http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Francis

http://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Pope_Francis_I.

i am going to attempt to understand the astrology of pope francis's birthdata in connection with the event of him becoming pope on march 13 2013. no doubt a lifetime of events have led to this, not to mention a personality that is more predisposed towards a life in organized religion. something i rarely have to give consideration to is the fact this is a southern hemisphere chart.. i am torn on the idea of interpreting it in a different way then a northern hemi chart, but i leave a window open to the idea that this might matter in some significant way.

"Pope Franciscus I., elected (as pope) on 13 March 2013, former arch bishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is the first non-European pope since 741."

here is the natal chart as shown at astro.com


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there are some wonderful signatures on this chart and i have to acknowledge out front that i am intrigued and impressed with this man who has become pope! i read an article just today where he discusses the plight of the unemployed and how the global economic system needs to put people at the center, not money.. here is the article.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/ ... 4H20130922

the ruler of his ascendant and midheaven- moon and venus, are in a conjunction in the 8th sign from the ascendant - aquarius. depending on house systems some will put this conjunction in the 7th..i see this conjunction as very favourable for working in the public sphere in a position such as the one he has taken. it is a waxing moon in a nocturnal chart moving from a conjunction to venus to a trine with mars, both the other nocturnal sect lights. as i understand the concept of spear bearing, mars doesn't play a role here as it needs to forward the moon position up to 180, but regardless the concept is not something i completely understand other then that another planet of the same sect as the main sect light - moon in this case, can act as a helper and protect the sect light if positioned a certain way. perhaps someone reading this can give their feedback on this.

mercury at 11 cap is the planet closest to an angle in the west here. uranus in taurus on the midheaven and jupiter in cap on the descendant would be the next 2 planets most closely aligned to the angles. these planets form a trine relationship with one another which supports a more forward thinking individual, not afraid to express an original idea while at the same time being receptive to flashes of intuition and perception that goes with a more liberated and progressive outlook..perhaps this is muted somewhat considering the signs involvement which are more conservative by nature. he seems to be demonstrating much of this though, very quickly as i understand it.

saturn is in pisces in the 9th sign from the ascendant, while cancer rises - same combo as the dalai lama as i recall, let me check.. yes although there is some question over the validity of the time. see link below. for me the focus on religion is an obvious 9th house/sign topic. a more conservative religion is implied with the signs involved including the rising sign here. with the emphasis of the planets in capricorn on the angle brings us back to a focus on saturn in pisces in the 9th sign/house.. he has led a life of involvement in organized religion and while i don't know the nature of his viewpoints very well, i note in the opposition of saturn to neptune in his chart running over the 9th/3rd sign/house making a greater emphasis on religious type matters as i understand it, neptune happens to be 3 days away from a station, so essentially stationary direct in his chart. we've had some discussions on sd planets and i am a firm believer of the importance of planets that are essentially stationary as having a greater influence over the chart. without going into my thoughts on neptune here too much, i'd just like to point out how the wide squares involving sun to saturn, and neptune to sun has neptune in the dominant position or what traditional astrologers call an 'overcoming square'. http://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Dalai_Lama_XIVa

the sun is in the sign sag. 2 degree conjunct the north node also in sag, and about 15 degrees below the horizon so probably still throwing some light and essentially a dusk chart i believe (without being there!). it is in an 7 degree conjunct to its sign ruler jupiter( jupiter is combust here but out of sign) while jupiter is at the direct midpoint of sun to descendant.. i don't have a solid concept towards planets in the sun's beams as they relate to natal astrology. one could say this person is more caught up in organized religion and that is captured in the jupiter in cap along with saturn in pisces in the 9th sign, and perhaps if jupiter operated in a stronger planetary phase he would have been less inclined towards 'organized' religion. i don't know.. thoughts anyone? the north node seems to emphasize his leadership ability in the domain of religion and the focus on religion as well given this sign position of the nodal axis..

there are a number of parts to his chart that i am skipping over and omitting.. i want to get to the predictive tools drawing a connection to his election to being pope for march 13 2013. i will use the profection lord, 2012 solar return, primary directions and transit data for this.

