JORGE MARIO BERGOGLIO, POPE FRANCIS, is the first Latin American to be elected to the chair of Peter. A native of Buenos Aires, Argentina, he was ordained as a priest in 1969. He served as head of the Society of Jesus in Argentina from 1973 to 1979. In 1998 he became the archbishop of Buenos Aires, and in 2001 a cardinal. Following the resignation of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, February 28, 2013, the conclave elected Bergoglio, who chose the papal name Francis in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi. He is the first pope to be a Jesuit, to come from the Americas, and to come from the Southern Hemisphere.
ABRAHAM SKORKA is an Argentine rabbi, biophysicist, and book author. He is rector of the Seminario Rabinico Latinoamericano in Buenos Aires, the rabbi of the Jewish community Benei Tikva, a professor of biblical and rabbinic literature at the Seminario Rabinico Latinoamericano, and honorary professor of Hebrew law at the University of Salamanca.
