María Elena Bergoglio is the sister of Pope Francis, the only member of his family still alive. The eldest of five children, Jorge Mario Bergoglio had to say goodbye prematurely to his brothers Alberto Horacio, Oscar Adrián and Marta Regina, who died before his election as pontiff. The first Argentine pontiff, the first Latin American. The Bergoglio family, as is known, has its origins in the great emigration, half Piedmontese and half Ligurian on the part of the parents.
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María Elena, the last and beloved sister of Pope Francis
After her election, María Elena wanted to underline her relationship with Jorge to the Italian press: “He was and is my brother and my best friend. He was always funny and very supportive, as befits an older brother. When I was eight, he left home to enter the seminary, but we always kept in touch. He was always present in my life, even if we were far away and he will continue to be even now ”.
The father of the five Bergoglio brothers died at the age of 51 and Jorge began to take care of her, like a brother and a bit like a father with a very protective attitude given the twelve-year age difference. Today María Elena is what remains of that generation of the family, also keeping two cousins who live in two different villages in Piedmont and whom she had the opportunity to meet during her recent visit to Asti.
From the moment of her accession to the papal throne, the attention of the Argentine press towards the sister of Pope Francis has been maximum. When Bergoglio was called to Rome after Benedict XVI’s resignation, María Elena thought it was one of her many trips to Italy and that they would see each other shortly thereafter, as always. She then began to understand that there was something different, perhaps even with fear given the delicacy and the enormous weight of the assignment.
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She and her family have followed Vatican events on television, like many others. They didn’t expect the election and María Elena didn’t hide that she thought of him with concern: “Poor thing… But when I saw him looking out from that balcony I calmed down, I saw him excited and happy”.
María Elena Bergoglio had decided to stay in Argentina, not to accompany her older brother to Rome, remaining in Argentina with her two children. She cried while watching live television. From that moment on, her home in Ituzaingó, a town of over 100,000 inhabitants on the edge of the huge conurbation of Buenos Aires, began to understandably besieged.
She said she didn’t hear from him in the days immediately following her election, she didn’t succeed. She understood the difficulties associated with the numerous and demanding formal tasks and the four-hour time difference between Italy and Argentina. Then came the phone call from Pope Francis, taken by his nephew: “It’s me, it’s Jorge” immediately rushing his sister to the telephone.
Pope Francis and his sister María Elena, now 74, have never seen each other again, he has not yet returned to Argentina and she has not been able to leave her country because her health conditions, which worsened immediately after her brother’s election, prevented him from have allowed, the doctors have always advised against such a long and physically demanding journey. Over there there is no shortage of imaginative backgrounds that would like Pope Francis to return in secret to visit her, all denied.
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María Elena’s health, reports the Argentine press, has deteriorated further for some time now requiring constant assistance. A stroke has caused severe paralysis and she needs treatment. Today you live in a structure run by religious in the western area of the province of Buenos Aires, relying on the patient care of some nuns.
