By Federica Marsi
Pope Francis, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church has died at the age of 88, the Vatican says in a video statement.
“At 7:35 [05:35 GMT] 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,” Cardinal Kevin Ferrell, the Vatican camerlengo, announced.
Global leaders express grief for the passing of the Argentinian pontiff who had suffered various ailments in his 12-year papacy.
The College of Cardinals, comprised of senior Catholic clergy, will elect the next pope.
Analysis
Pope Francis built ‘unprecedented relationship with Muslim world’
No pope in history has built as close a relationship with the Muslim world as Pope Francis has done, Gerard O’Connell, Vatican correspondent at America Magazine, has told Al Jazeera.
“People respected him greatly because he respected the followers of all the other religions, including Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims,” O’Connell said.
Francis was also beloved in Africa, where he encouraged community building and stood up for the marginalised. “In his last trip to Africa, when he went to the Democratic Republic of Congo and to South Sudan, he was in a wheelchair,” O’Connell said. “In Africa, leaders do not appear in wheelchairs but are confined to their homes. His was a liberating message for many people in his situation.”
Overall, the pope transformed the Catholic Church “into a community that reaches out to people and is not judgmental, that seeks to reach out to those who are discarded by most of the world,” the correspondent said.
Did Francis work as a bouncer?
Yes.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio, as he was known before becoming Pope Francis, had a brief stint as a nightclub bouncer in Cordoba, Argentina, before becoming a priest.
Born into an Italian immigrant family in Flores, a middle-class district of Buenos Aires, on December 17, 1936, he also worked afternoons in a hosiery factory from the age of 13 while studying to become a chemical technician in the mornings.
Francis not a pope ‘to be put into a single category’
Catholic analyst Peter Williams says Francis was a “mercurial” pontiff who “led in several different directions”.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, he was quick to note that Francis was not a monolithic “progressive” as he has been described by some.
“In fact, it wasn’t quite that simple at all,” Williams said.
“This was a man who grew up in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s … who had the typical kind of attitude you would expect of a Catholic man of his generation,” he added.
“So he wasn’t uniformly liberal, as some people would say, but he certainly did push in certain more liberal directions,” Williams said, citing as an example Francis allowing the blessing of same-sex couples without wanting to affirm their relationships.
“Things like these were really quite shocking to the Catholic system,” he added, “but at the same time, this was a man who absolutely upheld the church’s authority” on things like suicide and surrogacy.
“He has extremely strong comments on those issues that were quite shocking, I think, to the sensibilities of those who describe themselves as liberal, so this was not a man who was simple to put into a single category by any stretch of the imagination.”
How long did it take to elect Pope Francis 12 years ago?
The Vatican’s Sistine Chapel chimney released white smoke on March 13, 2013, indicating that a new leader of the Catholic Church had been elected.
Francis succeeded Benedict XVI, who stunned the world on February 11, 2013, when he announced that he no longer had the strength of body and mind to keep up with his obligations.
A papal conclave was held on March 12-13, and on the fifth ballot, its cardinals elected 76-year-old Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires. After accepting his election, he took the name of Francis.
Migrants and refugees at the heart of pope’s mission
Advocating for migrants has been one of Francis’s priorities as pope.
In February, he blasted the administration of newly elected US President Donald Trump, warning that plans for the mass deportation of migrants would deprive them of their inherent dignity.
He also famously took a swipe at Trump in 2016, saying anyone who builds a wall to keep out migrants was “not a Christian”. In a Mass at the US-Mexico border the same year, he said migrants were our “brothers and sisters”.
His first trip after being elected in 2013 was to the Italian island of Lampedusa, the first port of arrival in Europe for tens of thousands of refugees fleeing persecution, violence and war. While there, the pope mourned the loss of those who die trying to reach Europe and warned that indifference to their plight occurred when “humanity as a whole loses its bearings”.
