Laphidil Oppong Twumasi, a youth leader from Ghana, reads Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation, “Christus Vivit” (Christ Lives), during a news conference for its presentation at the Vatican on April 2, 2019

As a young Jesuit, Jorge Bergoglio taught literature to a group of rowdy, hormonal teenage boys at a private school in Argentina who, according to one of them, “had no desire to study.”

Faced with the chaos of the classroom, the 28-year-old Bergoglio refused to adopt a dictatorial path of control but instead engaged his pupils by posing them challenges. He demonstrated his passion for a range of writers, even managing to get one of Spanish literature’s greats, Jorge Borges to come and talk to the class.

Recalling those days Jorge Milia, who is now a writer, said the future Pope always urged his students to analyse, break down arguments and not be “hood winked.”

Decades later, and now sitting in the Chair of St Peter, Pope Francis is adopting a similar teaching method when it comes to how the Church can better connect with young people.