• He likes to travel by bus.
• He has lived for more than 50 years with one
functioning lung. He had the other removed as a
young man because of infection.
• He is the son of an Italian railway worker.
• He trained as a chemist.
• He is the first non-European pope in the modern
era.
• He claims that adoption by homosexuals is a
form of discrimination against children but
believes that condoms "can be permissible" to
prevent infection.
• In 2001 he washed and kissed the feet of Aids
patients in a hospice.
• He speaks fluent Italian, as well as Spanish and
German.
• Until now he has been living in a small flat,
eschewing a formal bishop's residence.
• He told Argentinians not to travel to Rome to
celebrate if he was appointed but to give their
money to the poor instead.
• He is believed to have been the runner-up in the
last papal conclave in 2005.
• He has co-written a book, in Spanish, called Sobre
el Cielo y la Tierra (On Heaven and Earth). You can
buy it on Kindle.
• Though conservative on church doctrine, he has
criticised priests who refuse to baptise babies born
to single mothers.
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