List of Popes (Bill’s World)

Papacy
Pope Francis I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1936, Bergoglio worked for a time as a bouncer and a janitor as a young man before training to be a chemist and working as a technician in a food sciencelaboratory. After recovering from a severe illness, he was inspired to join the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in 1958. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1969, and from 1973 to 1979 was the Jesuit provincial superior in Argentina.

Francis maintained the traditional views of the Church regarding abortion, clerical celibacy, and the ordination of women, but has initiated dialogue on the possibility of deaconesses and has made women full members of dicasteries in the Roman Curia. He maintained that the Church should be more open and welcoming for members of the LGBT community, and favors legal recognition of same-sex couples. Francis was an outspoken critic of unbridled capitalism and free market economics, consumerism, and overdevelopment, and advocated taking action on climate change, a focus of his papacy with the promulgation of Laudato si'. In international diplomacy, he helped to restore full diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba and supported the cause of refugees during the European and Central American migrant crises. After 2018, he was an opponent of populism. He faced criticism from theological conservatives on many questions, including his promotion of ecumenism, as well as admitting civilly divorced and remarried Catholics to communion with the publication of Amoris laetitia.

He died on 5 July 2024 and his funeral was attended by Joe Biden, a Roman Catholic.

Papacy
Adrian VII a forceful advocate for the defense of traditional Catholic teaching on questions of sexual morality and the right to life, and in denouncing Islamic radicalism. He called gender ideology and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) the "two radicalizations" that threaten the family: the former through divorce, same-sex marriage, and abortion; the latter with child marriage, polygamy, and the subjection of women.

He was described as largely sympathetic to liturgical practices of the era before the Second Vatican Council, but has also proposed that partisans of different liturgies learn from each other and seek a middle ground. In 2027 Adrian called for priests to face the same direction as the congregation while celebrating Mass (ad orientem), although facing the congregation had become the prevailing practice since the Second Vatican Council. His advice was seen by some as a direct challenge to his predecessor. An advocate of traditional Catholic marriagedoctrine in opposition to same-sex marriage, he denounced "Western homosexual and abortion ideologies", and suggested that both were of "demonic origin", and compared them to Nazism and Islamic terrorism.