Happy Birthday Pope Francis

Today marks the birthday of the Pope Francis so I thought it would be a good idea to share some information and websites where teachers can get resources for their lessons.

Who is Pope Francis?

Unfortunately, it has come to the stage where many young students do not know who the Pope is or even where he lives. So it would be a good idea to have an introductory lesson to help gauge what the students already know. Perhaps get them to come up with a definition of who the pope is, what he does and where he lives. They could do this in pairs first, then on the whiteboard the whole class could brainstorm their ideas on the whiteboard and agree on an agreed definition.

Then in the next lesson you can move on to show them pictures of previous popes and then focus on the present Pope Francis.

At 7.05pm on Wednesday 13th March 2013, the white smoke came out of the chimney on the Sistine Chapel and the bells of St Peters began to ring, “Habemus Papam” (We have a Pope!). Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected as the 266th Pontiff.

Born: 17 December 1936 in Buenos Aires

Ordained Priest : 13 December 1969 as a Jesuit.

Ordained Bishop: 20 May 1992 as Bishop of Auca and Auxiliary of Buenos Aires.

Ordained Archbishop: 3 June 1997 as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Ordained Cardinal: 21 February 2001 by Bl. John Paul II.

He is the FIRST Francis, the FIRST American (North or South), the FIRST Jesuit and the FIRST non-European in over 1000 years!

Other lessons that would work particularly well would be to look at why he chose the name Francis and get them to research the reason he took the name. It would also be a good idea to get them to research what a Jesuit is and how he practices his faith.

There are particularly good resources on a number of websites:

1. Dublin Diocese This website includes a variety of resources. It has a great animoto video which looks at a bibliography of Pope Francis. It also has powerpoints, videos, wordsearches, questions and an explanation of how a pope is elected.

2. Talking Donkey This blog also includes a good bibliography of Pope Francis.

3. The Religion Teacher This blog is particularly useful for information and helping teachers to form lesson objectives and giving activities to help assess the activities.