mars is the profection lord beginning dec 17 2012. natal mars is at 19 libra, 3rd house, 4th sign from ascendant and the malefic of the same sect..this makes it less problematical on one level, but in the sign libra suggests some difficulty on another. perhaps as he is still in this same 'profected' year, some of his outspoken nature is more indicative of mars as the profected lord.. mars lands on the exact midpoint of mercury/pluto a midpoint combo good for investigative and research work..ebertin refers to the principle of these 2 planets as 'the art of persuasion, suggestion'. with mars at the midpoint he describes it as 'indefatigably, the ability to master great tasks, sharp criticism( see article above), the desire to attack others. - a blackmailer.' so much for those ebertin comments from cosi!!

below is a chart for the 2012 solar return. one quickly notes how mars stands out in this chart as well - dignified in the sign capricorn and right on the ascendant of the sr chart while both land in the 7th sign/house back in the natal. mars rising in a diurnal chart is the malefic of the opposite sect which is interesting here as it is a strong and dignified position for mars, but is the malefic of the opposite sect on the ascendant angle.


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the sr midheaven is in a 10 degree conjunct to natal mars here as well. sr saturn is most elevated planet in the sr chart while sr pluto squares onto sr midhaven and conjoins the natal descendant in capricorn. it is a few degrees away from both natal mercury and jupiter both on the descendant and so we see the mercury/pluto theme here again in the solar return chart that i pointed out in the midpoint picture for natal mars. i do wonder about the mechanisms that go into popes being elected and i seem to recall back in the spring how it was unusual in how it all unfolded but i don't have any conspiracy theory to go with some of the symbolism that might be implying this here. the sr saturn and sr pluto are making favourable aspects to the planets in closest connection to the angles - mercury/jupiter and uranus, so perhaps the tenacity associated with these 2 in a favourable pattern with these natal planets on the angles gives enough of a backdrop to some of the rationale for him being elected pope at this time. sr south node is conjunct the natal part of fortune. i am not sure what this means.. sr part of fortune is conjunct the 9th sign/house saturn which makes sense in so far as he has now reached the highest pinnacle of the catholic church.

the transit data highlight the saturn/pluto sextile at 11 degrees within a 1 degree orb of the descendant and exactly sextile/conjunct natal mercury. it is surprising to me to see so little of natal venus the midheaven ruler engaged in all this data i look at. i would suspect some primary direction of venus or the midheaven to help explain what i find missing in what these other predictive tools as showing. transit saturn forms a 45 degree to natal sun - 1 degree orb.. saturn is the 7th/8th sign/house ruler, while sun is the 2nd sign/house ruler. obviously the process of being elected involves a number of bishops voting for him. this would emphasize the 7th. perhaps saturns position in the natal chart is strong enough to favour a positive outcome with this focus of saturn transit to natal sun.

something i have overlooked here in my poor attempt to de-emphasize the outers for the hard core trad crowd is the position of pluto is in a fairly tight square to the midheaven - 2 degree orb. i am not sure what to make of this other then a conflict with authority that remains hidden for the most part. of course uranus on the midheaven of the chart speaks of independence and innovation so perhaps since his adopting the role of pope he will reveal a tendency to rock the boat of the catholic church hierarchy.. apparently he does not live in the usual place in the vatican which might be just one example of his ability or desire to express his independence..

i seem to recall looking at the primary direction data for pope francis but i don't see a copy of his chart on the morinus software, so maybe not..

the primary mundane directions using naibod key and placidus semi arc are mercury to i.c. 2013/02/20, sun 135 venus 02/28, sun 135 moon 09/14, saturn 45 venus 11/13.. those are all primary direct for year 2013, followed by month and day. i'll just mention one more outside the 2013 window which is mars directed to ascendant june 10 2014...

bear in mind a time of 9pm sure sounds rounded off at which point any directions to the angles will be negated.

the primary zodiac directions are using the true solar equatorial arc, placidus under the pole. for 2013 there is square of mercury to jupiter jan 1st, 2013. semisextile of venus to mars feb 7, square of saturn to saturn may 16. and semisquare of moon to sun july 28th.. converse direction data using same options is mars to sun jan 10 2013, sesquisquare of moon to neptune feb 7, jupiter square to sun march 11th, ascendant square to jupiter may 20th, and finally for 2013 moon to 135 neptune dec 27th..

the most relevant primary directions as i see it are the sun 135 venus in the mundane data, along with the jupiter to sun and ascendant to square of jupiter in the converse zodiac directions. the rise in status is perhaps captured best with the sun to venus direction, but the ascendant and sun engaged with jupiter in the zodiac directions seems quite good too as jupiter is on an angle in the natal chart, which might help to strengthen the idea that the 9pm time is fairly accurate.. unless the direction involves the angle, this data will still hold true to a large extent..

