Pope Francis: Amalia, the Childhood Girlfriend Whose Snub Created a Pope

Pope Francis may never have been elected pontiff had his childhood girlfriend in Buenos Aires accepted his puppy love marriage proposal.

Amalia Damonte, 76, still lives just four doors down from Jorge Mario Bergoglio's childhood home in Buenos Aires, Argentina. When the two were just 12 years old, Damonte says, Bergoglio would write her letters.

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"I remember perfectly that he had drawn me a little white house, which had a red roof, and it said 'this is what I'll buy when we marry,'" Damonte told the Telegraph. "I didn't reply to him. What I wanted was for him to disappear from the map. My father had hit me because I had dared to write a note to a boy."

She said Bergoglio supposedly also told her, "If I don't marry you, I'm going to be a priest."

The Bergoglio family moved away from the area decades ago and Damonte said she moved away as well, married, raised a family, and only returned to her parents' home years later. She followed her former neighbor's rise through the church, but never tried to speak with him again.

Bergoglio took religious orders in 1958 when he was 21 years old, but was not ordained until 1969. He became a priest at 32.

According to the Inquisitr, Bergoglio admitted in a 2010 interview that he'd had at least one girlfriend before joining the priesthood.

"She was one of a group of friends with whom I used to go dancing with," he said. "Then I discovered my religious vocation."

It isn't clear whether the girlfriend he was talking about was Damonte.

The Argentinian media had a field day with Damonte's memories of her former neighbor, calling her the pope's "girlfriend," but "these were childish things, nothing more," Damonte told Latino FOX News.

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