Pope Francis (; ; ; born
Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 17 December 1936) is the
266th and current
Pope of the
Roman Catholic Church, a
title he holds
ex officio as
Bishop of Rome, and
Sovereign of the
Vatican City. Born in
Buenos Aires,
Argentina, Bergoglio worked briefly as a
chemical technologist and
nightclub bouncer before beginning
seminary studies. He was ordained a
Catholic priest in 1969 and from 1973 to 1979 was Argentina's
provincial superior of the
Society of Jesus. He was accused of handing two priests to the
National Reorganization Process during the
Dirty War, but the lawsuit was ultimately dismissed. He became the
Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and was created a
cardinal in 2001 by
Pope John Paul II. He led the Argentine Church during the
December 2001 riots in Argentina, and the administrations of
Néstor Kirchner and
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner considered him a political rival. Following the
resignation of Pope Benedict XVI on 28 February 2013,
a papal conclave elected Bergoglio as his successor on 13 March. He chose Francis as his
papal name in honor of
Saint Francis of Assisi. Francis is the first
Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas, the first from the
Southern Hemisphere and the first non-European pope since the Syrian
Gregory III in 741.