What could have been may never be

We probably all know who she is by now. Amalia Damonte, Pope Francisco's childhood sweetheart. 

This leads us to the central topic of our lesson:

What do you remember about your childhood sweetheart?

Some typical answers to such a question:

It was my first heartbreak
It was SUCH a long long time ago = It was CENTURIES ago = It was millennia ago = It was AGES ago

It was nothing serious = It was puppy love = It was a childhood fling.

So what if Amalia had accepted? Would they have gotten married? Would we have a different pope?

The cartoon humorously explores this idea, but only inversely:

SO, how would you complete the sentence below:

If I had ..., I would have ...

On another note, we could also talk about the Pope's social work. 

This takes us back to the purpose of our class: speculating about past events.


If Jorge Mario Bergoglio had not been involved in so much social work, would he have been chosen as the new Pope?

What were the driving factors to him being chosen?