To draw the world’s attention to their suffering, in 2016, he knelt down to wash the feet of 12 refugees and migrants from six countries. “You, we, are from different religions and cultures, but we are all children of the same Father, and brothers,” he said.
How did the pope die?
The announcement of Francis’s death by the Vatican did not give a cause of death.
Italian media have speculated that the 88-year-old might have suffered a stroke or brain haemorrhage.
As we’ve been reporting, the pope had contracted double pneumonia this year and was hospitalised in Rome for five weeks.
Doctors had prescribed two months of rest when Francis was discharged nearly a month ago, but he appeared in public on a number of occasions. This month, he met Britain’s King Charles while on Sunday, he was driven around St Peter’s Square in an open-air popemobile to greet cheering crowds on Easter.
Italy postpones football matches
Italy’s top-flight football league has postponed all of today’s fixtures after the death of Francis, a lifelong fan of the sport.
The scheduled four matches will now be played on Wednesday.
The country’s Olympic committee has also asked for all of today’s sporting events to be suspended and for the observation of a minute of silence in the competitions scheduled for the rest of the week.
Pope was a critic of Trump’s immigration policies
There’s no question there were big differences in terms of how the pope and the Trump administration both viewed the policy of immigration.
In fact, the pope sharply criticised the Trump administration in a letter to bishops in February, essentially saying its policy was not consistent with the welcoming message of the Bible.
Further back, he had also gone on record about Donald Trump’s policies advocating to build a wall along the southern border of the US with Mexico, saying anyone who does that to migrants is not a Christian.
So there have been these strong differences, but Trump has released a statement on Truth Social saying, “Rest in Peace Pope Francis! May God Bless him and all who loved him!”
And at the same time, one of the last people to see the pope was JD Vance, the US vice president, on Sunday. The pope in fact, despite all these differences, even extended three chocolate Easter eggs for the children of the Vance family.
With regards to attending the funeral of the pope, it’s still not clear who will be attending. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has said there are no plans at the moment, but that could change.
Francis’s legacy includes speaking truth to power on climate change
Throughout his 12-year papacy, Francis was outspoken on climate change. His papal name was inspired by St Francis of Assisi, who was known to admire and care for the natural world.
In his encyclical Laudato Si (Praised Be), the pope criticised “politics concerned with immediate results, supported by consumerist sectors” and argued that climate change and social justice were intertwined to form “one complex crisis”.
The pontiff also repeatedly urged climate action. “If we took the planet’s temperature, it will tell us that the Earth has a fever and it is sick,” he said before a trip to Southeast Asia last year. “We must commit ourselves to … the protection of nature, changing our personal and community habits.”
His outspokenness on the issue marked a significant increase in Catholic environmental activism. He was also unafraid to criticise world leaders who “deny, conceal, gloss over or relativise the issue”, saying it was no longer possible to deny the human origins of climate change.
Santa Maria Maggiore, Francis’s final resting place: What to know
Pope Francis declared his desire to be entombed in the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica in 2023.
Located in the heart of Rome, the fifth-century church already holds the tombs of seven popes. The last pope to be buried there was Clement IX in 1669, while the last pontiff to be buried outside the Vatican was Leo XIII in 1903, whose final resting place is the Church of Saint John Lateran, the cathedral of the bishop of Rome.
Francis was very devoted to the worship of the Virgin Mary and made a point to pray in Santa Maria Maggiore before leaving on trips abroad and upon his return. Most recently, he prayed to the icon of the Virgin Mary inside the basilica on April 12, to mark the beginning of the Holy Week that culminated in Easter.
One of four papal basilicas in Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore holds the remains of several other renowned personalities, such as the architect and sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who designed St Peter’s Square and its surrounding columns.
The interior of Santa Maria Maggiore remains close to its origins. The central nave is lined by 40 Ionic columns and contains exquisite mosaics.
