Photo: The late Pope Francis | By Tom Huizenga, NPR | We tend to think of popes as people who are somehow elevated from the rest of us — a few steps up the ladder leading to God, perhaps. But Pope Francis, whose birth name was Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was often thinking of the common citizen, as heard in his comments about migrants, refugees and people on the margins of society. Even for his own funeral proceedings, he elected for a simple wooden coffin and stipulated that his body be buried not in the Vatican’s glorious St. Peter’s Basilica, but across town in a smaller, more humble space.
Since the Pope’s death on Monday, I’ve been learning more about his life, and found that he indeed was more of a common man than one might expect. In 2013, he confirmed rumors that, in his student days in his hometown of Buenos Aires, he once held a gig as a nightclub bouncer. It came as no surprise, then, to find that Pope Francis also had a record collection, and spoke eloquently about his faves.
“Among musicians, I love Mozart, of course,” the pontiff told Father Antonio Spadaro, editor of the Jesuit paper La Civiltá Cattolica, in 2013. “The ‘Et incarnatus est’ from his Mass in C minor is matchless; it lifts you to God!” Other choices were a bit more eclectic. Wagner was a favorite, but not just any Wagner recording — the pope specifically pointed to a performance of the composer’s massive Ring cycle, conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler, captured live in 1950 at La Scala in Milan.
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Go here to read more about the Pope’s favorite music, record stores, and to see a Playlist he made up:
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/23/g-s1-62132/pope-francis-music-playlist#
Photo: Pope Francis
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