it is interesting to me to do this in so far as i didn't see much in the transit data and i was thrown off with the solar return data which had a strong emphasis an mars.. same deal for the profection lord.. one way to get round all this is to put mars as the 10th sign/house ruler and ignoring the taurus midheaven in deferring a rise in status and greater standing that has come off his rise to being pope.. i suppose one could chalk one up for whole sign houses if one was to approach the data this way.. it has been a fun little exercise for me sharing what i've spent the past few hours doing!

i'd like to add a couple of comments to my previous post.

i am still mystified to a degree on the nature of mars in this chart.. if the profected lord (mars 2012) has some important relevance to the year, along with the solar return which focuses on a strong mars on the ascendant all drawing attention and focus back to the role of mars in the root chart, how am i to understand this significant elevation to his status as the new pope?

here is what i come up with, some of which i mentioned near the end of my initial post.. mars rules the whole sign 10th, and the whole sign 5th - 2 houses that are important in terms of strength and relevance for a rise in status (10th) and the 5th in terms of getting lucky if one could call being elected the pope winning a type of lottery, lol..

here is another factor that adds to the strength of mars here. the planetary phase of mars in relation to the sun is 'strong'. also, it is the first planet oriental to the sun which some astrologers theorize has a lot of say over the type of profession one has a more natural aptitude towards. these are a few thoughts that i have had on this since yesterday..

no house system will put aries on the 9th, with the exception of campanus.. it still holds scorpio on the 5th as well.

i happen to have the election chart for the actual time of his becoming pope.. mars is accented in this chart as well. here is the chart for the timing of him becoming pope.


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regarding the use of diurnal arc verses zodiac for understanding the positions of the planets in a slightly different and more 'astronomical' context, here is the diurnal arc chart for pope francis. a nice 120 shows up between mars and the venus/moon conjunction with the moon applying to venus, as opposed to separating as it does in the zodiac chart.


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back to the question of mars and its role in coinciding with the election of pope francis thru the profected lord and the data in the solar return - i would like to share something i read earlier today in a book i am reading for the first time - "the beginning of wisdom" by avraham ibn-ezra, translated by meira b. epstein with notes from robert hand. the book was published in 1998. it is a translation of a previous translation from 1939 and another one previous to this into french in 1273.. aibn ezra lived from 1089-1164..

this is from page 96..
"mars is hot, dry, burning, harmful and destructive. he indicates ruin, drought, fires, rebellion, bloodshed, killing, war, fighting, blows, separations, and in general everything that is not right as it should be. of the human nature he denotes anger."

and a little further on at page 97
"in his share of human nature is speed, courage, victory, strength, fighting, dispute, pillage, anger insults and curses, lies, informing(against others), debauchery, rudeness, not keeping one's promise, making a false vow, permitting all that is forbidden by the torah, stealing, every wicked deed, cruelty, much effort, wandering from place to place, getting in harm's way, torture of people and beating, imprisoning and taking captive, robbing of money, digging through walls and opening doors to discover any hidden thing..
in general he is all evil with nothing good in him."

as one can see the description of mars is not all that positive circa 1100 ad or so!!! the one line that could be considered positive is this one - "speed, courage, victory, strength"

i suspect the victory part only comes after a lot of fighting or some such martial thing, but that is the closest word to parallel the prominence in the couple of predictive tools under consideration here..

i had thought perhaps a fixed star close to mars might help shed some light on mars role. spica is a bit too far away and nothing stands out that i can see.

Hey James_m! I haven?t stopped to really study the chart, but when he first became pope we tried to find what his ascendant would be on the astrologiae collegium facebook group, and I had noted that on the day he was chosen as pope, the only aspect that was perfected was a moon-mars (opposition I believe). This, together with a 5th house profection year, (which favored a capricorn or cancer rising tying 5th house and 10th house) led me to guess a cancer ascendant. The moon was also his firdaria ruler and sub-ruler. Nataly the moon rules his ascendant and is the almuten of the 11th/M.C. I think we ought to look at her more closely.
Another intriguing detail is that if we consider the ascendant off by 1-2 degrees, his lot of spirit can be conjunct regulus, in a close trine to its, ruler the sun. When I have some time later I?ll open up the chart and study it a bit more in depth.

