Long before he became Pope Francis—the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas, and the first to take the name of the saint of the poor—he was Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a boy from a working-class neighborhood in Buenos Aires whose early life was steeped in faith, family, and simplicity. His journey from Argentina to the heart of the Catholic Church is one of quiet determination, intellectual depth, and spiritual sensitivity. Understanding his childhood and early formation helps to reveal the roots of the papacy that would go on to reshape the Church in the 21st century.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born on December 17, 1936, in Flores, a modest neighborhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was the eldest of five children born to Mario José Bergoglio, an Italian immigrant railway worker, and Regina María Sívori, a homemaker of Italian descent. The family was devoutly Catholic and culturally conservative, steeped in traditional values with a strong work ethic. Bergoglio’s upbringing in a close-knit, faith-filled home left a profound impact on his worldview—one grounded in humility, service, and compassion.
To support his family during tough financial times, Bergoglio took on several odd jobs in his youth—experiences he has often described as formative to his understanding of dignity, service, and humility. He worked as a janitor, mopping floors and cleaning buildings; as a laboratory technician in a chemical lab, using his technical training from secondary school; and, most memorably, he worked at a bar in Buenos Aires as a bouncer to help make ends meet. These gritty jobs weren’t just resume footnotes, they were encounters with everyday life, where he witnessed firsthand the struggles of workers, the desperation of the marginalized, and the strength of ordinary people.
Later in life, Pope Francis would reflect on these jobs not as detours, but as necessary steps on the path to spiritual leadership. In one of his early interviews as pope, he said, “Working those jobs taught me the value of hard work, the dignity of labor, and how to listen before speaking.” The bar where he bounced wasn’t just a source of income—it was where he began to understand human complexity, to notice the wounds people carry, and to develop a pastor’s heart long before he ever wore a cassock.
Despite his early involvement in technical work—earning a diploma in chemistry and working in food science—Bergoglio’s calling to religious life intensified after a life-threatening lung infection at the age of 21, which led to the removal of part of his right lung. During his prolonged recovery, he experienced a profound spiritual awakening, one that redirected his life from science to service. This brush with mortality, he later said, helped him focus on what truly mattered: “God looked at me with mercy. That is what I have experienced, and that is what I want to share.”
In 1958, he joined the Society of Jesus, drawn by the Jesuits’ intellectual rigor, missionary spirit, and vow of poverty. His Jesuit formation included years of study in philosophy and theology, and time spent teaching literature and psychology—another nod to his love for both intellectual depth and human connection. By the time he was ordained in 1969, Bergoglio was not only a priest but a spiritual guide forged by manual labor, illness, intellectual rigor, and the daily messiness of life.
His lived experience made him a different kind of leader. In 1973, at the age of 36, he became Provincial Superior of the Jesuits in Argentina during a time of political terror and upheaval. His leadership style—reserved, cautious, yet intensely protective of the vulnerable—reflected someone who had learned early to navigate conflict not with force, but with presence and listening.
Those odd jobs, those quiet years of helping his family, cleaning floors, and bouncing unruly patrons out of bars, became the lens through which he would later read the Gospel. He brought this lens with him all the way to Rome, where he began his papacy by asking the crowd to pray for him before offering his blessing.
Through these early experiences—his childhood in a modest home, his battle with illness, his intellectual formation, and his spiritual journey with the Jesuits—Jorge Mario Bergoglio laid the foundation for a life of radical humility and global impact. It was these formative years that prepared him to later become the "Pope of the Poor," the reformer of the Vatican, and the voice of conscience for a world in need of mercy and justice.
From the backstreets of Buenos Aires to the heights of the Holy See, the early life of Pope Francis is not just a biography—it’s a testimony to how grace, grit, and faith can reshape not just a man, but the Church he came to lead.
