A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Now, a big part of the pope's appeal was his personal story.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Yeah, he was the son of immigrants. He grew up in Argentina, lived through turbulent times and became the first pope ever from Latin America.
MARTÍNEZ: Let's go down to NPR's South America correspondent Carrie Kahn. Carrie, tell us about Pope Francis before he was pope and his upbringing in Argentina.
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: Right, as you all said, he was born there to Italian immigrant parents that had fled fascist Italy. He lived in the Flores neighborhood of Buenos Aires. He did learn some Italian as a child, but his parents wanted him to assimilate and really emphasized Spanish at home. He joined the Jesuits there after high school. And during his time in Argentina, the church where he rose to actually be archbishop of Buenos Aires, there were conflicts in there. And it was a time of turmoil in Argentina.
Of course, there was the military dictatorship that he lived through, which had taken power under the auspices of fighting communism. There were leftist wings of the church where believers and proponents of progressive teachings of liberation theology were. Pope Francis has also endured criticism for some of his stances during that time, and critics charge he didn't do enough to defend those imprisoned and tortured under the dictatorship.
MARTÍNEZ: How is he likely to be remembered in Argentina?
KAHN: Well, I went there recently, and I did speak to many Argentines, you know, just how they felt about the pope's legacy and their feelings toward him. I went to the main cathedral in Buenos Aires, where he delivered Mass there a lot. He was the archbishop. Overwhelmingly, A, you know, of course, he's remembered, he's loved, he's treasured. I do want to play you a little bit of what I heard. I found this high school teacher, Veronica Lopez (ph), at Mass there. She says she actually received communion from Pope Francis at her confirmation decades ago and talked about his commitment to the poor.
VERONICA LOPEZ: (Non-English language spoken).
KAHN: She says, "he always stood with the poor, those on the bottom rungs of society, and was such a strong proponent of social justice," she says. She really loved how he stressed values, moral values above wealth, and how important for a pope in this world it was to do that. Many remember, too, that the pope was a die-hard soccer fan, and a lot of people in soccer-crazed Argentina mentioned that, too. I just had to add that.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. Now, what do you think the first Latin American pontiff means to the region more broadly?
KAHN: Well, he was just - they loved that he was from Latin America, Argentina. And even in neighboring Brazil, where I'm based, I would hear that a lot. But a lot of people also were very disappointed that he never came and visited, especially in his homeland. Don't forget, this is a region that has some of the largest Catholic populations in the world, Brazil is the largest. He did come to Mexico in the summer of 2014. I was there. I remember that he was warmly welcomed by the people.
I remember joining crowds lining the streets. He came through on his popemobile. People were very excited to see the first Latin American pope. He did get a bit of a chilly reception by Mexico's conservative church hierarchy. I was also there when he came to Cuba, and he was well - crowds of people greeting him. He did not speak out about the communist government at the time, and that had disappointed many dissidents. But people were very disappointed that - when you speak to Argentines, they regret so much that Pope Francis never got a chance to come home.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's South America correspondent Carrie Kahn. Carrie, thank you very much.
KAHN: You're welcome.
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