Francis I summary

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Below is the article summary. For the full article, see Francis.

Francis I, original name Jorge Mario Bergoglio, (born December 17, 1936, Buenos Aires, Argentina), Bishop of Rome and leader of the Roman Catholic Church (2013– ) who was the first pope from South America as well as the first from the Jesuit order. He was trained as a chemist but subsequently studied philosophy and theology. He was ordained a priest in 1969, became the head of Argentina’s Jesuit order in 1973, and became archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998. When Benedict XVI resigned from the papacy in 2013 because of age and health concerns, Bergoglio was elected pope and took the name Francis.

Jesuit Summary

Jesuit, member of the Society of Jesus (S.J.), a Roman Catholic order of religious men founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola, noted for its educational, missionary, and charitable works. The order has been regarded by many as the principal agent of the Counter-Reformation and was later a leading force

Roman Catholicism Summary

Roman Catholicism, Christian church that has been the decisive spiritual force in the history of Western civilization. Along with Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism, it is one of the three major branches of Christianity. It is led by the pope, as the bishop of Rome, and the Holy See forms the

Christianity Summary

Christianity, major religion stemming from the life, teachings, and death of Jesus of Nazareth (the Christ, or the Anointed One of God) in the 1st century ce. It has become the largest of the world’s religions and, geographically, the most widely diffused of all faiths. It has a constituency of

archbishop Summary

Archbishop, in the Christian church, a bishop who, in addition to his ordinary episcopal authority in his own diocese, usually has jurisdiction (but no superiority of order) over the other bishops of a province. The functions of an archbishop developed out of those of the metropolitan, a bishop