hi lucas,

thanks for your comments and welcome to skyscript!

good guess on the cancer ascendant! i am intrigued by your comments about a 5th house profection year which could only be gotten if you knew the ascendant beforehand.. was that part of the basis for your guess at a cancer ascendant?

i agree with you that the moon is important in his chart for a few reasons. however the moon doesn't show up much in the primary direction data that i shared up above. i mostly found the position of mars to be significant for the year a number of which. this continues to confuse me somewhat as i don't know that i would have guessed his success at being in the running for being pope based off this and this is what i would have to consider as most prominent in some of the predictive charts all going back to his rulership of the 5th and 9th by quadrant house system.. the only way it adds up is using aries as the 10th sign/house thru whole sign/house system.

any additional thoughts you'd like to share would be most welcome. thanks!

lucas_Barreto wrote:Hey James_m! I haven?t stopped to really study the chart, but when he first became pope we tried to find what his ascendant would be on the astrologiae collegium facebook group, and I had noted that on the day he was chosen as pope, the only aspect that was perfected was a moon-mars (opposition I believe). This, together with a 5th house profection year, (which favored a capricorn or cancer rising tying 5th house and 10th house) led me to guess a cancer ascendant. The moon was also his firdaria ruler and sub-ruler. Nataly the moon rules his ascendant and is the almuten of the 11th/M.C. I think we ought to look at her more closely.
Another intriguing detail is that if we consider the ascendant off by 1-2 degrees, his lot of spirit can be conjunct regulus, in a close trine to its, ruler the sun. When I have some time later I?ll open up the chart and study it a bit more in depth.

Hey!
Well independently of the charts ascendant everyone's 12th birthday is a first house profection year, 18th a 7th house profection year and so on. So I did the math and saw it was a 5th house profection year.
But becoming pope HAD to have some kind of 10th house tie in terms of profection, I mean this is the pope. So I looked for any planets who could be in the 5th house and rule the tenth or signs that would be in the 5th and 10th having the same ruler. That was the process. Far from fail proof, but in this case it worked.

It is an interesting issue this mars thing. let's think it together. Topically mars is associated with the 9th by house division, as well as 10th and 5th, and there are a few points in favor of its positive effects:
1. It's a night chart
2. It is in aversion to Saturn the out of sect malefic
3. It is being overcome by jupiter (who is in Capricorn but mutually receiving Saturn)
4. It is in trine to Venus (it's ruler and the sect benefic) and the moon (sect light)
5. it is also the moon's first aspect
6. Sextile to the sun
7. Rules 10th/9th and 5th (not any of the evil houses$

Keeping in mind his victory is a somewhat revolutionary victory as pope. He is the first Franciscan pope, he is rupturing with the way the church traditionally deals with many issues, ranging from money, to sex scandals. He's cutting out the rotten parts, an interesting line of action, in view of the placement of his mars.

I'm writing on my phone, it's a busy week! I still haven't sat down to go through the chart and write all my thoughts!
I'll be back!

hi lucas,

good stuff! come back when you have time! i like how you got that 5th house profection via the math. i have gotten lazy with the computer!!!

point 3, i think you mean to say mars is overcoming jupiter..

i liked how you pointed out the next aspect involving the moon. i note you were asking about that on another thread in relation to it being a possible indicator of profession.. those ideas are captured in the firmicus maternus book 'metheseos libri v111' if you want to get more of that. personally i like looking at this for a better understanding of the chart as well and i believe i discussed it up above somewhere..

in so far as his birth is a nocturnal one, the moon takes on additional importance. the aspects to the other sect members - venus and mars and possibly mercury - are important and discussed with the idea of doryphory. here is a link on this from skyscript for anyone interested - http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic ... 5c419b8574

i was looking at this initially and as i understand it mars isn't a spearbearer for the moon in this chart.

the best observation i can make regarding mars in this chart is the planetary phase of mars is very strong in the oriental sextile away from the sun.. sure, mars in libra is the sign of it's fall, but by phase it is very strong here. i think this is supposed to mean it has power to express itself which seems to be valid in watching the actions he has undertaken as pope to date, but in the sign libra it still doesn't operate in the right context according to basic astro doctrine of planets in signs as i understand it. the other point about mars rulership of the whole sign house 10th is the other area of fascination for me, as i would be looking at the taurus midheaven and how it was highlighted in this event of him becoming pope, and i just can't see it!