The Vatican confirmed to the public on Monday that Pope Francis died at the age of 88, limiting the end of his term that some believe is one of the more progressive people of the Roman Catholic Church.
“Dear brothers and sisters, full of sorrow, I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis,” Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell said in a statement.
“7.35 [local time] This morning, Roman Bishop Francis returned to his father's house. He devoted his life to serving the Lord and His Church. He teaches us to realize the values of the gospel with faithfulness, courage and universal love, especially to support the poorest and most marginalized. ”
The statement continues: “By his example as the true disciple of the Lord Jesus, we praise Pope Francis’ soul for infinite mercy loving one man and the Trinity God.”
The Pope died after health challenges in recent months, including a few weeks ago in pneumonia hospitalization and complex lung infections, which require high levels of oxygen and blood transfusions.
With the death of the pope, the Cardinal will be called at the Sistine Church on the upcoming day of the next Pope, which can be decided within two weeks.
Francis is Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who was considered a dark horse candidate when he was elected in 2013 to succeed Benedict XVI in 2013.
He was the first pope in the Americas in the history of the church, and he was also the first man to be named Francis – after the saint dedicated to the poor.
Just in April 2023, Francis observed a holy humble ceremony by washing the prisoner's feet – in the same juvenile prison, he performed the same ceremony in the first year of the pope.
It was one of several tasks he had undertaken during his tenure as the pope, telling people: “Wealth and property will settle like dust in the dust.” On the same day he took over the position, he also paid his hotel bill.
Health problems plagued Francis’ later years: In 2021, his colon was removed very little, and he has been fractured on the knee and inflammation of the ligament since 2023. The following year, he underwent surgery to repair the abdominal hernia and remove scar tissue from the intestinal tract.
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When he was young, part of his lungs was removed due to a respiratory infection, and even if he was not sick, he often whispered. In 2023, Francis performed a cat scan that ruled out pneumonia, but he was still forced to cancel his trip to the Bay due to the poor of acute, infectious bronchitis.
In the winter of 2024, what he and the Vatican are talking about is the pain of colds, bronchitis and flu, and sometimes have to rely on assistants to read his comments and make body movements.
Francis was born on December 17, 1936 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is the son of a railway accountant and stays at home. He will graduate before pursuing the path of priesthood. He taught many subjects, including literature and psychology, in various schools in Argentina and Spain, and he continued to teach even after being appointed as a pastor in December 1969.
Almost twenty years later, he was appointed Bishop by John Paul II.
The pope carved a name for himself in the church, helping it explore new paths, including contact with other religions such as Islam and Muslims.
His openness to receiving the church is not attracting new supporters, but critics.
He embraced the scientific and human causes of climate change and went beyond traditional church teachings to accept homosexuality in society, even saying that the church should apologize to homosexuals.
“If someone is gay, I want to judge who.”
He also apologized for the church’s role in the Vatican’s Canadian Resident School in 2022, and then on a historic trip on Canadian land. This is compared to the actions of the previous pope, in which he expresses “sadness” but does not apologize for what happened.
The apology follows many Catholic organizations, parishes and bishops, apologize to Indigenous children and their families, for the spiritual, cultural, emotional, physical and sexual abuse caused by the church to young people who are forced to go to school.
But in 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission issued 94 lawsuits, including a request for an apology in Canada. He was asked to be within a year after the report was released – it took six years to finally arrive.
“I’m very sorry,” Francis said in a speech to the survivors of Indigenous peoples of Alta Masvasis after visiting a nearby former residential school location.
“I especially want to forgive, especially about the way many members of the church and religious groups work together, especially through indifference, in projects of cultural destruction and projects of assimilation promoted by the government at the time, which was at the peak of residential schools.”
The apology received reactions from Aboriginal people, residential school survivors and even Canadian government officials. While welcomed by many, some critics say Francis’ remarks are not far away enough and call for concrete actions to reconcile, including the release of Catholic church documents related to the residential school system.
Francis’ position on social issues is not black and white, but rejects priestess and homosexual marriages and defines abortion as the “most horror” of crime.
Nevertheless, the Pope was seen as a change in the direction of the church, softening the position of divorce and remarriage and replacing the cardinal he disagreed with.
But Francis also inherited a general crisis that began with him even joining the pope under his watch and strengthening sexual abuse by the Catholic clergy.
On a trip to Chile in 2018, he became the first pope to publicly condemn what he called “abuse and cover up culture” and was ashamed that neither himself nor the country’s Catholic leaders listened to the spread of victims as a scandal.
For years, the Vatican has focused on punishing abusers rather than transferring pedophiles from the parish to bishops and religious superiors in the parish, rather than reporting to police or removing them from the department altogether.
Even as the pope began investigating the scandal, the cardinal in the United States was abused for abuse in 2019 and found that the Australian cardinal was guilty of abusive choir boys.
In response, Francis convened an unprecedented summit where members were openly self-critical.
The Pope himself said that Catholics are not just looking for condemnation, but for concrete actions.
Francis told the clergy: “Faced with the scourge of sexual abuse caused by people in the church, causing damage to minors, I think I will call you.”
