Pope Francis, who has vowed to reform the Roman Catholic Church, making it leaner and simpler, has disclosed that as a little boy he wanted to become a butcher. "When I was a boy, I thought about becoming a butcher," Francis told around 6,000 child singers from the international Pueri Cantores children's choir on Thursday.

Asked if he ever dreamed of becoming pope when he was young, Francis recalled that he often went with his mother and grandmother to shop at a local market because there were no stores in the Argentine neighborhood where he grew up. "I'll tell you a secret," he said. "I was very little. I was four years old. One time they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I said: 'a butcher,'" he said. The Argentine pontiff said he always enjoyed to see the butchers at their trade in their market stalls in Buenos Aires during his childhood!