VATICAN CITY (AP) — When Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio almost became pope in 2005, he told a confidant that — had he been elected — he would have named himself after the pope he so admired: John XXIII.

When he did become pope in 2013, his first public words echoed what John Paul II had said upon his election — that cardinals had searched far, to the “ends of the Earth,” to find a new leader.