Tags: Pope.
Pope Francis is the 266th and current Pope of the Catholic Church elected on 13 March 2013. In his over 40 years as a Catholic priest he has drawn high marks as an accomplished intellectual having studied theology in Germany. He is seen as someone who personally straddles the divide between the liberals and conservatives in the Catholic Church. Francis has supported the social justice ethos of Latin American Catholicism including a robust defense of the poor.