The imprint of Pope Francis in his hometown of Floreshis concern for the poor and for education, casual conversations about political and social reality and his fanaticism for Club Atlético San Lorenzo They continue to mark the memory of the people who knew him and worked with him in the city of Buenos Aires, who highlighted “the simplicity and austerity that always characterized him and still preserves” ten years after his proclamation as Supreme Pontiff.
Jorge Bergoglio was born, educated and lived through his childhood and youth in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Flores until he “received the call of God” for which he would become a priest and later -in 1992- he would become bishop of Buenos Aires, recalled Mother Teresa del Carmen Rovira, superior and legal representative of the Nuestra Señora de la Misericordia Institute, where the highest representative of the Catholic Church attended to kindergarten since his family home where he lived until he was 5 years old was a few blocks away, at Varela 268.
Rovira, 80, who began his religious life in 1967, highlighted the appreciation that the current Supreme Pontiff always held for that institution and that was reflected in the frequent visits he made before his appointment in the Vatican, on March 13. 2013, when he became the first American pope and the first Jesuit in the history of the Catholic Church,
He (Francisco) continues to be the person who talked and shared, the school was a place very dear to him where he came to chat and have tea together with the sisters who trained him, cared for him and were always with him,” said the woman. , in dialogue with Télam.
The nun recalled that “he was always concerned about education and (was) always dedicated to the poor, since he was always around the towns.” She also highlighted his “austerity” since “he never wanted a car nor did he want us to pay for a car to go back to the cathedral” in Buenos Aires, where she lived before leaving the Vatican.
His work as Pope “what he did was accentuate his way of being”, considered the woman and graphed: “Even the simplicity that remains with his same black shoes.”
The memory of the years shared with Pope Francis is also still very much alive in Father Carlos White, parish priest of Santa Julia and delegate of the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires for ecumenism and interreligious dialogue, who met him in 1992 when he was appointed priest and at the same time time Bergoglio received the designation as bishop.
“An extremely austere person. Even when they made him archbishop, which is an important position for which one was used to a certain formality, he was always the opposite, very accessible and fraternal.”Charles White
Geographically close, both religious began to work together “in the Flores and Villa Lugano areas, where they named us in the same space and we were there, until three or four years after he was promoted, when they made him vicar general,” White told in telephone conversation with Telam.
Of those weekly work meetings, the parish priest highlighted “his famous simplicity, which was always like that.”
“An extremely austere person. Even when they made him archbishop, which is an important position for which one was accustomed to a certain formality, he was always the opposite, very accessible and fraternal,” he described.
A sense of service and delivery
And he added that his way of being is accompanied by “important gestures, which he knew meant a lot”, such as “closeness to the poor, presence in deprived neighborhoods”, interreligious dialogue and “ability to listen”.
“The position you hold now is a position that determines you a lot, but it is the same as it always was, with the same simplicity”, said the parish priest, who last saw Bergoglio 15 days before the trip to the Vatican that would end with his appointment.
And, in this sense, he opined that since his appointment as Pope “he tries to put the church on a path of more austerity and a spirit of service.”
White considered that “this conception of the Church guided by these values is good, since there are some outdated expressions in this sense” and highlighted “the breadth of vision before the diversity of religion, ideology and thought”.
“The Church is a gigantic institution and it is so big that the changes are small. I think that Francisco tried to set something in motion towards something more of service and openness,” said the parish priest.
From another edge of Jorge Bergoglio’s daily life in Buenos Aires, the owner of the Diagonal Sur y Bolívar newsstand recalled anecdotes and part of the conversations he had with the then cardinal who crossed Plaza de Mayo every Saturday and Sunday at 7:00 a.m. Metropolitan Cathedral to his post to look for the newspaper.
“From 2009 until the Saturday before he went to the Vatican, he came. The last time he asked Nico, my employee, that we not keep the diary from next Sunday because he was going to the Vatican, and when he returned to Buenos Aires Aires was going to look for him”said Daniel Lancioni, 67. “But he didn’t come back anymore,” he added between laughs.
In dialogue with Télam, he recalled that Bergoglio “bought the newspaper with the exact change” and stressed that his treatment was “very pleasant, cordial and warm” and that the dialogue they had “was excellent.”
These talks veered between “life, politics, the social and the fact that he is a fan of San Lorenzo like me,” Lancioni commented and considered that for this reason “there was a closer affinity.”
“I was wondering what time we played because San Lorenzo was playing relegation and he told me: ‘I just have to give a mass and see who I love to see how they are doing,’ he confided.
He also made reference to the comments they made the day after popular events in Plaza de Mayo: “I remember that we used to say ‘How dirty the square is’, but he told me ‘it’s good that it’s dirty because that way people have fun and enjoy of a night out.’ That stuck with me as someone very close to the people and the town.”
Now, ten years after the historic papal designation, Lancioni concluded that his former interlocutor “is happy doing what he does, because otherwise, as he is, he would have already left.”
