Pope Francis known for his humility, compassion and a reformist approach to leadership

2025 February 24 03:45:34pm: new folder by pao_val

**NO LIBRI** Italy, Rome, Vatican 2024/10/30 Pope Francis holds his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican Photograph by VATICAN MEDIA /Catholic Press Photo RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - NO MARKETING - NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS.. Credit: CPP / ipa-agency.net/PA

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Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, and religious leader for more than one billion people, has died aged 88. He was known for humility, compassion and a reformist approach to leadership, and he was the first Latin American Pontiff.

KEY POINTS

Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on December 17th, 1936 in Argentina, the son of Italian migrants, he survived a life-threatening bout of pneumonia as a 21 year-old. The young Bergoglio earned a diploma in chemistry before studying to become a priest.
He was ordained in the Jesuit order just days before his 33rd birthday and was appointed Archbishop of his home town, Buenos Aires, in 1998. At the age of 76, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was named the 266th head of the Church, taking the name Pope Francis and was dubbed 'the people's pope'.
He went on to implement the most extensive Church reforms in decades, criminalising grooming by priests under Church law and abolishing the secrecy rules that long allowed sexual abuse to go unreported. One of the Pope's greatest passions was also the environment, criticising its human destruction as a sin against God.

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