Pope Francis, the trailblazing Roman Catholic pontiff who advocated a more compassionate papacy and a less traditionalist approach than his predecessor, has died, the Vatican said, hours after making his final public appearance Easter Sunday at St. Peter’s Square.
Francis, 88, died at 7:35 a.m. Monday morning in Italy, or 12:35 a.m. CT.
“Dearest brothers and sisters,” Cardinal Kevin Ferrell, the Vatican camerlengo, said in a statement, “It is with deep sorrow I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis. 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,” the statement continued. “He taught us to live the values of the Gospel with faithfulness, courage, and universal love, especially in favor of the poorest and the 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 Triune God.”
Francis, who was recovering from double pneumonia, has only appeared in public a handful of times since returning to the Vatican on March 23 after a 38-day hospital stay. He skipped the solemn services of Good Friday and Holy Saturday leading up to Easter, but treated visitors to a surprise popemobile romp through the piazza.
Francis on Easter Sunday also briefly met with U.S. Vice President JD Vance in one of the reception rooms of the Vatican hotel where he lives. The two exchanged Easter greetings after they got into a long-distance squabble over the Trump administration’s deportation plans.
During the meeting, the 88-year-old pope offered the Catholic vice president three big chocolate Easter eggs for Vance’s three young children, who did not attend, as well as a Vatican tie and rosaries.
“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.”
What happens when a pope dies?
Cardinals were already being called to the Vatican following Francis’ death.
A pope’s resignation or death triggers a centuries-old, secretive process of succession and requires what’s known as a Conclave. Such a gathering of Catholic cardinals from around the world has been depicted in a current Hollywood movie by the same name.
As old, intricate and rule-bound as the Vatican is, it is also an organization that has no procedures in place to deal with an incapacitated leader, DePaul University Catholic studies professor William Cavanaugh told NBC Chicago back in February, when Francis was first hospitalized.
“Part of what makes this more urgent now is just that, because of the advancements of medicine, it’s possible to keep people alive in ways that were not possible in previous centuries times” Cavanaugh told NBC 5 Investigates.
At the Vatican in a post-Francis Conclave, there would be the 138 voting age members of the College of Cardinals, including Cardinal Blase Cupich, the Catholic Archbishop of Chicago.
“I think the movie portrays accurately the mechanisms of a conclave,” Cavanaugh said. “You know this happens when a pope dies or resigns, and then the Cardinals get together and they lock themselves into the Sistine Chapel and debate about it. And I think (the movie) accurately portrays that there’s a lot of politicking that goes on.”
There are nearly 3.2 million Roman Catholics in the greater Chicago area and Northwest Indiana – at several dioceses and hundreds of parishes and schools, and more than 1.2 billion Roman Catholics across the world.
When did Francis become pope?
Francis was born on Dec. 17, 1936 in Buenos Aires, according to the Catholic News Agency. His father was a railway worker who had immigrated to Argentina from Italy. His mother’s family also of Italian origin.
He was ordained a priest in 1969 as a Jesuit and served as the rector of a seminary, a pastor and a professor before he became the pope at the age of 76 in 2013, when he took over after Pope Benedict resigned, a move unknown among modern-day popes and one that set up the sometimes tense situation where a pope and a pope emeritus were both alive.
He was the first Latin American and the first Jesuit.
His choice was unexpected. When he was introduced from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, there was a gasp from the crowd, followed by applause, according to NBC News. In Italian, he joked, “As you know the duty of the conclave is to give Rome a bishop. It seems that my brother cardinals went almost to the end of the world.”
As pope he took the name of the Catholic friar St. Francis of Assisi, known for his life of poverty.
Francis was described by NBC News as a conservative with “great compassion.” During his time as pope, he did not change church doctrine but did steer the church in a new direction.
He encouraged priests to welcome divorced Catholics, gay and lesbian couples and those who were living together without being married. He invited members of a transgender community south of Rome as his guests to a luncheon lunch to mark the church’s World Day of the Poor. When challenged by conservative cardinals to affirm teaching on homosexuality, he suggested that the could be a way to bless same-sex unions, The Associated Press reported.
Francis refocused the papacy on such issues as the environment, migrants, and equality and away from other more contentious topics. He rejected the luxurious trappings of the Vatican, embraced the poor and criticized a church that he said had become obsessed with abortion, gay marriage and contraception.
Traditionalist objected to Francis’ progressive reforms, which they viewed as contrary to church teachings. In 2018, the former Vatican ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, called on Francis to resign.
A decade into his papacy, Francis criticized what he called the “backwardness” of some conservatives in the church in the U.S., accusing them of replaced faith with ideology, The AP reported.
He removed a bishop from his position in the diocese of Tyler, Texas, Joseph Strickland, who had been a fierce critic of Francis and who wrote in a tweet that he had been “undermining the deposit of faith.”
Then Francis ousted another outspoken opponent to his reforms, Cardinal Raymond Burke, from his Vatican apartment and revoked his salary.
The pope was forced to cancel an address at the U.N. climate conference in Dubai because of a lung inflammation. He only had one fully functioning lung after his other lung was partially removed due to an infection when he was a teenager. He had had a series of medical issues in recent years, with problems with his knee, trouble with sciatica and surgery for a hernia and his colon.
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