Pope Francis, the first pontiff from Latin America, whose warm, humble, no-nonsense manner galvanized the Roman Catholic Church and drew widespread admiration from outsiders almost from the moment of his surprise election to the throne of St. Peter in 2013, has died.
The church’s 266th leader, Francis died Monday morning, the Vatican announced.
Francis’ death came the morning after he made a high-profile Easter appearance, giving the traditional Easter blessing from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican following a brief meeting with U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance.
No cause of death was announced in a statement released by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Vatican camerlengo, who will lead the church until a new pope is named, but is weeks removed from a lengthy hospital stay to treat pneumonia and a complex lung infection.
“Dearest brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis,” Farrell’s statement released by the Vatican read. “At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of His Church.”
Francis was beloved by many for his public displays of compassion, commitment to social justice and willingness to shake up the scandal-ridden Vatican. He largely hewed to the church’s conservative line on social issues such as abortion and LGBTQ+ rights but urged clerics not to be “obsessed with” those issues. His emphasis on God’s love and his demand that the church go out and minister to oppressed and needy people impressed even those who disagreed with him.
In the years before his death, the pope was beset by several illnesses. His health again began to deteriorate Feb. 14, when he was admitted to Gemelli hospital for what was described as a respiratory infection. Within days, it had developed into pneumonia in both lungs.
Pope Francis arrives as he holds his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Oct. 9, 2024.
(Andrew Medichini / Associated Press)
Francis’ nearly 12-year papacy presented a stark change in style and tone from that of his predecessor, the late Benedict XVI, a shy scholar who wrote dense theological treatises and saw the church as a holy institution under siege from an increasingly godless, relativistic society. Francis, by contrast, likened the church to a battlefield hospital tending to the spiritually wounded.
His call for a “poor church” also put him at odds with those inside the Vatican who prized the church’s splendor and finery as symbols of its transcendent nature. Some conservatives were upset by his choice to shun such trappings as richly adorned papal vestments and the lavish apartment in the penthouse of the Apostolic Palace.
But many more Catholics, and plenty of non-Catholics, were captivated. They thronged St. Peter’s Square during Francis’ appearances, eager to see him wade into the crowd, kissing babies and laying hands on the sick and disabled despite security concerns — an accessible leader whose simple white cap and robes matched the homespun wisdom of his humor-laden homilies.
Less than nine months after his elevation to the papacy, Time magazine named Francis its Person of the Year.
“This focus on compassion, along with a general aura of merriment not always associated with princes of the church, has made Francis something of a rock star,” the magazine wrote, crediting him with “pulling the papacy out of the palace and into the streets, for committing the world’s largest church to confronting its deepest needs and for balancing judgment with mercy.”
Beneath the friendly exterior was also a leader willing to take decisive action. Vatican watchers noted Francis’ determination to sweep clean institutions that had become rife with dysfunction, factionalism and accusations of corruption. Soon after his election, he replaced key officials at the troubled Vatican bank and appointed a blue-ribbon commission to advise him on overhauling the Curia, the Vatican administration.
A seagull flies in front of Pope Francis as he speaks to the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican for the traditional Sunday noon blessing after the Angelus Prayer on June 2, 2024.
(Alessandra Tarantino / Associated Press)
Those and other moves hardened the opposition of some within the church, particularly more conservative senior clerics who already felt that Francis was weakening traditional Catholic teaching on personal morality while focusing too much on societal and environmental problems such as the treatment of migrants and climate change.
In 2018, a former Vatican ambassador openly blasted Francis and demanded that he step down, in part because of his handling of the ongoing scandal over priestly sexual abuse, which the onetime envoy blamed on “homosexual networks” within the church. The pope brushed off the demand.
This year, the pope called out President Trump’s plan for mass deportations of immigrants. Nearly a decade before, Francis called Trump “not Christian” for wanting to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.
In a letter to U.S. bishops on Feb. 11, three days before he was hospitalized, Francis wrote: “The act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness.”
Pope Francis’ pastoral staff is hit by a ray of the sun during the canonization Mass for 35 new saints in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Oct.15, 2017.
(Andrew Medichini / Associated Press)
The pope’s letter also seemed to correct Vance’s use of the concept of “ordo amoris” as a defense of deportations.
“Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups,” Francis wrote. “The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan,’ that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”
Francis cut his teeth as an authority figure in his native Argentina. He served for 15 years as the archbishop of Buenos Aires, where he gained his reputation for humility by opting to live in a small apartment, ride the bus and cook his own meals.
He was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in the Argentine capital Dec. 17, 1936, the son of Italian immigrants: a railway worker and a homemaker.
