8+8 curiosities about Pope Francis on his 88th birthday

Did you know that Pope Francis was a nightclub bouncer, he is missing a lung and that his favorite food is a typical Piedmontese dish? We remember some curiosities from the life of Pope Francis on his 88th birthday.

1. How did you discover your vocation?

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

“Before going to the party, I passed by the parish I attended and I met a priest I didn’t know and I felt the need to confess. 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 confess, but the truth is that Someone was waiting for me. He had been waiting for me for a long time. After the Confession I felt that something had changed,” shared the Holy Father.

After that confession he assured that he was no longer himself: “I had heard just like a voice, a call: I was convinced that I had to be a priest.”

2. What is your favorite dish?

November 19, 2022 was one of those rare occasions in which Pope Francis left the Vatican without an official program. The reason? A family reunion in Asti, an 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 Piedmontese dish prepared with anchovies, oil and garlic and used as a sauce for vegetables.

3. His passion for tango

Before being ordained a priest, especially during his youth, Pope Francis enjoyed the tango, the popular dance of Argentina. Although sometimes he preferred the milonga, another typical dance from his homeland.

4. He was a nightclub bouncer

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

5. He is missing a lung

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

6. He has denied forgiveness only once

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

During an interview on Italian television in January 2024, he stated that in his more than 50 years as a priest he has denied forgiveness only once, “because of the hypocrisy of the person.”

7. The prayer you say every day to stay in good spirits

There are several occasions on which Pope Francis has praised a good sense of humor and stressed that sadness is not a Christian attitude. He has even gone so far as to affirm that the “mark of a Christian” is joy and not a “vinegared pepper” face.

For this reason, he prays a prayer of Saint Thomas More every day to preserve his sense of humor, a prayer that he has referred to in numerous public appearances. The last, with the president of France, Emmanuel Macron.

“Give me, Lord, a sense of humor. Grant me the grace to understand jokes, so that I may know a little joy in life and be able to communicate it to others,” the Holy Father prays every day.

8. Saint Joseph, his help in difficulties

There is an image of Saint Joseph for which Pope Francis has great affection. It is a figure in which the “silent” saint appears lying down and asleep.

During his apostolic trip to the Philippines, the Pontiff referred to Saint Joseph as “a strong man of silence” and assured that he keeps this image 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 Saint Joseph so I can dream about it. In other words, I tell you: Pray for this problem!” confessed the Holy Father.

9. Pope Francis takes a nap

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

“Then I need a nap. I have to sleep for 40 minutes to an hour, then I take off my shoes and get into bed. And I also sleep soundly and wake up alone. The days I don’t take a nap, I notice it,” he once said.

10. What is your soccer team?

Although he no longer lives in Argentina, Pope Francis continues to encourage the San Lorenzo de Almagro team, from Buenos Aires. He is kept updated thanks to a Swiss Guard who informs him every week about the team’s news, since the Pontiff does not watch the games.

In fact, during an audience at the Vatican in September 2024, San Lorenzo directors asked the Holy Father for his blessing for the club’s next stadium to be named after him.

11. The day they saved his life

At the age of 44, Pope Francis suffered gallbladder gangrene, 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 Juan Carlos Parodi, an eminent Argentine surgeon who saved the life of then-Fr. Jorge Mario Bergoglio. In 2014, 34 years later, the two held a private meeting in the Vatican.

12. Where do you want to be buried?

Unlike many pontiffs throughout the history of the Church, whose coffins are found in the crypts of the Vatican, in the basement of St. Peter’s Basilica, the Holy Father explained that he has his tomb prepared in the Basilica of St. Mary. the Mayor of Rome, due to the great devotion she has to the Virgin Salvation of the Roman People (protector of the Roman people), to whom she made a promise.

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

13. What is your favorite movie?

“The Road”, by Federico Fellini, oscar winner for best foreign film in 1957.

14. He does not watch television because of a promise to the Virgin of Carmen

Pope Francis assures that he has not watched television since July 15, 1990, when he promised the Virgin of Carmen that he would not do so again. The Holy Father made this promise because “he felt that God asked me for it.”

15. He went to therapy when he was 42 years old

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

16. A Pope “incognito” on the streets of Rome

In 2013, the year in which he was elected Bishop of Rome, a Vatican source informed the newspaper 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.