By Our Reporter
It has been announced this morning that Pope Francis has passed away at age 88. The pontiff had been facing ill health, and had previously been hospitalised in Rome last month due to a bout of bronchitis, with his condition worsening due to a “complex clinical situation”.
Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Camerlengo of the Apostolic Chamber, announced the death of Pope Francis from the Casa Santa Marta with a statement that read: “Dearest brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis. At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father.
But before he climbed the ranks of the Vatican, Francis had a series of odd jobs, and was even a nightclub bouncer in Argentina in his youth. So, how exactly did he get from working in nightlife to leading the Catholic Church?
In 2013, the late Pope revealed he was once a club bouncer in his birth city of Buenos Aires while on a visit to a church in a working class suburb in Rome.
While he did not go into details of the early days of his career, he also shared that he had swept floors and worked in a laboratory as a teen, Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano reported at the time.
Many years before he became known as the “People’s Pope,” Francis (then called Jorge Bergoglio) was a typical young man trying to support himself in Buenos Aires, according to Fact Brainiac.
Born in 1936, he didn’t grow up with much money and needed to work odd jobs to get by, which may explain why Francis become such an advocate for the poor in his days as Pope.
Francis said he discovered his calling to the clergy after confession with a priest he had never met before. He also previously spoke of his work later in life, where he taught literature and psychology, which he said taught him how to turn people back to the Church.
He was named Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires in 1992 and then became Archbishop. Pope John Paul II made him a cardinal in 2001 and he took up posts in the Church’s civil service, which is called the Curia.
He went on to succeed Pope Benedict XVI in 2013, who had retired. Francis was already in his seventies when he was voted pope, and he will be remembered as the ‘People’s Pope’ for his love and kindness for the poor but also has left most Africans cursing because of his support for homosexuality.
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