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Rex
World News

Francis didn't want to be Pope, says nephew

by Hannah Tooley

José Ignacio Bergoglio, speaking in a Spanish newspaper, said that the decision to elect him as Pope was God's plan.

"As every Jesuit, he was and is a detached person and then he felt very connected to his Buenos Aires.

"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," he said.

He also told the Spanish paper ABC, that his grandmother, the Pope's mother, was unhappy with the pontiff's decision to become a priest for fear she would lose her son: "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."

Pope Francis took up an alternative job and told his mother he was studying the "medicine of the souls."

Silvia Lore/NurPhoto/REX

His nephew also added that his uncle had been thinking about declaring his love for one woman the very same day he experienced a call to priesthood.

"One spring day he was to go on a picnic with friends.

"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."

Pope Francis was elected into his position two years ago, this year he will make trips to Cuba and America.

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