One legend ties the basilica to the Virgin Mary from its origins. It says that a childless wealthy Roman couple wanted to donate their possessions to the Virgin Mary. She appeared to them in a vision and told them to build a church in her honour where a miracle would take place. Snow fell that summer night in August 352 on the hill where the basilica now stands.
Another legend has Pope Liberius being told in a dream of the summer snowfall.
According to the Vatican, however, nothing remains of that original church. Construction of the current basilica began around 432 under Pope Sixtus III.
The basilica holds some of the church’s most important relics, including an icon of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus attributed to Saint Luke. It also holds pieces of wood believed to have been from Jesus’s crib. The basilica’s website says recent studies have dated the wood from the period of Jesus’s birth.
Vatican visitors mourn Pope Francis
Visitors at the Vatican are expressing deep sorrow for the death of Pope Francis, who is remembered for his peace advocacy and significant reforms of the Roman Curia.
“It’s a great loss; he is a man who has innovated the church and left a great mark,” Rome resident Maria Silvia Tarsia said. “His absence causes great pain.”
Johann Xavier said his family travelled from Australia and was hoping to see the pope. “We heard about [his death] when we came here and it pretty much devastated all of us,” he said.
Becca Tusa said it was “very significant” that the pope died during Easter. Tusa added that for Argentinian nationals like herself, his death “has quite a bit of significance”.
Monica Gonzales, a nun on a trip to the Vatican, said the pontiff’s death was “a great loss for the church and for the whole world”. He was “a pope who worked so hard for peace and for the good of all”, she said.
Why the next conclave won’t be like the others
As we’ve been reporting, when a pope dies or steps down, a new pontiff is chosen by the College of Cardinals in a secret ballot vote known as a conclave.
Two-thirds of the men eligible to elect the next pope were named by Francis.
“All these cardinals chosen by Pope Francis have two characteristics,” Loup Besmond de Senneville, the Vatican correspondent for La Croix newspaper, told Al Jazeera.
“The first one is that they come from what Pope Francis called the periphery of the world,” he said, citing cardinals in countries such as Lesotho, Mongolia and Myanmar.
“So in the conclave, you will hear voices that have never been heard before in the Sistine Chapel.”
He added that the second characteristic is that “they all have a very strong pastoral experience; they are all men from the ground, from the field, so it will change the way these men will choose the pope”.
Pope Francis through the years: A life in pictures
The 88-year-old pontiff was recovering from double pneumonia and was under doctors’ orders to observe two months of convalescence since he left Rome’s Gemelli Hospital on March 23.
Francis suffered from a number of health issues throughout his life, including having part of one of his lungs removed at the age of 21.
He became increasingly fragile in recent years.
World will be a ‘better place if we follow his example’: Guterres
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said he joins the world “in mourning the passing of His Holiness Pope Francis, a messenger of hope, humility and humanity”.
“Pope Francis was a man of faith for all faiths – working with people of all beliefs and backgrounds to light a path forward,” Guterres said in a statement.
Praising the late pontiff, the United Nations chief said the world body had long drawn inspiration from his “dedication to the organisation’s goals and ideals” – something he personally expressed during their meetings.
“Our divided and discordant world will be a much better place if we follow his example of unity and mutual understanding in our own actions,” Guterres said.
Here are some reactions from Latin American leaders
Catholics across Latin America have woken up to the news of the death of Francis, who was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
A number of leaders from across the region have also released statements, including Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum, who said the pontiff was “a humanist who stood for the poor, peace, and equality”.
“He left behind a great legacy of true love for one’s neighbour. For Catholics and non-Catholics alike, this is a great loss. Knowing him was a great honour and privilege. May he rest in peace,” Sheinbaum wrote on her X account.
Uruguay’s President Yamandu Orsi said the pope left “at the moment when the world needed him most”.
“Nevertheless, he always knew how to say what he felt and thought, to whoever would listen. A man of faith and commitment. Pope Francis left a clear mark, a path to follow,” Orsi said.
