Argentinian Jesuit Jorge Bergoglio New pope Vatican today 03-13-2013 as he's announced as 266th pontiff and chooses the name Francis IPope Francis - the first Jesuit pope - has spent nearly his entire career at home in Argentina.
The former Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 76, reportedly got the second-most votes after Joseph Ratzinger, the last pope, in the 2005 papal election.
He has long specialised in the kind of pastoral work - overseeing churches and priests - that some say is an essential skill for a pope.
In a lifetime of teaching and leading priests in Latin America, which has the largest share of the world's Catholics, the former Bergoglio has shown a keen political sensibility as well as a self-effacing humility, according to his official biographer, Sergio Rubin.
His personal style is the antithesis of Vatican splendor. Bergoglio is also known for modernising an Argentine church that had
been among the most conservative in Latin America.
He chose the name Pope Francis I, after St Francis of Assisi and is the first pope from the Americas and the first from outside Europe in over a thousand years.
He was born in Buenos Aires, one of five children of an Italian railway worker and his wife and was ordained to the priesthood in 1969.
On April 15, 2005, a human rights lawyer filed a criminal complaint against Bergoglio, accusing him of conspiring with the junta in 1976 to kidnap two Jesuit priests, whom he, as superior of the Society of Jesus of Argentina in 1976, had asked to leave their pastoral work following conflict within the Society over how to respond to the new military dictatorship, with some priests advocating a violent overthrow.
Bergoglio's spokesman has flatly denied the allegations. No evidence was presented linking the cardinal to this crime.
Of all the contenders to replace Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires was little mentioned.
The 76-year-old reportedly received the second most votes after Joseph Ratzinger, the last pope, in the 2005 papal election.
And as a representative of South America's Catholics - who make up an estimated 40 per cent of the 1.2 billion strong church, he was widely supported on a massive scale.
He became Pope Francis after a surprisingly quick conclave winning 77 votes, or two-thirds of the 115 cardinals' votes, on the fifth ballot.
His decision to pick the name Francis evokes key Christian tenets such as simplicity and humility.
And they are fitting for a man who, spending nearly his entire career in Argentina, is known for catching the bus and eschewing the luxuries of high office.
His personal style is said to be the antithesis of Vatican splendour.
Pope Francis has been described by commentators as a voice of conscience and a reconciler.
Classed by some as a moderniser of a strict South American church, he is still conservative and an opponent of such ideas as gay marriage.
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