The Secret Lives of Popes
One was a bouncer. Another adopted an elephant. These are the pre-papal lives of popes
Pope Francis died early Monday morning, on the 21 April 2025, at the age of 88.
For most people, the pope existed somewhere between myth and marble. A figurehead in pristine white, perched on a balcony above a sea of believers, a man so cloaked in centuries of ritual that you forget there’s an actual human being under all that symbolism.
When a pope dies, the world mourns a spiritual leader. The coverage tends to focus on legacy. The doctrines. The diplomacy. The divided opinions. But what’s often forgotten—beneath the papal regalia, the centuries-old rituals, and the procession of cardinals in crimson—is that the man at the centre of it all once led a life as ordinary, strange, and occasionally endearing as the rest of us.
We never think of the popes as people who maybe scrubbed lab beakers or sang along to Mozart. We don’t picture them leading the same lives as we lead – cheering for football clubs, going out to parties, or pouring ourselves a quiet cup of maté. And then you remember—Pope Francis used to be a nightclub bouncer, and so much more.
So beyond the usual coverage headlines, today we look into the secret, not so known, lives of the world’s most famous popes.
Behind The Robes, A Man
Pope Francis was arguably the most relatable pontiff in recent memory. And not just because he rode the bus and refused to live in the Vatican’s palatial apartment.
Long before his papacy, Jorge Mario Bergoglio worked as a janitor, a chemistry teacher, and—most iconically—as a bouncer at a bar in Buenos Aires. He drank maté, supported San Lorenzo football club, and cooked his own pasta. This was a pope who preferred plain black shoes over red Prada loafers, who dialled back papal grandeur in favour of humility.
Pope Francis in particular brought that human quality to the surface—sometimes consciously, sometimes not. He was a reformer, yes. A global figure. But also, he was just Jorge.
The men who preceded him had their own idiosyncrasies.
Another famous pope, Pope John Paul II was once an aspiring actor and playwright who performed underground theatre during the Nazi occupation of Poland. As pope, he skied in the Italian Alps, hiked in the mountains, and kayaked well into his old age.
Meanwhile, Pope Benedict XVI was a different kind of character: quiet, studious, and unexpectedly tender-hearted when it came to cats. A lover of Mozart and classical music, he was often seen playing the piano in his private quarters and feeding stray cats in the Vatican gardens. He was a theologian to the core—a man of letters, Latin, and liturgy—but with a domestic softness that rarely made headlines. While his papacy was more conservative, even austere, his inner world was filled with books, Bach, and feline companionship.
Each pope brought his own quirks to the office. Benedict’s papacy was intellectually rigorous and emotionally reserved—less crowd-surfing, more Gregorian chant. John Paul’s was filled with global charisma and mountain air. And Francis? Francis was your socially progressive, quietly radical grandfather who just wanted the Church to stop yelling and start listening.
The Popes Who Fought in Wars and Wore Designer
Long before becoming pope in 1939, Eugenio Pacelli—later Pope Pius XII—had a front-row seat to global conflict. As the Vatican’s Secretary of State during World War I, he worked as a diplomat navigating fraught wartime alliances. But what’s less known is that he also survived a targeted bombing attempt during a diplomatic mission to Germany and was rumoured to be obsessively tidy—like, rearranging-papers-on-other-people’s-desks tidy. He reportedly had a photographic memory and read stacks of newspapers daily, annotating them with notes in Latin.
Pius XII’s papacy is often remembered for its silence during the Holocaust, but his personal life was filled with contradictions. He refused to be photographed in his papal slippers, was meticulous to the point of mania, and walked the Vatican gardens daily in silence.
Meanwhile, Pope Leo X was a man who leaned into the Renaissance lifestyle. Born Giovanni de’ Medici, Pope Leo X came from one of Italy’s most powerful banking families and lived like it. Elected pope in 1513, he famously said, “Since God has given us the papacy, let us enjoy it”—which basically set the tone for his reign. He threw lavish banquets, was obsessed with art and theatre, and spent Vatican money like it came from a bottomless coin pouch in Assassin’s Creed.
He kept a pet elephant named Hanno (gifted by a Portuguese king), hosted masquerades, and commissioned Raphael to redecorate his personal chambers. He was a bon vivant with a religious title, a man who turned the Vatican into a cultural hotspot while also, unfortunately, accelerating its financial ruin.
Morning Cappuccinos and Vatican Tailors
Beneath the ceremonial spectacle, daily papal life is oddly… normal. Most popes wake early. They read the newspapers. They sip cappuccinos. They get fitted by Gammarelli, the Rome-based tailor that’s dressed pontiffs for over two centuries. The job might come with a bulletproof car and a few Swiss Guards, but it also comes with creaky joints and early-morning aches like everyone else.
It’s easy to forget that these men live lives marked not just by divine doctrine but by deeply human routine. They answer phone calls. They write notes. They pace when restless. The Vatican, for all its grandeur, is still a workplace. And the papacy—at least in its modern iteration—is still a job, albeit one with a very particular dress code and quite a bit of international pressure.
So as the Vatican prepares for its rituals, its smoke, its succession, it’s worth pausing here. To remember the man behind the robe. The football fan. The bouncer. The teacher. The man who played piano for no one but himself.
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