6 key things everyone should know about Pope Francis

From the trivial to the rote to the merely fascinating, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina has an interesting past

Pope Francis, 76, was ordained as a priest when he was almost 33.
(Image credit: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

Minutes after Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran took to the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica on Wednesday to announce "Habemus papam," everybody knew three things about the new Roman Catholic pontiff: Pope Francis is from Argentina, he's a Jesuit, and he has a reputation for humility — as archbishop of Buenos Aires, he lived in a simple apartment instead of the archbishop's palace, cooked his own meals, and rode public transportation to work instead of taking a chauffeured limousine.

If you dig a little deeper you'll find that Pope Francis doesn't fit in today's ideological boxes (which is probably why politicians of all stripes had nice things to say about him) — he is firmly against gay marriage, adoption by gay couples, abortion, and most use of contraception, but also against fiscal austerity and uninhibited free markets, and he has both washed and kissed the feet of AIDS patients and chastised priests in his archdiocese for refusing to baptize babies born out of wedlock.

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.