Bolivian President Luis Arce said Pope Francis was not only the leader of the Catholic Church, but also a “staunch friend of the Great Homeland and a fervent defender of the most vulnerable.”
“His encyclical Laudato Si [Praised be] is a fundamental legacy for thinking and reflecting on our Mother Earth, the climate crisis, and other ills that afflict us due to the predatory capitalist system.”
What did JD Vance tweet?
As we’ve reported, the US vice president yesterday met briefly with Pope Francis to exchange Easter greetings.
The meeting took place in the Domus Sanctae Marthae (Saint Martha’s House) where the pope had been living since his discharge from hospital.
Video footage showed Francis in his wheelchair shaking hands with JD Vance, with the Vatican writing later in a brief statement that the meeting “gave the opportunity to exchange greetings on Easter Sunday”.
Francis gave Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, three big chocolate Easter eggs to give to his three young children.
“I know you have not been feeling great but, it’s good to see you in better health,” Vance told the pope. “Thank you for seeing me.”
The encounter came after the two got into a long-distance spat over the Trump administration’s migrant deportation plans.
Earlier today, Vance wrote on X: “I just learned of the passing of Pope Francis. My heart goes out to the millions of Christians all over the world who loved him.
“I was happy to see him yesterday, though he was obviously very ill. But I’ll always remember him for the below homily he gave in the very early days of COVID. It was really quite beautiful.
“May God rest his soul.”
I just learned of the passing of Pope Francis. My heart goes out to the millions of Christians all over the world who loved him.
I was happy to see him yesterday, though he was obviously very ill. But I’ll always remember him for the below homily he gave in the very early days…
— JD Vance (@JDVance) April 21, 2025
Cardinal Farrell to preside over coffin placement of Francis’s body
We’re getting reports that the Vatican’s camerlengo will preside over the rite of the ascertainment of Francis’s death and the placement of his body in a coffin this evening.
The rite will take place in the Chapel of the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta at 8pm (22:00 GMT), Vatican News said.
Argentina, Brazil announce 7 days of mourning
Manuel Adorni, the spokesperson for the Presidency of Argentina, has announced on social media that the country will observe seven days of mourning over the pontiff’s death.
“Pope Francis, Jorge Bergoglio, has passed away. He was a spiritual leader and guide to millions of men and women,” Adorni wrote on social media.
“The President of the Nation will declare seven days of mourning for the passing of the Holy Father.”
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva also declared a weeklong mourning period in Latin America’s biggest country.
“Humanity loses today a voice of respect and welcome for others,” Lula said in a statement. “May God comfort those who today, everywhere in the world, suffer the pain of this enormous loss. In his memory and in homage to his work, I decree a seven-day mourning in Brazil.”
Thousands gather in St Peter’s Square to mourn Pope Francis
Believers are streaming into the famous square to pay their respects to Pope Francis.
“He was one of us,” Antonia, a bystander, was quoted as saying by the Ansa state news agency.
“We were sure he was out of peril at this point,” said a Spanish man, showing a picture of Francis on his Popemobile greeting the crowd on Sunday, in one of the very few public visits he made after his five-week punishing hospitalisation.
The crowds filled the space around St Peter’s Basilica’s imposing four rows of columns, which were designed in the 17th century and arranged in a sweeping oval shape to give visitors the feeling of the Church’s embrace.
“He did a lot for us. I was in shock when I received the news – I was not expecting this. Yesterday I was here looking at him, and today he is not there any more,” said another believer.
Born in Argentina, Francis was the only Latin American pontiff and first non-European pope in more than 1,000 years.
Pope Francis, pontiff who pushed church boundaries — but didn’t break them
The pope, who pushed for a less opaque Vatican and connected to common and marginalised people’s concerns, died aged 88.
Who will be the next pope after Francis? The selection process, what’s next
Potential successors to Pope Francis are Ghana’s Peter Turkson, Luis Tagle of the Philippines and Hungary’s Peter Erdo.
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