As a youth, he had part of a lung removed because of a respiratory illness. A diligent student, he studied to be a chemist in college but decided instead to join the Jesuits, the highly intellectual order known for its focus on education and its engagement with gritty real-world situations. Bergoglio entered the priesthood a few days before turning 33.
Pope Francis, right, hugs Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in 2014.
(Gregorio Borgia / Associated Press)
His rise within the ranks was steady. Not long after his ordination, he was named the Jesuit provincial for Argentina, which put him in charge of the order’s activities throughout the country.
During his six-year tenure, events unfolded that would later give rise to the most serious criticism of his life as a priest. Argentina’s military took power in a right-wing coup and launched a “dirty war” against dissidents, killing and “disappearing” thousands of victims. Two Jesuit priests were kidnapped by the government and tortured for several months in 1976; critics accused Bergoglio of willingly handing the men over.
Exactly what happened remains murky. But one of the two priests — both survived the ordeal — said later that he did not believe Bergoglio to be at fault. It also emerged that Bergoglio, at some risk, petitioned the ruling junta to release the clerics.
After giving up the job of provincial, he served as a parish priest in San Miguel, received a doctorate in Germany and then returned to Buenos Aires, becoming archbishop in 1998 and a cardinal three years later, under Pope John Paul II.
Though not a fan of trips to the Vatican or of hierarchy and power plays, Bergoglio evidently earned the respect of his fellow senior prelates, the red-hatted “princes of the church.” A credible inside account of the closed-door conclave that elected Benedict to succeed John Paul II in 2005 revealed that Bergoglio, despite not wanting the job, was the group’s consistent second choice through four rounds of balloting.
Yet he flew far enough below the radar of even veteran Vatican experts that, when Benedict made his shock decision to resign as pope — the first to step down in six centuries — the Argentine figured on virtually no one’s list of likely successors. Part of that was due to Bergoglio’s age, 76; the cardinals were believed wary of choosing someone who might tire and, like Benedict, throw in the towel after just a few years.
The vote for Benedict’s replacement, inside Michelangelo’s magnificent Sistine Chapel, concluded the evening of March 13, 2013, after just five rounds and barely 24 hours. Bergoglio, who had impressed his fellow cardinals with a speech on the need to clean up the Vatican, reportedly begged a colleague before the conclave, “Pray for me,” sensing that a two-thirds majority might flow his way whether he wanted the job or not.
Pope Francis kisses a baby handed to him as he is driven through the crowd during his general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on March 27, 2013.
(Andrew Medichini / Associated Press)
He repeated the request to the jubilant crowds in St. Peter’s Square after his unveiling as pope, on the basilica’s balcony.
“You know that the duty of the conclave was to give Rome a bishop,” he said, referring to the pontiff’s role as bishop of the Italian capital. “It seems that my brother cardinals picked him from almost the ends of the Earth!”
Francis’ personal stamp on the ancient office was immediately apparent. He refused to don the traditional red mozzetta, or half-cape, before stepping out in front of the masses.
He also chose Francis as his papal name, a first for the church, signaling the themes of his pontificate. The name honors Francis of Assisi, who lived in service of the poor and marginalized and preached care of the environment, and Francis Xavier, a 16th century Jesuit who spread the Gospel in Asia.
The cardinals who voted for Francis made their own break with tradition. They picked a leader from outside Europe, in an acknowledgment of the increasingly global nature of the Catholic Church. And they selected a Jesuit.
“The Jesuits are used to serving and often resist becoming bishops, so to see one become pope I see as a call to service, a strong summons and not an ambition,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi, himself a Jesuit, said after Francis’ election. “We have a pope who wants to serve…. This is a radical response. It is a refusal of power.”
The new pope appeared determined to flout protocol at almost every opportunity. He continued to live in a guesthouse on the Vatican grounds instead of the papal apartment, a move that disrupted the usual rhythm of Vatican business and allowed him to exercise greater control over his agenda. He tooled around cheerfully in a used car given to him by an old friend. He called up people who wrote to him with their problems.
Many of the Catholic Church’s 1.2 billion followers were thrilled with their outgoing, down-to-earth new leader, whom the Italian media quickly dubbed the “world’s parish priest.” The number of followers of the official papal Twitter account skyrocketed, which seemed fitting for a man who proclaimed the internet to be a “gift from God.”
During Easter week, the pope chose to perform the traditional washing of others’ feet in a facility for juvenile delinquents. Among those he ministered to were two female prisoners, one of them a Muslim, which raised some hackles in the Vatican.
Conservatives within the church were further riled when, returning from his first overseas trip to Brazil in July 2013, Francis told reporters, “Who am I to judge?” when asked about gay people who seek God. Two months later, in an interview with a Jesuit magazine, the pontiff lamented that the church too often appeared to be “obsessed” with sex and reproductive rights.
