In his autobiography “Hope,” published in January 2025, Pope Francis, who died on April 21, describes the moment during the 2013 papal election when he found his name.
During the decisive fifth electoral round of the conclave on March 13, 2013, the name Jorge Mario Bergoglio — Pope Francis’ birth name — was heard with increasing frequency as the votes were called out.
“When my name was pronounced for the seventy-seventh time, there was a burst of applause, while the reading of the votes went on. (…) But at that moment, while the cardinals were still applauding, Cardinal Hummes, who had studied at the Franciscan seminary of Taquari, in Rio Grande do Sul, stood up and came to embrace me: ‘Don’t forget the poor,’ he said. Those words of his remained with me, I felt them in my flesh. It was then that the name Francis appeared.” Before that moment, Francis writes in the book, he had never foreseen being chosen and “in no way could I have thought about a name as pope.”
As he stepped onto the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica as Pope Francis, even the name he chose made Bergoglio special. For it had been more than 600 years since a pope had chosen a name that had not previously appeared in any papal register, therefore making it completely new.
The wish of a homeless man
“I do believe that the choice of name usually represents a calling,” the Augsburg Catholic theologian and pope expert Jörg Ernesti told Deutsche Welle. Indeed, in “Hope,” Pope Francis recalls something that indicated the name was already out there.
“During the days of the conclave, a homeless man was wandering around Saint Peter’s Square with a placard around his neck. On it was written ‘Pope Francis I.’ But that image came back to mind only many days later, when the photograph appeared in several newspapers,” Pope Francis writes in his book.
Before Bergoglio, the 266th pope, no other pope had chosen the name “Francis.” Instead, there were favorites. Names that were chosen more than ten times include John (23 times; most recently 1958-1963), Gregory (16 times; most recently 1831-1846), Benedict (16 times; most recently 2005-2013), Clement (14 times; most recently 1769-1774), Innocent (13 times; most recently 1721-1724), Leo (13 times, most recently 1878-1903), and Pius (12 times; most recently 1939-1958).
There are over 40 names that only appeared once, such as Peter, Fabianus, Constantine, and now Francis. And just as there are many things that can be wagered on or speculated about among friends in connection with the change of leadership in the Catholic Church, so too is the choice of name for the new pope.
For the popes of the first few centuries, starting with Peter, popes did not change their name. “The first documented case of a pope changing his name,” explains pope expert Ernesti, “was in the year 533, presumably out of embarrassment.” The new head of the church bore the name of a pagan god, Mercurius. “He then chose the name John II.”
And there is one other important thing to point out, says Ernesti. It is incorrect to see a parallel between the pope’s choice of a name and the choice made by the members of a religious order. This “modern interpretation” is not correct. Men and women of a religious order do indeed renounce their baptismal name, but they “use the chosen name only as a sign of their new life.” A pope “somehow retains” his original name. For example, the pope’s name day is celebrated on the commemoration day of his baptismal saint.Francis is reminiscent of St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) who renounced all wealth, and founded the Franciscan order based on this principleImage: Stefan Diller/akg/picture alliance
The Pope and Saint Francis
It is now clear, at least since Pope Francis, just how symbolic a name can be. Francis is reminiscent of St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226). As the son of a merchant from Assisi in central Italy, Francis renounced all wealth, felt called by Jesus to a life of radical poverty, and founded the Franciscan order based on this principle.
Time and time again, Pope Francis turned his attention to the poor. And like the saint from Assisi, he drew attention to the splendor of creation, which today is under threat. There is no place outside of Rome that the Pope visited as often as Assisi, Italy.
There is perhaps no better example in more modern times of a name that carried symbolic meaning than Paul VI, who led the Church from 1963 to 1978. Archbishop of Milan before being elected pope, the northern Italian saw himself as a modern-day Apostle to the Nations. This is the title commonly given to St. Paul, who in the early years after Jesus spread Christianity beyond what was then Palestine to the rest of the world.
Just over four months after his election, Paul VI became the first pope to board a plane and travel to the Holy Land, and then a year later to Bombay, India. Other major trips to many parts of the world followed, including to the New York, Uganda, Asia, Oceania, and Australia.
Via DW