Pope Francis died on Easter Monday after a cerebral stroke led to heart failure, a seismic and emotional development for the Catholic Church, political leaders and culture writ large.
Within hours, a period of public mourning started. Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, stood before an icon of the Virgin Mary to recite the rosary as crowds assembled.
Cardinal Gambetti bowed his head in silence while a choir filled St. Peter’s Square with hymns.
The body of Francis, who was 88, will be transferred from the chapel of the Domus Santa Marta hotel, where he had been living, to the basilica in the heart of Rome so the public can pay its respects.
The Vatican was making plans for a funeral, which must be held in four to six days, and President Trump ordered U.S. flags to be flown at half-staff until sunset on the day of Francis’ burial.
Mr. Trump, writing on Truth Social, said he planned to attend Francis’ funeral in Rome with first lady Melania Trump.
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“We look forward to being there!” he wrote.
Vice President J.D. Vance, a Catholic convert who greeted the pope on Easter and was among the last people to interact with him, said his heart went out “to the millions of Christians all over the world who loved him.”
Soccer games in Italy and Francis’ home country of Argentina were canceled, and Spain and India declared three days of mourning.
Francis was the first pope from the Americas and a former archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Cardinals elected him to lead the church in 2013 after Pope Benedict XVI resigned.
His pontificate was marked by tremendous popularity among Catholics and non-Catholics alike, though not without controversy.
Liberals were disappointed that he didn’t move further and faster with reforms. Meanwhile, conservatives groaned under his overtures to make gay Catholics more welcome in the church and his restriction on the use of the traditional Latin Mass, a rite Benedict permitted more widely.
The 16th-century Tridentine Mass was largely replaced in the wake of the Second Vatican Council by liturgies in a given locality’s language and in which the priest faced the congregation. Traditionalists chafed at the change and were even more upset in 2021 when Francis said the Tridentine Mass should be restricted.
“One of the reasons he got elected is because I think the cardinals from the ‘global south’ saw him as an ally, somebody who had serious questions about globalization, was not enamored with the United States and was critical of the impact of globalization on farmers and poor people,” said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest and Religion News Service columnist.
Speaking in Bolivia in 2015, Francis said, “Once capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it sets people against one another, it even puts at risk our common home, our sister Mother Earth.”
Returning from the Mexican side of the border with the U.S. in 2016, Francis gave a remark widely interpreted as a knock against Mr. Trump, who was running for president on the promise of building a big wall across the U.S.-Mexico border.
“A person who only builds walls and not bridges is not Christian,” Francis said.
Francis received Mr. Trump at the Vatican in 2017, although several media accounts described the encounter as “frosty.” Four years later, the pontiff gave a warmer greeting to Joseph R. Biden, only the second Catholic elected as U.S. president.
Mr. Biden, by his telling, received a commendation from the pope for being “a good Catholic” who should continue to receive Communion. Conservative bishops and others had criticized the president for his pro-choice stance on abortion. Mr. Biden was told not to present himself for Communion at some points on the 2020 campaign trail.
More recently, Francis was outspoken about the suffering of those in the war-torn Gaza Strip, which was bombarded after Hamas militants attacked Israel. The pope also spoke out against antisemitism and was viewed as an advocate for the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas.
The eldest of five children, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born Dec. 17, 1936, in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Flores to Mario Jose Bergoglio, an accountant who had emigrated from Italy, and Regina Maria Sivori, a homemaker.
He has one living sibling: Maria Elena Bergoglio, born in 1948.
In December 2013, Francis told a group of Catholics at a church near Rome that he was a bar bouncer in Argentina. He also swept floors and worked in a chemical laboratory before a 1957 illness led to his joining the Jesuit order. He taught literature and psychology at Catholic high schools in Argentina before beginning theological studies.
Francis was ordained a priest in December 1969. Four years later, on completing his spiritual training as a Jesuit, he was named the order’s provincial supervisor for Argentina. By 1992, he had become auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires and was made metropolitan archbishop in 1998.
Pope John Paul II elevated him to the rank of cardinal in 2001. After the Polish-born pope died in 2005, Cardinal Bergoglio was considered a candidate for the papacy. Reports indicated that the Argentine was the runner-up to Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI.
The two clerics would again cross paths when Benedict became the first pope to resign in 600 years and Francis was elected. They greeted each other warmly after the election. Francis said he often consulted Benedict, who agreed with his successor on many decisions.
From the start of his papacy, Francis maintained a humble and relatable persona that endeared him to millions.
He rejected the traditional papal “apartment” in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace to occupy a small room at a guesthouse used by other bishops and visiting clergy. He took his meals with others in the residence’s dining room. Initially, he selected a 2008 Ford Focus as his “Popemobile” and was usually dressed in simple white vestments.
Even in death, Pope Francis is breaking with tradition.
Rather than joining his predecessors in the crypt beneath St. Peter’s Basilica, Francis asked to be buried in the Basilica of St. Mary Major, one of his favorite churches in Rome, where he often prayed before and after papal journeys.
Earlier this year, Francis was hospitalized for 38 days because of a respiratory crisis that developed into double pneumonia. Part of his right lung was removed in the late 1950s after a bout of pneumonia, and he suffered from chronic lung disease.
Still, he strived to fulfill his public duties. In addition to meeting with Mr. Vance, one of his last acts was to bless the faithful while riding around St. Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday, the holiest day on the Christian calendar.
The Vatican said Francis’ stroke put him into a coma and led to irreversible heart failure. Dr. Andrea Arcangeli, the head of the Vatican’s health department, confirmed the death at 7:25 a.m.
Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell, a 77-year-old American, announced the pope’s death.
“At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the home of the Father,” he said.
“He taught us to live the values of the Gospel with faithfulness, courage, and universal love, especially for the poorest and most marginalized,” the cardinal said. “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.”
The Vatican said it would postpone the canonization of the first millennial saint, Carlo Acutis, and a swearing-in ceremony for the Swiss Guard, the pope’s protective service, until the fall.
Although Francis’ death was not shocking, given a lengthy health battle, it set off speculation about the cardinals’ choice for his successor in the upcoming conclave, a secretive process spotlighted in an Oscar-nominated film of that title last year.
Cardinal Farrell will serve as the administrator of Vatican affairs while a new pope is chosen.
The cardinal will also authenticate the pope’s death, secure Francis’ private papers and seal his apartments.
In the meantime, words of solace are pouring forth from all corners of the globe, including the Dalai Lama and Muslim clerics in Iraq.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy called Francis “a model of mercy and inclusivity.” Russian President Vladimir Putin said the late pope “has done a lot of good not only for his flock but also for the entire world.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the pope had “prayed for peace in Ukraine and for Ukrainians. Eternal memory!”
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the pope’s death “personally devastating,” and Mr. Biden said Francis was “the People’s Pope.”
“I am better for having known him,” Mr. Biden wrote on X.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• Emma Ayers can be reached at eayers@washingtontimes.com.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
• Mark A. Kellner can be reached at mkellner@washingtontimes.com.
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