Did you know Pope Francis was a nightclub bouncer, his favorite movie is “La Strada” by Federico Fellini, and that he doesn’t watch television? On the occasion of his 88th birthday, these and other interesting facts about Pope Francis are highlighted below.

1. How did he discover his vocation?

On the feast of St. Matthew the Apostle, Pope Francis discovered his vocation to the priesthood after going to confession when he was 16 years old. It happened on Sept. 21, 1953. It was Student Day in Argentina, which coincides with the day when spring begins in the southern hemisphere and is celebrated with a big party.

“Before going to the party, I passed by the parish I attended and I found a priest I didn’t know and I felt the need to go to confession. This was for me an experience of encounter: I found Someone who was waiting for me.”

“I don’t know what happened, I don’t remember, I don’t know why that priest was there, whom I didn’t know, why I had felt that desire to go to confession, but the truth is that Someone was waiting for me. He had been waiting for me for a long time. After confession I felt that something had changed,” the Holy Father shared.

He said that after that confession he said that he was no longer himself: “I had heard something like a voice, a call: I was convinced that I had to be a priest.”

2. What is his favorite dish?

Nov. 19, 2022, was one of those rare occasions when Pope Francis left the Vatican without an official program. The reason? A family reunion in Asti, the Italian city where his cousin Daniela di Tiglione lives, who was celebrating her 90th birthday.

On that occasion, Pope Francis was able to enjoy his favorite dish: Bagna Cauda, ​​a typical Piedmont dish prepared with anchovies, oil, and garlic and used as a sauce for vegetables.

3. A passion for tango

Before being ordained a priest, especially during his youth, Pope Francis enjoyed tango, one of the most emblematic dances of Argentina. He also liked the milonga, another typical dance from his homeland.

4. He was a bouncer in a nightclub

Like any young man, Jorge Bergoglio worked various jobs to earn his first salary. Although his first job was scrubbing the floors of the hosiery company where his father worked, in 2013 he confessed to a group of young people that he was also a bouncer at a nightclub. Thanks to that experience, he began “to guide the disillusioned to the Church.”

5. He’s missing a lung

When he was 21, he had to have a lung removed due to an infection, which has caused him to suffer from some breathing difficulties in recent years.

6. He has refused forgiveness only once

On more than one occasion, Pope Francis has encouraged priests to forgive “everything” in the confessional and to “not torture” the faithful in the confessional.

During an interview on Italian television in January, he stated that in his more than 50 years as a priest he has refused forgiveness only once, “because of the hypocrisy of the person.”

7. The prayer he says every day to keep his good humor

On several occasions, Pope Francis has praised a good sense of humor and stressed that sadness is not a Christian disposition. He has even gone so far as to say that the “hallmark of a Christian” is joy and not being a sourpuss.

To be good-humored, he says a prayer from St. Thomas More every day, a prayer he has referred to in numerous public appearances, most recently with the president of France, Emmanuel Macron.

“Lord, give me a sense of humor. Grant me the grace to understand a joke, to discover in life a bit of joy, and be able to share it with others,” the Holy Father prays every day.

8. St. Joseph, his help in difficulties

There is an image of St. Joseph that Pope Francis is very fond of that shows the “silent” saint  lying down asleep.

During his apostolic trip to the Philippines, the pontiff referred to St. Joseph as “a strong man of silence” and said that he keeps this figurine on his desk. “Even when he sleeps, he takes care of the Church,” he said.

“When I have a problem, a difficulty, I write a little note and put it under St. Joseph so that he can dream about it. In other words, I tell him: Pray for this problem!” the Holy Father confessed.

9. Pope Francis favors taking a daily nap

Pope Francis usually goes to bed at 9 p.m. and wakes up around 4 a.m. He sleeps about six hours a day, as he usually reads for an hour after going to bed, until 10 p.m.

“Later I need a nap. I have to sleep for 40 minutes to an hour. I take off my shoes and fall into bed. And I also sleep deeply and wake up alone. On days when I don’t take a nap, I notice it,” he once said.

10. What is his favorite soccer team?

Even though he no longer lives in Argentina, Pope Francis continues to root for the San Lorenzo de Almagro team from Buenos Aires. He keeps up to date thanks to a Swiss Guard who informs him of the team’s news every week, since the pope doesn’t watch the games.

In fact, during an audience at the Vatican in September, a delegation from the San Lorenzo club asked the Holy Father for his blessing to name the club’s next stadium after him.

11. The day his life was saved

At the age of 44, Pope Francis suffered from gangrene of the gallbladder, a serious complication that occurs when the tissue of this organ of the digestive system becomes necrotic due to an interruption of blood flow.

“I felt like I was dying,” said the Holy Father, referring to the night in 1980 when he was operated on by Dr. Juan Carlos Parodi, an eminent Argentine surgeon who saved the life of then-Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio. In 2014, 34 years later, the two held a private meeting in the Vatican.

12. Where does he want to be buried?

Unlike many pontiffs throughout the history of the Church, whose coffins are in the crypts of the Vatican in the grottoes under St. Peter’s Basilica, the Holy Father revealed that he has had his tomb prepared in St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome due to the great devotion he has to the Virgin Salus Populi Romani (protectress of the Roman people), to whom he made a promise.

In addition, in December 2022, the pontiff gave an interview in which he announced that he had signed his resignation in case his health did not allow him to continue exercising his ministry.

13. What is his favorite movie?

“La Strada” by Federico Fellini, winner of the Oscar for best foreign film in 1957.

14. He doesn’t watch television because of a promise to Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Pope Francis says he hasn’t watched television since July 15, 1990, when he promised Our Lady of Mount Carmel that he would no longer do so. The Holy Father made this promise because he “felt that God was asking me to do it.”

15. He went to therapy at age 42

In the book interview “Politics and Society” by Frenchman Dominique Wolton, Pope Francis recounted that, when he was provincial of the Society of Jesus in Argentina, he went to therapy for six months with a Jewish psychologist. “She was very good, very professional,” the Holy Father said.

16. An ‘incognito’ pope on the streets of Rome

In 2013, the year he was elected bishop of Rome, a Vatican source informed the Huffington Post that Pope Francis went out at night dressed as a priest to give alms and help the poor on the streets of Rome.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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