BBC News reports via video footage on YouTube showing Pope Francis I saying that he named himself after St. Francis of Assisi!
This announcement negates any past claims by other priests and reporters that the former Argentinean Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (pronounced Ber-GOAL-io) claimed that he had named himself after a founder of the Jesuit Order, St. Francis Xavier.
It is also the “game changer” as St. Francis of Assisi was born “Francesco di Pietro di Bernardone,” and there is definitely a “Peter” in the name, making the St. Malachy prophecy of “Petrus Romanus” a reality and quite accurate – yet again!
The designation “Petrus Romanus” or “Peter of Rome” was prophesied by the Irish Saint Malachy and it is believed that the 266th Pontiff is to be the last pope of the Roman Catholic Church as his pontificate will accelerate the “destruction of the city of Rome and usher in the beginning of the Apocalypse.”
Thus far, all of the St. Malachy predictions have been extremely accurate about the selection of popes and what was to be expected from each one. Though it’s probably wise to seek other figurative interpretations that are beneficial to mankind rather than destructive.
But what was Pope Francis’s justification for choosing the name Francis?
Pope Francis claims in the footage that he chose the name Francis because during the election, next to him was the Archbishop of San Paolo, Claudio Gomez, who is a great friend of his.
Gomez comforted him when things got a little bit anxious by hugging him and kissing him and said, “don’t forget the poor.”
Those words “the poor” made a great impression and stuck with Bergoglio and then he immediately thought about St. Francis of Assisi.
It apparently then occurred to Bergoglio that St. Francis of Assisi was the man who cared about the poor, the animals and about nature… And those are the sorts of values that Pope Francis I himself possesses so it was the perfect match in choosing a name!
One of the humblest of choices for Pope, Francis I was known to take public transport and cook for himself. A most compassionate man, he has visited victims of HIV-AIDS and in 2001, he went so far as to wash and kiss the feet of 12 AIDS patients at a hospice.
While many are of the belief that Pope Francis is “Latin American,” he is in fact the son of two Italians, Mario José Bergoglio, a railway worker born in Portacomaro in the Province of Asti in Italy's Piedmont region, and Regina María Sívori, who was born in Buenos Aires to a family of northern Italians, specifically Piedmontese-Genoese. That definitely makes him Italian ethnically, rather than “Latin American.”
Pope Francis I also speaks fluent Italian and relates to Italians well due to a common heritage.
