The Vatican announced to the public on Monday that Pope Francis had passed away at the age of 88. This marked the end of a term that was regarded by some as one of the more progressive in the Roman Catholic Church. In a statement, Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell said, “Dearest brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis.” “Francis, the Bishop of Rome, returned to the Father’s house this morning at 7.35 local time. He worked for the Lord and His Church his entire life. He taught us to live the Gospel’s values with fidelity, bravery, and love for everyone, especially for the poorest and most disadvantaged. “We commend the soul of Pope Francis to the infinite merciful love of the One and Triune God, with immense gratitude for his example as a true disciple of the Lord Jesus,” the statement went on to say. The pope passed away as a result of recent health issues, such as being admitted to the hospital a few weeks ago for pneumonia and a complicated lung infection that required high oxygen levels and blood transfusions. Following the death of the Pope, cardinals will meet in the Sistine Chapel to select the next pope, who could be chosen within two weeks. When Francis, formerly Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was chosen to succeed Benedict XVI in 2013, he was regarded as a fringe candidate. In the Church’s history, he was the first pope from the Americas and the first to use the name Francis, a reference to the saint’s devotion to the poor. In April of 2023, Francis washed the feet of prisoners as part of a Holy Thursday tradition of humility. He did this at the same juvenile prison where he had done the same thing in his first year as Pope. It was one of several things he did as Pope, and he told people that “wealth and possessions will fade like dust in the wind.” Additionally, on the same day he assumed the role, he paid his own hotel bill. In his later years, Francis was plagued by health issues. In 2021, he had a portion of his colon removed, and he had a fracture in his knee and inflammation of its ligaments since 2023. He had surgery the following year to fix an abdominal hernia and get rid of intestinal scar tissue. As a young man, he had a respiratory infection that required the removal of part of one lung. He often spoke in a whisper even when he wasn’t sick. In winter 2024, he had been suffering from what he and the Vatican claimed to be a cold, bouts of bronchitis, and the flu, and had to rely on aides at times to read his remarks and move physically. A CAT scan in 2023 ruled out pneumonia, but he was still forced to cancel a trip to the Gulf because of a severe bout of acute, infectious bronchitis. Born on December 1 in Buenos Aires, Argentina Francis was born on 17 December 1936, the son of a railways accountant and a stay-at-home mother. He would go on to become a priest after graduating as a chemical technician. Even after he was ordained a priest in December 1969, he continued to teach a variety of subjects at various schools in Argentina and Spain, including literature and psychology. He was made bishop by John Paul II almost exactly two decades later, and in 1997, he became coadjutor archbishop of Buenos Aires. The pontiff made a name for himself within the Church by assisting it in forging new trajectories and opening its doors to other religions like Islam and Muslims. He embraced science and human causes of climate change and moved beyond traditional Church doctrine to accept homosexuality in society, going so far as to say the Church should apologize to gay people. His willingness to take on issues the Church had never tackled before attracted new supporters as well as critics. He once told reporters, “If someone is gay, who am I to judge?” in 2016. In 2022, he also made history by apologizing for the Church’s involvement in Canada’s residential schools, both in the Vatican and on Canadian soil months later during a historic trip. It marked a departure from the previous pope’s actions, in which he expressed “sorrow” but did not offer an apology for the incident. The apology came after a number of Catholic organizations, parishes, and bishops offered their sincere apologies to Indigenous children and their families for the spiritual, cultural, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse that the church inflicted on children who were forced to attend schools. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, on the other hand, issued 94 calls to action in 2015, one of which called for a papal apology in Canada. He was asked to do so within a year of the report’s release, but it took six years before the time came. Following a visit to a former residential school site nearby, Francis addressed Indigenous residential school survivors in Maskwacis, Alberta, saying, “I am deeply sorry.” “I ask for your pardon, in particular, for the ways in which many members of the church and religious communities collaborated, not least through their indifference, in projects of cultural destruction and forced assimilation promoted by the governments of that time, which culminated in the residential school system.”
Pope Francis dead: Catholic Church leader dies at 88
