Pope has one-on-one visit with self-proclaimed 'Mr Nobody'

Pope has one-on-one visit with self-proclaimed 'Mr Nobody'


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GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (AP) — A Spaniard by birth, the Rev. Francisco Cortes walks slowly with a cane with a built-in flashlight and admits to a lifelong weakness for cigars.

Before Monday, it had been 30 years since he last saw Pope Francis, who then was simply the Rev. Jorge Mario Bergoglio and was in charge of the Jesuit order in Argentina.

The now nearly 91-year-old Cortes must have made a strong impression with his work at the Colegio Javier parochial school mentoring young men sent to him by the future pontiff, because their meeting on Monday was the only private one-on-one session that Francis scheduled for his visit to Ecuador.

After Francis arrived following a huge outdoor Mass in Guayaquil, Cortes gave a bouquet to the pontiff and they embraced.

Better known as Padre Paquito, Cortes said earlier that they would spend five minutes together in a small room adorned by flowers and religious paintings. Both then joined in lunch with 21 other Jesuits.

"I don't know why he set the meeting. We haven't even corresponded," Cortes told The Associated Press in an interview earlier. "I'm really just a Mr. Nobody,"

He and the pontiff had last seen one another in Argentina in 1985 at the ordination of a student sent to Cortes by the future pope.

Cortes has been at Colegio Javier since 1963, first as a teacher, then as headmaster. He was never a pushover with students, he said.

"I could really challenge them and they knew it was for their own good — and we'd end up friends."

With a permanent smile on his face, Cortes was quick to respond to a reporter's questions, but talking is complicated by a battered throat. He confessed to having smoked as many as three cigars a day until two years ago. His doctors have been watching him more closely to make sure he lays off them, he said.

Doubly so, with the pope due to visit — and just four days before Cortes' birthday.

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This story has been corrected to say Colegio Javier is a parochial school, not a seminary.

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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