Vatican City, June 8 : Pope Francis has denied that when he was a cardinal he harboured ambitions to lead the Catholic Church.

"I didn't want to become Pope. A person who has this desire does not love themselves... and does not have God's blessing," Francis said.

He was answering a question from Jesuit school pupils who he received at the Vatican.

Francis, formerly Argentine cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, archbishop of Buenos Aires, was elected pontiff with more than 90 votes out of 115.

A Jesuit and Vatican "outsider", Francis is the first non-European Pope to have been elected in over 12 centuries.

The break from tradition was seen by observers as signalling a desire to reform the governance of the Catholic Church in the wake of sex abuse, corruption and money laundering scandals.(IANS)