church mansion where Pope John Paul II stayed when visiting the country, preferring a simple bed in a downtown building, heated by a small stove on frigid weekends.

He has long specialized in the kind of pastoral work — overseeing churches and priests — that some say is an essential skill for a pope.

Initially trained as a chemist, Bergoglio taught literature, psychology, philosophy and theology before taking over as Buenos Aires archbishop in 1998.

Pictured: In this picture taken in 1973, then priest Jorge Mario Bergoglio, posed for a picture.

Bergoglio became a cardinal in 2001, when the economy was collapsing, and won respect for blaming unrestrained capitalism for impoverishing millions of Argentines.

Bergoglio has slowed a bit with age and is feeling the effects of having a lung removed due to infection when he was a teenager.

Pictured: Jorge Mario Bergoglio (left in back row) posed for a picture with his family.

Like other Jesuit intellectuals, Bergoglio has focused on social outreach. Catholics are still buzzing over his speech last year accusing fellow church officials of hypocrisy for forgetting that Jesus Christ bathed lepers and ate with prostitutes.

Bergoglio’s legacy as cardinal includes his efforts to repair the reputation of a church that lost many followers by failing to openly challenge Argentina’s murderous 1976-83 dictatorship. He also worked to recover the church’s traditional political influence in society, but his outspoken criticism of President Cristina Kirchner couldn’t stop her from imposing socially liberal measures that are anathema to the church, from gay marriage and adoption to free contraceptives for all.

‘‘In our ecclesiastical region there are priests who don’t baptize the children of single mothers because they weren’t conceived in the sanctity of marriage,’’ Bergoglio told his priests. ‘‘These are today’s hypocrites. Those who clericalize the church. Those who separate the people of God from salvation. And this poor girl who, rather than returning the child to sender, had the courage to carry it into the world, must wander from parish to parish so that it’s baptized!’’

His church had no say when the Argentine Supreme Court expanded access to legal abortions in rape cases, and when Bergoglio argued that gay adoptions discriminate against children.