Woman Who Knew Pope Francis as Young Priest Recalls Memories of Him (Exclusive)

A lady he knew Pope Francis when he was a younger priest is recalling her reminiscences of the late pontiff.

Ana Maria Belmonte first met Francis as Father Jorge Bergoglio when he was working with the Jesuits in San Miguel, Argentina, throughout the Seventies

“The Jesuit fathers assisted the religious schools which at that time were only for women, and so they assisted us, so I had a very close relationship with the world of the Jesuit priests and [Jesuit religious college] Colegio Máximo, which I frequently attended,” Belmonte, 79, tells PEOPLE.

“And definitely when Juan Pablo, the oldest of my youngsters, was about 5 or 6 years at most, he would slip away from me throughout mass and go tiptoeing to blow out the candles on the altar, typically additionally throughout Father Jorge Bergoglio’s mass — the pope’s mass,” she says, referring to Francis.

Pope Francis was ordained a priest in December 1969. He joined the Jesuits as a priest and non secular professor in his closing occupation in his residence nation of Argentina in April 1973, in accordance with his biography on the Vatican’s web site.

“Who would have thought he would change into pope?” Belmonte remarks. “At that second, nobody imagined he would change into pope.”

Belmonte shares that Francis “kept a very low profile” as a younger man — a world away from the general public life he would later lead as the top of the Catholic Church

“Later he turned the director of the Colegio Máximo, director of the Society of Jesus. During that point of his youth and his early years, he was critical, all the time saved a low profile. He was a really critical individual,” she tells PEOPLE. “…He would by no means settle for being pushed in a automotive, nor being waited on. If he used one thing — a cup, a plate, no matter it was — he would wash it himself. He was an individual who needed to be self-sufficient and did not wish to depend on anybody.”

When Francis was appointed the pontiff in 2013, Belmonte recollects seeing a very completely different facet to him than earlier than.

“His character changed,” she says. “He turned far more affable, smiling, nice. We name this ‘grace of state.’ That is, the papal state gave him the grace to be much more united to the individuals, over and above his low profile, a heat individual.”

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Francis died on Monday, April 21, from a cerebral stroke that led to a coma and irreversible cardiocirculatory collapse.

The pontiff was additionally affected by a “earlier episode of acute respiratory failure in bilateral multimicrobial pneumonia, a number of bronchiectasis, arterial hypertension, and kind II diabetes,” the church mentioned.

His funeral came about in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City on Saturday, April 26.

In his life earlier than and after turning into pope, Francis remained in help of the individuals, Belmonte shares. “He was really near the individuals,” she says, including that “he was a superb and succesful individual.”

“I never imagined he would become the pope. But now I think about all those merits, at the archbishop level, the cardinals knew all about them and that’s why they named him pope. The cardinals knew who he was,” she provides.