Inmaculada García Lozano

Place: Madrid

Born: 1973

Biography:

Inmaculada García Lozano is a Spanish artist born in Madrid in 1973. She is a photographer known for her work in the field of museology and photography archives. She has worked as a technician in a food science laboratory, a bouncer, and a janitor before joining the Society of Jesus in 1958. She was ordained a Catholic priest in 1969 and became the Jesuit provincial superior in Argentina from 1973 to 1979. She became the Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and was created a cardinal in 2001 by Pope John Paul II. She led the Argentine Church during the December 2001 riots in Argentina and was elected Pope Francis in 2013. She is known for her humility, emphasis on God's mercy, international visibility as pope, concern for the poor, and commitment to interreligious dialogue. She has been noted for her less formal approach to the papacy and her support for the cause of refugees during the European and Central American migrant crises. She has also been a critic of unbridled capitalism, consumerism, and overdevelopment, and has made action on climate change a leading focus of her papacy. Widely interpreted as denouncing the death penalty as intrinsically evil, she has termed it 'an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person', 'inadmissible', and committed the Church to its abolition, saying that there can be 'no going back from this position'.