From nightclub bouncer to the Pope of the poor

TUSCANY

 

It is almost impossible to imagine Jorge Mario Bergoglio―Pope Francis―standing tall at the velvet rope of a Buenos Aires nightclub in the 1960s, deciding who merited entry and who did not. And yet, that is precisely what he did. Long before he became spiritual shepherd to more than a billion Catholics, he was quite literally a bouncer―clad not in corduroy but in humility―studying theology by day and gently corralling revellers by night. I like to think he never actually turned anyone away. More likely, he whispered to the doorman, “Let them in. They need this as much as confession.”

 

That experience never left him. As Pope, he cast open the Church’s doors―both literal and metaphorical―with that same laid-back conviction. In his first weeks in Rome, he refused the papal apartments; instead, he lived in the guest house, the Casa Santa Marta, choosing community over ceremony. He rode in a battered Ford Focus, not a bulletproof limousine. When he stepped onto St Peter’s balcony for the first time in March 2013, he did not declaim policy; he bowed and asked for prayers with the simple greeting buonasera in beautiful Italian.

 

A “PIANO, PIANO” PAPACY

Francis loved to say “piano, piano” (Italian for slowly, slowly), reminding the world that change does not need a bulldozer’s might, but a gentle hand on the rudder. It is a motto he learned not from the red tape of the Vatican secretariat but from the crowded shanty towns of Argentina, where he rode the night buses into the poorest barrios, blending into the ordinary, listening rather than pontificating. A friend, Alicia, once spotted him on a local bus, exchanging jokes with migrants, no entourage in sight. That humility and that unbreakable spirit defined his style.

 

By contrast, Pope Benedict XVI, the last German pontiff, governed with precision, doctrine by doctrine, in the mode of an academic dean. He was brilliant but distant. Rules were codes to enforce. Under Benedict, the Church felt like an elegant fortress―marble floors, echoing halls, velvet ropes of theology spun high. Francis tore down a few walls to let in the light. Where Benedict might have posted guards, Francis offered cups of coffee.

 

In July 1973, at just 36, Bergoglio was appointed provincial of the Jesuits in Argentina, charged with leading the entire order through turbulent political times in Buenos Aires. Yet, after six years, he was reassigned―first to academics, then in March 1986 to San Miguel, and finally, in June 1990, sent “into exile” in Córdoba, living quietly in the Jesuit guest house for two years. Far from punishment, that exile became a crucible: in the dusty streets of Córdoba, Bergoglio confronted his own inflexibility and ego, learning what he later called “humility as an intellectual stance”, a lesson he distilled over silent nights in that old rectory. It was here he first grasped that true leadership begins with admitting one’s faults, a confession we all must make.

 

Upon his return to Buenos Aires, he served as spiritual director at the Colegio del Salvador and confessor at the Jesuit church, before rising as auxiliary bishop in 1992 and archbishop in 1998. By 2004, his prophetic voice rang out in a homily rebuking president Néstor Kirchner’s “exhibitionism and strident announcements”, lamenting that subsidies failed to address poverty’s root causes. Kirchner, known for his intolerance of dissent, reportedly regarded him as “the head of the opposition”―a mantle Bergoglio insisted he never sought.

 

Like the fisherman-priest in Morris West’s The Shoes of the Fisherman, Bergoglio embraced mercy over majesty. When he became Pope in 2013, he took the name Francis of Assisi, signalling devotion to poverty, humility and atonement. By choosing the name of the man who kissed lepers and preached peace to birds, Francis invited us all into a radical atonement: placing mercy above self-righteousness and service above self-interest.

 

Francis took the name of the medieval reformer who shunned wealth. Yet the papacy’s history is a kaleidoscope of extremes:

Renaissance Popes (Medici Shenanigans): Alexander VI Borgia sold indulgences like carnival tickets; Leo X bankrupted the Church on frescoes and wars.

 

Crusader Popes (Temple and Templar): Urban II ignited the first crusade; Innocent III crowned emperors and exiled patriarchs.

 

Gregory VII at Canossa (1077): Emperor Henry IV knelt barefoot in the snow, begging forgiveness before Pope Gregory VII’s walls.

 

Even in the 20th century, fiction reminded us how much a Pope’s background can shape his leadership. In The Shoes of the Fisherman, a Ukrainian fisherman-priest is elevated to the papacy, offering a vision of mercy and simplicity that feels uncannily Franciscan. And yet, the lure of autocratic power has long tested the Church’s soul: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael were courted―and in some cases coerced―by Renaissance pontiffs desperate for immortal commissions. Those who hesitated risked papal wrath as fierce as any mechanised hammer.

 

Later, across the English Channel, Henry VIII discovered the real reach of Rome when Anne Boleyn was cast into “Division Two” and he, in turn, severed ties with the Vatican. Declaring himself supreme head of the Church of England, he followed in Martin Luther’s footsteps―another reminder that even emperors and kings once trembled before papal authority.

 

By contrast, here is Francis in snowy Rome consoling refugees, baptising children on dinghies, and shattering the old notion that the Church is a fortress.

 

A “PEOPLE’S POPE” IN A WORLD OF EGOS

Modern geopolitics reads like an operatic farce: Trump tweeting trade wars; Putin shuttling missiles; Xi forging the Digital Silk Road. Contrast that with Francis’s day: delivering Easter benedictions, entreating for Gaza and Ukraine, reminding the powerful that “power is service”. When I saw him in Assisi, he leaned forward and said simply, “We are all migrants before heaven.” No tariff talk, no border closings―just a moral compass.

