YESTERDAY marked 52 years of priesthood for Pope Francis.
He was ordained on December 13, 1969.
He credits his lifelong faith to an event in the confessional when he was a teenager.
He was almost 17 years old.
It was the feast of St Matthew, September 21, 1953.
In Argentina, September 21 is Student’s Day, which is a day to celebrate students with live shows, outdoor activities and so on.
“Before going to the celebration, I went to the parish I frequented and found a priest I didn’t know and felt the need to go to confession,” Pope Francis told a crowd at St Peter’s Square on Pentecost 2013.
“This was for me an experience of encounter – I found that someone was waiting for me.
“Yet I do not know what happened, I can’t remember, I do not know why that particular priest was there whom I did not know, or why I felt this desire to confess, but the truth is that someone was waiting for me.
“He had been waiting for me for some time.
“After making my confession I felt something had changed. I was not the same.
“I had heard something like a voice, or a call. I was convinced that I should become a priest.”
Pope Francis graduated as a chemical technician and then chose the path of priesthood, entering the diocesan Seminary of Villa Devoto.
On March 11, 1958, he went to the noviciate of the Society of Jesus.
He completed his Humanities studies in Chile and, in 1963, on returning to Argentina, he graduated in Philosophy from Saint Joseph’s College in San Miguel.
From 1964-1965 he was Professor of Literature and Psychology in the School of the Immaculate Conception in Santa Fe and, in 1966, he taught the same subjects in the School of the Saviour in Buenos Aires.
From 1967-1970 he studied theology at Saint Joseph’s College and got a Bachelor’s degree.
After being ordained a priest, Pope Francis continued his preparation in the Society of Jesus from 1970 to 1971 in Alcala de Henares, Spain, and on April 22, 1973, he made his perpetual profession.
