Meet Pope Francis' childhood sweetheart, "He proposed to me, I said no" (PHOTOS, WATCH)

Meet Pope Francis’ childhood sweetheart, “He proposed to me, I said no” (PHOTOS, WATCH)

March 15, 2013 |

March 15, 2013

The first Latin American Pope may have been a Latin Lover first it emerged last night after a childhood sweetheart claimed she may have driven him into the church.

Amalia Damonte, 76, who grew up in the same Flores neighbourhood of Buenos Aires as Bergoglio said she was shocked when he became Pope.

‘I froze in front of the television. I couldn’t believe that Jorge was the Pope!’ said his old girlfriend, now a white-hair pensioner with spectacles.

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Amalia Damonte, who Pope Francis proposed to as a 12-year-old. They were childhood sweethearts in Buenos Aires

It was either 1948 or 1949 when the future Pope wrote her a letter declaring he would like to marry her.

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‘We were 12, 13 years old. No more than that,’ she said. ‘He was wonderful. He was a proper guy.’

‘There was only one letter and it cost me a smack in the face from my father,’ she said.

Pope Francis celebrates his inaugural Mass with cardinals inside the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican yesterday

The Pope used to play on the streets with Amalia and proposed marriage in letter at 12

Bergoglio decided to take religious orders in 1958 when he was 21 but he wasn’t ordained until 1969

POPE’S WEEKEND SCHEDULE

Today at 11:00am in the Clementine Hall he will meet with the full College of Cardinals, electors and non-electors, in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace.

On Saturday at 11:00am in the Paul VI Hall, the Pope will hold an audience with accredited journalists (permanent and temporary) and those who work in the media.

On Sunday, 17 March at 12:00pm, he will recite the first Angelus of his papacy from the papal apartments overlooking St. Peter’s Square, as is customary.

‘It said we were going to get married and I am going to buy you a white house. So the two of us could live together.’

‘He said that if I didn’t say yes, he would have to become a priest. Luckily for him, I said no!’ said Ms Damonte, who stills lives four doors up from Bergoglio’s childhood home.

‘He had a crush on me, you know. We used to play on the streets here. It was a quiet neighbourhood then, and, well, he was very nice.’

She said she the he ‘is a good man, the son of a working-class family,’ she said.

‘I hope he can achieve all the good that he holds in his heart.’

It is quite possible that Ms Damonte wasn’t the only love in his life, despite what the future Pope told her.