 

It’s tempting to applaud the contrast. Trump’s ego blasts neon billboards; Francis’s humility whispers candlelight. Xi, the “Great Helmsman”, builds high-speed rails; Francis builds bridges of dialogue. Yet each leader moves vast human tides―the difference lies in the tide’s direction.

 

Here’s where irony writes itself. J.D. Vance―the Ohio hillbilly-turned Senator/Vice President―arrived in the Vatican, keen to press the Holy Father on traditional values. Legend has it Francis greeted him with a grin, patted his shoulder, and said, “Tell me about your people.” When Vance reproached him on marriage and family, Francis’s response was a wink and, “We will talk with love, not judgment.” The next morning, Rome awoke to news that Francis had passed peacefully after his final public blessing. The jilted envoy who hoped to school the Pope became a footnote in Francis’s grand final lesson on mercy.

 

No profile of Pope Francis could ignore his Argentine roots―and neither can mine after traversing Ruta 40, that epic spine of South America stretching from the tropics to the windswept tip of Patagonia. Along that highway, one feels the echo of three Argentine icons:

 

Diego Maradona, whose Hand of God and dribbling wizardry made the world gasp.

 

Lionel Messi, the quiet genius whose artistry on the pitch reads like poetry in motion.

 

Che Guevara, the fiery idealist whose image atop the Andean passes still inspires revolution.

 

These figures shaped Argentine identity: Maradona’s flamboyance, Messi’s humility, Che’s uncompromising zeal. And in tracing Ruta 40―through vineyards, salt flats and dusty desert towns―I felt a kinship with Francis’s own journey: from the carnival lights of Buenos Aires to the quiet of Assisi. Just as Maradona twisted through defenders, Francis has twisted through dogma; as Messi’s play unites fans of every creed, Francis’s mercy unites the faithful and the outsider; as Che sought a universal liberation, Francis preaches a liberation of the soul.

 

FRANCIS’S BLUEPRINT FOR MODERN FAITH

Mercy over dogma: “Who am I to judge?” he asked of LGBTQ Catholics, flipping centuries of strictures.

 

Service over splendour: Washing inmates’ feet, visiting leprosy colonies, creating an abuse-prevention commission.

 

Dialogue over division: Apologising for slavery, embracing Buddhists, speaking with atheists.

 

Simplicity over opulence: Plastic cups for wine, second-hand shoes―yet in that simplicity lies authenticity.

 

OVER TEN YEARS, FRANCIS HAS:

Audited Vatican finances and reshuffled the Curia.

 

Published ‘Laudato Si’ on climate, urging ecological conversion.

 

Condemned the death penalty as “inadmissible”.

 

Elevated women to synodal roles.

 

Brokered Cuba–US rapprochement in secret diplomacy.

 

In each reform lies an anecdote: him quoting Aristotle on friendship to bankers; recalling window-washing days to factory workers; baptising migrant infants on rubber rafts. These stories illustrate theology in motion.

 

As Conclave wins at the Oscars, the real conclave prepares in Sistine shadows. Will the next Pope be:

 

Latin American, continuing Francis’s outreach?

 

African, reflecting the Church’s growth in the Global South?

 

European traditionalist, re-emphasising liturgy and doctrine?

 

Whomever emerges will inherit Francis’s “piano, piano” way: gentle reform, open doors and humble service.

 

My own Ruta 40 odyssey, driving from Mendoza’s vineyards to Tierra del Fuego’s glaciers, mirrored the Pope’s journey from barrio to basilica. Each mile along that lonely road was a parable: the salt pans reminded me of baptismal plains; the dusty estancias, of simple shelters where Francis once ministered. In those stretches of silence and wind, I felt the Pope’s call to “go to the peripheries”―not as an abstract slogan but as a lived adventure.

 

It was on a windswept plateau, among gauchos with dogs herding horses beneath stormy skies, that I understood the unity of these Argentine icons and Pope Francis.

 

Maradona taught us flair without arrogance.

 

Messi showed mastery with humility.

 

Che embodied conviction tempered by compassion.

 

Francis welded them together, preaching revolution of the spirit through mercy, simplicity and solidarity.

 

In that moment, the long road south was less a line on a map than a bridge―between football stadiums, revolutionary fervour and the quiet chapel where a former bouncer became the People’s Pope.

 

In a world fractured by populism, acrimony, and shifting allegiances, Pope Francis’s papacy is a living case study in leadership that transcends ideology. His is a model for any institution―or individual―facing its own inflexibility:

Listen to the margins.

 

Act with compassion.

 

Reform with patience.

 

Lead with humility.

 

For readers planning their own journeys―literal or metaphorical―Francis’s example, along with the Argentine trio of Maradona, Messi and Che, shows that giant leaps often begin with small, consistent steps: a handshake, a foot-washing, a quiet prayer on a desert highway.

 

When Francis delivered his last Easter blessing, his voice quivered not with frailty but with love for a bruised world. He closed no doors; he only unlocked them. From the door of a Buenos Aires nightclub to the threshold of St Peter’s, his life is a testament to thresholds: sinner to saint, outsider to insider, tradition to renewal.

 

And my Ruta 40 pilgrimage taught me this: whether you’re dribbling past defenders, marching for justice or shepherding souls, true leadership is not about standing above the rope, but about welcoming those who wait below it.

 

George, former international badminton player and author of Racket Boy, resides in Tuscany, Italy.

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