“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible,” he said, then alluded to the consternation he was causing conservative Catholics. “I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that.”
Pope Francis chats with President Obama at the White House in 2015.
(Pete Souza / White House)
Francis did not suggest change in the church’s teaching on these subjects — he called abortion “frightful” — but experts described him as striving to balance dogma with mercy by insisting that “we must always consider the person.” In December 2023, Pope Francis approved letting priests bless same-sex couples, while keeping the ban on gay marriage. The formal document from the Vatican’s doctrine office reiterated the church’s contention that marriage is a lifelong sacrament between a woman and a man.
The pope also came in for criticism from right-wing commentators such as Rush Limbaugh, who labeled Francis a Marxist because of his blunt condemnations of heartless capitalism and the concentration of wealth in the hands of so few.
Pope Francis arrives at the annual Bishops’ Conference in the Synod hall at the Vatican in 2018.
(Gregorio Borgia / Associated Press)
“The promise was that when the glass was full, it would overflow, benefiting the poor,” Francis said. “But what happens instead is that, when the glass is full, it magically gets bigger. Nothing ever comes out for the poor.”
Such was Francis’ astonishing international popularity that many politicians of all stripes tried to trade on it, allying themselves with his causes.
His attempt to reform the Vatican was marked by both action and a Jesuit penchant for deliberation. New appointees to oversee the Vatican bank tried to bring more transparency to a shadowy institution suspected of laundering money, and a panel of eight cardinals from six continents advised Francis on how to overhaul the Curia.
The pope also appointed a commission to tackle the church’s sex abuse scandal and, in 2020, pledged to finally rid the church of “this evil.” But critics said he was much too slow to recognize the persistence and pervasiveness of the problem and too trusting in his bishops and other underlings to address it, despite frequent allegations by victims of cover-ups and evasions of responsibility.
Francis tried to head off a growing clash over then-President Biden’s rights to take Communion by telling the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to defer acting on a document that could potentially deny full church participation to Biden — only the second Catholic president — and other politicians who support reproductive rights. When the conservative wing ignored the pope, Francis warned that going forward with the Communion document would become “a source of discord rather than unity.” The bishops eventually compromised on the document.
Pope Francis arrives for his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Nov. 7, 2018.
(Gregorio Borgia / Associated Press)
In July 2021, Francis underwent his first major surgery as pope, to have half of his colon removed because of a severe narrowing of his large intestine. He spent 10 days in the hospital, during which he delivered his weekly prayer from a balcony and visited patients in the pediatric cancer ward. He was hospitalized again for several days in March 2023, this time for a pulmonary infection.
In June 2023, the pontiff underwent another operation under general anesthetic to remove scar tissue and repair a hernia in his abdominal wall, problems incurred by his previous colon surgery. By then, he had already taken to using a wheelchair and cane because of persistent knee pain, but still insisted on maintaining a busy travel schedule.
Public concern over Francis’ health bubbled up again in November 2023, when he excused himself from reading prepared remarks at a meeting with European rabbis because of what the Vatican later called “a bit of a cold.” A few hours later, however, he was warmly mingling at a gathering of 7,000 children from 84 countries, fielding their questions, shaking hands and autographing caps and a sports jersey.
Francis was clear-eyed about his health and its effect on his ability to carry out papal duties. He revealed in late 2022 that, soon after his election almost a decade before, he had entrusted a prewritten resignation letter to a senior Vatican official in case he was ever too incapacitated to serve.
He cautioned, however, against papal resignations becoming “a fashion, a normal thing.”
Francis had no problem with the potentially kibitzing presence in his backyard of another pope, Benedict, who retired to a life of contemplation in a villa on the Vatican grounds, which later inspired the 2019 film “The Two Popes.” Indeed, Francis’ first encyclical, issued in July 2013, was essentially a joint effort, a meditation on faith that he happily acknowledged was written mostly by Benedict before he stepped down but supplemented with “a few contributions of my own.”
When Benedict died in late 2022, Francis joined tens of thousands of Roman Catholic faithful in bidding farewell at a rare requiem Mass for a dead pope presided over by a living one.
Pope Francis presides over the Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) torchlight procession on Good Friday, a Christian holiday commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Calvary, in front of Rome’s Colosseum, on March 30, 2018.
(Gregorio Borgia / Associated Press)
An avid soccer fan, Francis zealously supported the San Lorenzo team from his native Argentina. In December 2013, members of the squad, which won the title in Argentina’s top division, met the pope at the Vatican and presented him with a gift: his own team jersey, with “Francisco — Campeon” (“Francis — Champion”) emblazoned on the back.
The pope was delighted.
Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson contributed to this report.
