Pope Francis, the first Latin American pope whose leadership drew the modern Catholic Church with a message of humility, inclusion, and radical reform, gave up the ghost on Monday morning at the age of 88.
Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Vatican’s camerlengo, disclosed his painful passing from the chapel of Domus Santa Marta, his residence. “At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the home of the Father,” Farrell said solemnly, as church bells tolled across Rome in mourning.
The Argentine-born pontiff, whose birth name was Jorge Mario Bergoglio, had long wrestled with respiratory illness and was recently hospitalized for double pneumonia, spending 38 days in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital before a short-lived Easter reappearance on Sunday. In a poignant farewell to the faithful, Francis had surprised worshippers with a final ride through St. Peter’s Square, drawing cheers just one day before his passing.
A Papacy of Firsts and Friction
Elected in 2013 following the historic resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, Francis became the first Jesuit pope and the first to adopt the name of St. Francis of Assisi. From his inaugural “Buonasera” to the faithful, he signaled a papacy rooted in simplicity and a “church for the poor.”
