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Francis, the first pope from the Americas

2013 · Vatican City (Vatican City)

On 13 March 2013 the conclave elects Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, as Francis: the first pope from the Americas, the first from the southern hemisphere, and the first Jesuit pope. His election marks the demographic fact his predecessors had prepared: most of the world's Catholics now live in the global south.

Tagged: Catholic

The Event

Date
2013 (exact)
Era
The Modern and Global Church; Standard periodization of Catholic history
Location
Vatican City; today Vatican City
Traditions
Catholicism
Streams
Catholic
Key figures
Francis
Key texts
Evangelii Gaudium

Connections

Illustration for Second Vatican Council History Event Second Vatican Council 1962–1965 belongs to the global church the council's missions produced

Primary Sources

  • The conclave acts of March 2013 and Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 2013.

Secondary Sources

  • Chadwick, Owen. A History of the Popes, 1830-1914. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.
  • Duffy, Eamon. Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
  • Hastings, Adrian, ed. A World History of Christianity. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999.
  • MacCulloch, Diarmaid. A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. London: Penguin, 2009.
  • O'Malley, John W. Trent: What Happened at the Council. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.

Provenance: HIST-1347; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-30.

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