Leo XIV is turning 70. Does that make him young for a pope?

Is Leo XIV, who celebrates his 70th birthday on September 14, a “young pope”? Compared to his two predecessors, undeniably so. Francis and Benedict XVI were not yet pontiffs when they passed this milestone.

On December 17, 2006, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio celebrated his 70th birthday while Archbishop of Buenos Aires. John Paul II had entrusted him this position seven years earlier, before he was made a cardinal in 2001. The cardinal was little known to the media at the time, even though he played a key role in the 2005 conclave: His candidacy received the most support after that of Benedict XVI, who was ultimately elected.

The German pope, for his part, celebrated his 70th birthday eight years before his election, in 1997. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the right-hand man of John Paul II in the area of dogma. The Polish pontiff appointed him to this position in 1981.

Cardinal Ratzinger had hoped that the Polish pontiff would entrust him with another mission at that point, as he recounted in 2007 while visiting the Vatican Apostolic Library: “I confess that at the age of 70, I fervently hoped that the beloved John Paul II would allow me to devote myself to the study of the interesting documents and manuscripts that you preserve with such care, true masterpieces that help us to study the history of humanity and Christianity. In his providential designs, the Lord had other plans for me.”

John Paul II did turn 70 as a pope, and a seasoned one at that.

The youngest pope since Pius IX — who was elected at the age of 54 in 1846 — John Paul II celebrated his 70th birthday on May 18, 1990, on the Throne of Peter. He had been pope for nearly 12 years, had already published seven encyclicals, and had made 47 apostolic trips outside Italy. 

On his birthday, he received pilgrims from the German Democratic Republic in audience, a few months after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

“It is with great joy that I welcome you to the Holy City and thank you for your good wishes and prayers. I realize that this is the first time in forty years that believers from your country have been able to come on pilgrimage to the land of the holy apostles Peter and Paul in large numbers and by the normal route,” he said at the time.

John Paul I, who died 34 days after his election at the age of 65, is one of the few popes who have not been septuagenarians in the last two centuries, along with Benedict XV (who died at 67), Leo XII (68), and Pius VIII (69).

John XXIII was elected pope in 1958 at the age of 76. Monsignor Angelo Roncalli celebrated his 70th birthday on November 25, 1951 … in Paris, where Pius XII had appointed him nuncio in 1944. He isn’t the only pope in history to have celebrated this birthday in France: Pius VII celebrated his 70th birthday on August 14, 1812, in the Château de Fontainebleau, where he was being held prisoner by Napoleon.