Who is Amalia Damonte, the woman to whom Pope Francis declared his love before devoting himself to religious life?
The young woman’s parents prevented the pope from marrying during his youth and, consequently, he ended up becoming a priest.
There are priests who have a clear vocation practically from birth and there are those who discover the call of God a little later. Pope Francis, Jorge Bergoglio, is a clear example of the latter. You only have to look at a youth full of jobs as a nightclub bouncer or a teacher to find out.
Another episode in Bergoglio’s life that not everyone knows is that he was very close to getting married. Not a joke wedding, but a real one. It all started when the two were twelve years old. Bergoglio, who lived quite close to Amalia Damonte, the woman in question, sent her a letter detailing what their future would be like.
“He was big, mature, a wonderful boy. We played on the sidewalks or in the parks in the area, we danced... something very beautiful. We were very humble, we loved the poor... In that we were kindred spirits," she told an Argentine media outlet shortly after being named supreme pontiff.
In a letter, Bergoglio proposed marriage to her and left her a message that, in the end, became quite important. “If I don’t marry you, I’ll become a priest,” he told her. The young woman’s parents forbade her to receive any more letters from Bergoglio and that was the end of it, although until a few months ago they continued to keep in touch by letter.
Months after their breakup, Bergoglio entered the seminary and made good on his threat to become a priest. The rest of the story will live on forever as he became the first American pope in 2013.
*This article was written in Spanish and translated with the help of AI.
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