Long before he became the beloved Pope Francis, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was just a boy with a heart full of dreams, and one of them was love.
As the world mourns his recent passing on April 21 at the age of 88, stories of his humility, compassion, and spiritual leadership have flooded in. But tucked away in the quiet corners of Buenos Aires is a memory not of a Pope, but of a boy, and the girl, whose pair-up could have written history in a different manner.
Her name is Amalia Damonte, and she was his first love.
They grew up just blocks apart in the Flores neighborhood of Buenos Aires. As children, they played on sidewalks, danced in parks, and spent countless hours simply being together. Amidst everything, love quietly took root.
“He was mature, wonderful,” Amalia once said in an interview. “We played on the sidewalks or in the local parks, we danced. It was a beautiful time. We were very humble, we loved the poor, and in that, we were soulmates.”
They were just 12 years old, but their connection felt something more than just a teenage attraction. The two exchanged handwritten letters, those sacred tokens of love before texting and social media took over the world. In one of those exchanges, Jorge Mario wrote something that would shape the rest of his life:
“If I don’t marry you, I will become a priest.”
He wasn’t joking. He was sure.
He even dreamed aloud of their future, sketching her a little house with “a red roof and white walls.” That would be their home, the one they’d grow old in. But destiny, it seems, had another plan.
When Amalia’s parents discovered the love letters, everything took a drastic turn.
“My mother found the letter and gave me a beating,” Amalia remembered. “I begged Jorge Mario not to see me anymore. It was just a childish thing.”
But it wasn’t childish, it was love. Their story might have ended there, in heartbreak and silence, Amalia never forgot the boy who imagined a future with her.
Jorge Mario, staying true to his promise, let go of the life they could have shared and followed his calling to God. He was ordained just before turning 33 and began his path in priesthood, one that would take him to Germany, then to Córdoba, and eventually to the Vatican.
It was in 2013, following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, that he became the 266th Pope, the first from the Americas, and the first Jesuit to hold the role. He took the name Francis, embodying simplicity, peace, and care for the poor.
And yet, tucked quietly in the background of his extraordinary life, there was Amalia, the girl with whom he had once dreamed of a house with a red roof, the one who knew him not as a Pope, but as a boy in love.
This Saturday, April 26, the world said goodbye to Pope Francis in a funeral service held in St. Peter’s Square. Royalty, world leaders, and millions of mourners gathered in reverence.
But somewhere in Argentina, there’s a woman who once held his hand, danced in parks, and perhaps still remembers the Pope not as a man of the cloth, but as Jorge, the boy who almost chose her.
