Pope Francis, the 266th Catholic Church leader who tried to position the church to be more inclusive, died on Easter Monday, Vatican officials confirmed. He was 88.
Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Vatican camerlengo, announced the news in a statement: “At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the home of the Father. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of his Church. He taught us to live the values of the Gospel with faithfulness, courage, and universal love, especially for 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 God, One and Tribune.”
Francis, who had a portion of one lung removed as a young man, was hospitalized at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital on Feb. 14 with bronchitis, which led to double pneumonia and several respiratory crises.
He spent 38 days there, the longest hospitalization of his 12-year papacy, but had been released from hospital on March 23. On Easter Sunday, Francis came out of convalescence to bless thousands of people on St. Peter’s Square.
Born Jorge Mario Bergolio in Argentina on Dec. 17, 1936, Francis initially trained to become a chemist. He was also known to love tango, which he danced in his youth, before becoming a priest.
After experiencing life-threatening pneumonia at 21, Bergoglio committed himself to religion, joining the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits, in 1958. After being ordained as a priest in 1969, he worked his way up to become the archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 before being elected a cardinal in 2001.
Bergolio was appointed pope in 2013, following the resignation of his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI. As an Argentinian, Bergolio’s appointment set numerous precedents: he became the first pope to be born outside of Europe since the 8th-century Syrian pope Gregory III, the first pope to be born in the Southern Hemisphere, the first pope born in the Americas and the first Jesuit pope. Upon ordination, he chose Francis as his papal name, after Saint Francis of Assisi.
Shortly after becoming Pope, Francis joined Twitter (now X), attracting more than 25 million followers in three years. In 2016, he opened an Instagram account, which now has 9.8 million followers.
As pope, Francis gained a reputation for being relatively less formal and conservative by the standards of his position, which caused controversy among traditionalist members of the Church. He declined to stay in the traditional papal apartments in favor of living in the official Vatican guest house, openly criticized consumerism and unregulated capitalism while championing environmental causes and promoted inter-religious dialogue and partnerships. At the same time, though he made sympathetic statements on LGBTQ and women’s rights during his papacy, Francis ultimately maintained the broad traditional views of the Catholic Church regarding same-sex marriage, abortion and the ordination of women as priests.
Though he fully upheld the church’s position that marriage could exist only between a man and a woman, Francis said during a 2023 Synod of Bishops — which was open for the first time to women and laypeople — that priests should exercise “pastoral charity” when it came to requests for blessings of same-sex marriages, a position welcomed by gay Catholics as a big step forward.
During his leadership of the Catholic Church, Francis promoted a theology that emphasized God’s mercy and serving the poor and downtrodden. One of his first apostolic exhortations, Evangelii Gaudium, saw him denounce economic inequality, calling on the church to embrace its global diversity. His first encyclical, Laudato si’, proclaimed that climate change was a moral issue caused by unchecked capitalism and the exploitation of human beings and endorsed the rights of Indigenous people.
In 2018, Francis revised the catechism of the Church to fully reject the death penalty, calling it “inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”
Hailed by global liberals as the most progressive pope to date, Francis had plenty of fans in the entertainment world. The dozens of big names who attended various forms of papal audiences during his time as church leader include Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom, Bono, Leonardo DiCaprio, Angelina Jolie, Antonio Banderas, Andrea Bocelli, Richard Gere and George and Amal Clooney, to name just a few.
In 2014, the pontiff personally invited Patti Smith to perform at the Vatican’s Christmas concert during which she sang “O Holy Night” backed by the Vatican orchestra. The pope’s invitation of the ‘Godmother of Punk‘ caused a stir among conservative Catholics.
During his first visit to the United States in 2015, Francis became the first pope to speak in front of the U.S. Congress and shared the stage in Philadelphia with Aretha Franklin during the Festival of Families, an event organized by the Vatican-sponsored World Meeting of Families.
In 2016, Martin Scorsese was given a private papal audience prior to a Vatican screening of “Silence,” the veteran U.S. director’s film about the persecution of Christians in 17th-century Japan, in a clear show of support for Scorsese’s passion project.
That year, German auteur Wim Wenders — maker of the spiritual drama “Wings of Desire” and documentaries such as “Buena Vista Social Club” and “Pina” — was given unprecedented access to Pope Francis over a two-year period to direct “A Man of His Word,” a documentary that launched from Cannes in 2018. The film revolves around a long dialogue with the pontiff, who answered questions about what he considered the chief global challenges facing the world including “social justice, immigration, ecology, inequality, materialism and the role of the family,” as the Vatican TV Center — which produced the doc — put it.
2019 saw Francis become the first ever pope to visit the Arabian Peninsula in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. There, Francis met with Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayeb, one of the highest figures in Sunni Islam.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Francis canceled his regular appearances at St. Peter’s Square and encouraged priests and Catholic Church officials to visit healthcare workers and the sick. The pandemic also prompted him to call for a universal basic wage to counteract the economic effects. He also issued strong statements against anti-vaccination misinformation, proclaiming that receiving the COVID-19 vaccine was a “moral obligation” to protect the health of the general public.
The leadership of Francis’ predecessor, Benedict XVI, had been greatly criticized for failing to take adequate action against sex abuse in the Catholic Church. Francis faced similar criticism over his tenure, with many calling him slow to react to abuse cases. In 2018, he apologized for the church’s slow response to the scandal and launched a Vatican investigation that led to the resignation of three Chilean bishops. Also in 2018, former cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s abuse of minors came to light, resulting in him being dismissed from the church in 2019. Francis was accused by archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò of knowing about the McCarrick’s actions and covering it up. Francis ordered the Vatican to carry out an investigation of the case, which largely absolves him and placed the blame on his immediate predecessors.
In January 2025, while his health was rapidly deteriorating, Francis gave a rare TV interview during which he slammed newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump’s call for the mass deportation of immigrants in the U.S. as a “disgrace.”
The 88-year-old pontiff was asked about the incoming Trump administration’s plans to deport undocumented immigrants during a conversation with Italian talk show host Fabio Fazio to promote his book “Hope,” which is the first memoir by a sitting pope and has been published in over 80 countries.
In early March, in a breathless pre-recorded audio message from Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, Francis thanked the faithful for their prayers for his recovery. The 30-second message in his native Spanish marked the first time supporters heard the pontiff’s voice in three weeks. It was broadcast in St. Peter’s Square during the nightly recitation of the rosary prayer and aired around the world, proving that more than any pope before him, Francis understood the power of direct communication.
Francis is survived by his only living sibling, María Elena Bergoglio and his niece Cristina Bergoglio.
