Arms: Azure on a sun in splendour Or the IHS Christogram ensigned with a cross paty fitchy piercing the H Gules all above three nails fanwise points to centre Sable, and in dexter base a mullet of eight points and in sinister base a spikenard flower Or.
Motto: “miserando atque eligendo” (because he saw him through the eyes of mercy and chose him) It is taken from the Venerable Bede’s homily on the Gospel account of the call of Matthew. It holds special meaning for the Pope because—when he was only 17-years-old, after going to confession on the Feast of St. Matthew in 1953—he perceived God’s mercy in his life and felt the call to the priesthood, following the example of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
Pope Francis (Jorge Mario Bergoglio) was born on 17 December 1936 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Ordained a Catholic priest in 1969 and from 1973 to 1979 was the provincial superior of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). He was appointed Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998. H was created a Cardinal in 2001 by Pope John Paul II.
Following the resignation of Benedict XVI on 28 February 2013, a papal conclave was held and Bergoglio was elected as his successor on 13 March 2013. He chose Francis as his papal name in honor of St. Francis of Assisi. He is the first Jesuit pope.
He was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State. He was the first pope from the Society of Jesus (the Jesuit Order), the first from the Americas and the Southern Hemisphere, and the first born or raised outside Europe since the 8th-century Syrian pope Gregory III.
Pope Francis died 7:35 AM local time in Rome Monday, April 21, 2025, at age 88.
He was preceded by Pope Benedict XVI.
The artwork is a rendering by John Hamilton Gaylor.
2025 0421
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