Pope Francis dies at 88

Pope Francis, the Argentine Jesuit who became the first Roman Catholic pontiff of the Americas, died, said the Vatican on Monday. He was 88 years old.

In a video address, Cardinal Kevin Farrell announced the news. “Dear brothers and sisters, with deep sadness, I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francisco,” he said, according to a translation.

“At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the Father’s House. All his life dedicated himself to the service of the Lord and his Church. He taught us to live the values ​​of the Gospel with faithfulness, Yyyyyyy as, marginalized,” said the cardinal.

“With immense gratitude for his example as a true disciple of the Lord Jesus, we recommend the soul of Pope Francis to the infinite merciful love of the Triuno God.”

Francis died of a stroke that led to irreversible heart failure, according to a death certificate issued by the Vatican. The certificate lists the cause of death as stroke, coma and “irreversible cardiocirculatory collapse.”

Francis died in his residence at the Santa Marta del Vatican house. A day before he cools in his traditional Easter Sunday direction from a wheelchair in the Basilica of San Pedro in the city of the Vatican. Hey with the vice president of us, JD Vance.

The Pope had been in poor health since February and was admitted to the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic Hospital on February 14, 2025, with bronchitis. On February 21, his medical team said he was struggling against pneumonia in both lungs, along with bacterial, viral and fungal infections about chronic bronchitis.

Francis left the hospital and returned to his Vatican residence after 38 days. It is expected to be buried in the Basilica or St. Mary Major in Rome.

Francis’s successor will be chosen for conclave, a meeting of the Cardinals College that has the task of choosing the next Pope.

Francis, who was chosen on the 266th Pope of the Church after the retirement of Benedict XVI in 2013, was born as Jorge Mario Bergoglio in the middle class neighborhood of flowers in Buenos Aires on December 17, 1936.

It was the first Jesuit Pope and the first Pope of the Southern Hemisphere. It was the first person from outside Europe selected to direct the Church in almost 1,300 years, after Pope Gregory III or Syria, which was chosen in 731.

Son of an Italian immigrant father and an Italian Argentine mother, Francis was the oldest of five children. As a student, he worked as a janitor and gorilla of nightclubs before becoming a chemical technician.

Francis was ordered as a Jesuit priest in 1969 and became head of the order of Jesus’ society in Argentina and Uruguay in 1973 to the 36 -year -old youth age, occupying the position until 1979.

Pope John Paul II appointed Francisco as Bishop in 1992, and six years later, Francisco became a archbishop of Buenos Aires. In 2001, John Paul made him a cardinal.

Francis presided over the duration of the Catholic Church for a moment of upward tension. In 2021, US bishops wrote a proposal that would have denied communion to the newly elected President Joe Biden for his support for abortion rights. The vote of the US Catholic Bishops Conference. To write the plan there was objections of the main doctrinal advisor of the Pope, Cardinal Luis Ladaria.

More than two months later, Francis himself firmly hinted at his opposition to the proposal of US bishops, journalists say: “Communion is not a prize for the perfect.”

“I have never rejected the Eucharist to anyone,” said the Pope, asking bishops to be pastors, not political. “What should the pastor do?” He continued. “Be a shepherd, I will not condemn. Be a pastor, because he is also a pastor for the excommunicated.”

But he also firmly declared his opposition to abortion, calling him “homicide.” “Who has an abortion kills,” he said.

Althegh Francis struggled to avoid an escalation of cultural wars and a poliazation of his flock, sacrificed the words encouraging to Catholics LGBTQ+. While flying back to Rome from Portugal in August 2023, he told journalists that the Catholic Church was open to all and has the duty to accompany people on their personal path of spirituality within the framework of their rules.

Duration An event in Portugal, Francis promoted the inclusive nature of the Church by leading a crowd in a song of “all, all, all!” (Everyone, all, all!).

The 2023 limit by saying that priests could bless same -sex couples, an important change in the policy of the Vatican. The Pope said such blessings should not resemble marriages, but that people seeking the love and mercy of God should not be subject to “an exhaustive moral analysis” to receive it.

I also wanted a more important role for women in the church, particularly in high -ranking Vatican positions. In April 2023, he announced that he had decided to give the right to vote at a next bishop meeting. It was a first historic and achieved two objectives: to give women greater decision -making responsibilities and allow Lypeople to say more in the life of the Church.

When Francis was a young man, he took part in a lung because the complications of a lung disease, a health problem that the Vatican said in 2013 never affected his work.

In recent years, he had smell problems, including varied respiratory problems, flu and multiple surgeries.

He was first hospitalized as Pope when he underwent colon surgery on July 4, 2021 at the Gemelli Hospital for diverticular stenosis. The Vatican said the operation had planned to have been, but the announcement sent shock waves through the Church.

He was hospitalized again at the end of March 2023 and treated for bronchitis. He joked the journalists before being expelled that “he was still alive.” Just two months later, he underwent surgery to repair a hernia.