Pope Francis

About Him

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born on the 17 december 1936 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
He studied and received a master’s degree in chemistry at the University of Buenos Aires, but later decided to become a Jesuit priest and studied at the Jesuit seminary of Villa Devoto.
He studied liberal arts in Santiago, Chile, and in 1960 earned a degree in philosophy from the Catholic University of Buenos Aires.In 1964 and 1965 he was  teacher of literature and psychology at Inmaculada high school in the province of Santa Fe, and in 1966 he teach the same courses at the religious College of Salvador in Bueno Aires.


He was set as a priest in argentina in the year 1969, and served as head of the society of jesus in argentina from 1973 to 1979. On June 3, 1997, He was installed as the new archbishop of Buenos Aires and in 2001 he was set as the cardinal of Argentina. After the resignation of pope benedict XVI, he was choseen as the new pope of the roman catholic church elected on 13 march 2013,and choose the name of francis in honour of saint francis of assisi.



(Tais Ferreyros)

Problems inside the Church

The Vatileaks scandal

Last January, information was leaked to Italian reporters about sex scandals within the church. It is said by the Vatican that the person who leaked this information was the Pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, therefore, he was arrested.  The information passed along were private documents from the Pope Benedict XVI about the corruption within the church, including homosexual activities, involvement with prostitution and blackmail. It is believed that this is the reason why he has abandoned his stand as the Pope. It is the first pope in the 6 previous centuries who has resigned.

Pedophilia / Child Molesters

November 13, 2011 Pope Benedict XVI claimed that pedophilia wasn’t wrong at all, that it wasn’t considered an evil act and also that child pornography was even more close to become totally normal by society.  These words from the Pope bring humiliation to the church and to the Catholics. ‘’Catholics should be embarrassed to hear their Pope talk again and again about abuse while doing little or nothing to stop it and to mischaracterize this heinous crisis’’ , said Barbara Blane, head of SNAP. This is an example of the comments people said. It makes sense because the Pope instead of help and solve this serious problem, he is supporting it in someway.

Now that Pope Benedict XVI has left the church and Pope Francis is the new head elected, he must face these problems and try to solve them. Now the church has a lot of disputes such as these two between lots more. Pope Francis has to bring the church up again and change the reputation Benedict has left and try the best to avoid pedophilia, sex abuse, gay marriage and others. Thought, it’s been difficult for the previous popes to avoid these because they haven’t reached to make any changes. 

(GABRIELA BRAIN)


What is the problem of the relations between Pope Francis and Jorge Rafael Videla?

Jorge Rafael Videla is an 87 year old Argentina who led the Argentina military dictatorship from 1976 to 1981.

There have been accusations in which they criticize Pope Francis of being too close to Videla.The problem here is that they are accusing Pope Francis of not doing enough during Argentina`s Dirty War. (1976-1983)

They believe he failed to protect the priests who challenged Jorge Rafael Videla's dictatorship. 

Pope Francis is algo being accused of not helping Jesuit priests who were kidnapped and later killed in 1976.

(ISABELLA RIVERA)

What is the relationship between Pope Francis 
and the Argentina president Cristina Fernandez?

Before Francis was elected as Pope, they didn’t have a fluid relation, because Pope Francis critized the poverty growth and corruption in Argentina which made the recently deceased president Nestor Kirchner become really angry because he thought that when pope Francis was saying that, he would be sending different perspectives of how Argentina was dealing and by saying those comments, he made Argentina look like it was decaying and was becoming weaker and weaker. The relationship was so tense, that Fernandez used to avoid any contact with Bergoglio. Even though this relation caused a lot of drama, immediately after Bergoglio was chosen Pope, Fernandez requested a meeting in order to share the happiness about the fact that for the first time a roman bishop is a Latin-American.

(Paula van Ginhoven)