When the cardinals voted to elect Jorge Mario Bergoglio as the 265th successor of St. Peter on the evening of March 13, 2013, few of them imagined what kind of pope he would be. They surprised the world by electing the first Latin American and first-ever Jesuit pope. But the 76-year-old archbishop of Buenos Aires surprised them in even bigger ways from the moment of his election by choosing a name no previous pope had dared to take—Francis. He continued to surprise them right up to the very end of his 13-year pontificate.
His death on April 21, 2025, concluded a momentous and at times turbulent papacy that both supporters and detractors of the pontiff would agree has changed the church in significant ways.
Here is a link to the rest of this long article by Gerard O’Connell
