Pope Francis, the 266th leader of the Roman Catholic Church who ushered in a progressive era for the Vatican, died Monday. He was 88.
Francis’ death follows a five-week hospitalization in February and March, initially for bronchitis and then also for pneumonia in both of his lungs. He was released March 23 and had just celebrated Easter Mass on Sunday.
Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Camerlengo of the Apostolic Chamber, made the announcement at the Casa Santa Marta, where Francis had lived since becoming pope in 2013.
“Dearest brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis,” he said. “At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of His Church.”
He added: “He taught us to live the values of the Gospel with fidelity, courage, and universal love, especially in favor of the poorest and most marginalized. With immense gratitude for his example as a true disciple of the Lord Jesus, we commend the soul of Pope Francis to the infinite merciful love of the One and Triune God.”
The pope, who had part of one lung removed when he was younger following an infection, was hospitalized twice in 2023, first for bronchitis and later to remove intestinal scar tissue and repair a hernia in his abdominal wall. That surgery followed doctors removing 13 inches of his large intestine in 2021 due to bulges that had formed in his colon’s intestinal wall. That procedure is believed to have resulted in the problematic scarring.
In 2023, Francis was forced to cancel an appearance at the COP28 climate conference due to the flu and lung inflammation. In 2022, the pope also needed to delay a trip to Congo and South Sudan because of knee inflammation. The injury resulted in Francis needing to use a wheelchair and a walker for over a year.
People around the world mourned the death of the first pontiff from the Americas, who took the world by storm after a conclave of cardinals elected him to be pope in 2013. The Argentine succeeded Pope Benedict XVI, who, in a nearly unprecedented move, resigned in February of that same year.
Now, the conclave will gather again to deliberate over who will succeed Francis.
Francis led the church through a period of significant demographic change, as Catholic populations declined in Europe and the United States, expanded in Africa, and faced competition from Pentecostal Protestantism in Latin America. One of Francis’ most enduring legacies will be his reshaping of the church’s hierarchy to reflect these shifts. Francis has packed the College of Cardinals, which elects popes, with bishops from Africa, Asia and South America.
Throughout his papacy, Francis pushed the church to become less “obsessed” with culture war issues such as gay marriage and abortion, encouraging clergy and lay Catholics to pay more attention to the refugee crisis, climate change, human trafficking and the global arms trade.
He also shepherded the church through the COVID-19 pandemic, canceling large public gatherings and Masses at St. Peter’s Basilica in an effort to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. The cancellations led to extraordinary and historic scenes at the Vatican ― a near-empty St. Peter’s Square on Good Friday, followed months later by a socially distanced Christmas Day address at the Apostolic Palace, the pope’s official residence. Francis urged government leaders and businesses to ensure the COVID-19 vaccine reached the “most vulnerable and needy of all regions of the planet.”
But Francis’ legacy will inevitably be challenged by his early missteps in handling the Catholic Church’s clerical sexual abuse crisis.
During his papacy, the church faced a renewed reckoning over abuse, with high-profile scandals in the U.S., Poland, France, and Chile toppling prominent figures. Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the pope accomplished many “firsts” before even beginning his official papal duties. He was the first pope from the Americas, the first Jesuit to be named pope, and the first to take the name of Francis after St. Francis of Assisi ― protector of the environment and of the poor. But Francis first and foremost described himself as a “sinner,” saying in an interview shortly after his election: “This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.” Born on Dec. 17, 1936, Francis was the eldest of five children. His father was an Italian immigrant, and his mother was an Argentine of Italian descent. As a young adult, Francis had an affinity for tango dancing, worked as a bouncer at a nightclub, and trained in chemistry before entering seminary. After being ordained in 1969, he went on to serve as the head of Argentina’s chapter of the Society of Jesus, the Catholic Church’s Jesuit order. At the age of 36, Francis found himself leading the country’s Jesuit order just as Argentina was entering its so-called “dirty war,” a period of violence and unrest in which thousands of people were kidnapped, tortured, and killed. Some criticized him for his actions during this time, leading to challenges in his popularity within the Jesuit community. By the late 1980s, the new Jesuit leaders grappled with what to do with Bergoglio, who had alienated many Jesuits for his actions during the “dirty war.” He favored sending young Jesuits to work in the fields rather than studying liberation theology, a socially progressive philosophy that spread through Latin America. In 1990, Jesuit leaders sent him to Cordoba, where he entered a period of prayer and reflection for two years. Juan Carlos Scannone, a fellow Jesuit who had known Bergoglio since the 1950s, referred to the time in Cordoba as “a spiritual purification, a dark night.”
