Pope’s nephew says mother opposed priestly vocation
August 12, 2015
In an interview with a Spanish newspaper, Pope Francis’s nephew, José Ignacio Bergoglio, said that the Pontiff “did not want to be Pope.”
“As every Jesuit, he was and is a detached person and then he felt very connected to his Buenos Aires,” he said. “To the question if he wished to become Pope, obviously he answered ‘no,’ but at the moment of the election there wasn’t a choice: he had to accept. He knew it was God’s plan.”
The younger Bergoglio revealed that his uncle was thinking about declaring his love for a young woman when he experienced his call to the priesthood.
“One spring day he was to go on a picnic with friends,” he said. “That same day he was thinking of declaring his love to a girl he liked very much, but he passed in front of Saint Joseph’s church in the district of Flores (Buenos Aires) and he changed his decision. He entered the church to pray; then he went to confession and spoke at length with a priest and, in this conversation, he discovered that his real love was turned to God.”
The Pontiff’s mother, the nephew added, initially opposed his priestly vocation:
To tell the truth my uncle had promised my grandmother that he would begin his studies in medicine, but in the end he chose to heal souls … Regina went to my uncle’s room and, to her great surprise, she discovered that he was following a course to enter the seminary.
There were books in Latin, of theology. And the lady then said: “Jorge, you’ve lied to me.” “No, mother, I’m studying medicine for souls.”
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Further information:
- «Prometió a su madre estudiar Medicina ero al final optó por curar almas» (ABC)
- Pope’s Nephew: Francis Was Always an ‘Attentive and Thoughtful’ Uncle (Zenit)
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