Pope Francis, committed to service, humility and healing, dead at 88
Pontiff brought the common touch with papacy known for many firsts
Pope Francis, whose 12-year papacy ushered in a more open, welcoming Catholic Church that prioritized empathy for the poor and disenfranchised — including Indigenous victims of Canada's church-run residential schools — has died at 88, the Vatican said in a video statement Monday.
"Dear brothers and sisters, it is with profound sadness I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis," Cardinal Kevin Farrell announced on the Vatican's TV channel.
"At 7:35 this morning the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father."
The Vatican said Francis died of a cerebral stroke that put him into a coma and led to irreversible heart failure.
The election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as leader of the Roman Catholic Church on March 13, 2013, came about under remarkable circumstances, after Pope Benedict XVI's surprise resignation.
Francis ushered in a number of firsts for a pope: the first from Latin America, the first from the Jesuit order and the first to take the name Francis.
Francis also made history in the spring of 2022, when he apologized for the "deplorable" conduct of some members of the Catholic Church in Canada's residential school system. A few months later, he said that system had carried out a cultural "genocide."
Humble beginnings before religious life
When Francis appeared on the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica moments after his election, he joked the cardinals "almost went to the ends of the Earth" to find him.
He hailed far from the power centre of the Vatican, born in Buenos Aires on Dec. 17, 1936, the eldest of five children of Italian immigrants.
As a boy, Francis worked in the family grocery store, played soccer and danced the tango. He attended church regularly with his family but was not especially religious until he had a powerful experience during confession as a teen.
In 1969, he was ordained into the priesthood as part of the Jesuits, the Catholic order known for education and missionary work. Four years later, he became head of the Jesuits in Argentina, then archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998. In 2001, he was appointed a cardinal by Pope John Paul II.
'A poor church, for the poor'
As leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Francis was seen as a progressive pontiff, far less concerned about enforcing church doctrine than his predecessors, John Paul II and Benedict, and more interested in opening church doors to those who felt excluded.
From the start, his actions signalled the kind of Catholic Church he desired — "a poor church, for the poor." He shunned the sumptuous Apostolic Palace where previous popes had resided, opting instead to live in the small guest house inside the Vatican walls.
He soon broke with other traditions, moving the Holy Thursday feet-washing ceremony, held three days before Easter Sunday, from a church in Rome to inside prisons — where he became the first pontiff to include women and non-Christians among the inmates whose feet he washed.
'Who am I to judge?'
In June 2013, three months after becoming Pope, Francis said in response to a reporter's question, "If a person is gay and seeks God and has goodwill, who am I to judge?" He later encouraged same-sex parents to attend mass with their children and called laws that criminalized homosexuality "unjust."
"As a gay Catholic, he gave me joy and hope," said Mark Guevara, a 2SLGBTQ+ member of Concerned Lay Catholics of Canada, a group concerned with issues affecting 2SLGBTQ+ Catholics, women, Indigenous people and abuse survivors.
"He reminded me that I am a beloved child of God," Guevara said.
Following a global summit on the future of the Catholic Church, in December 2023, the Pope authorized priests to offer informal blessings to couples in "irregular" (same-sex) unions, creating an exception for Africa after bishops from the continent protested.
"Early in his papacy, the Pope said he was not going to obsess over [opposing] gay marriage, abortion and issues like that," said Rev. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest and senior analyst at the U.S.-based Religion News Service. "What he did obsess over was the plight of refugees and global warming."
Care for the environment
In June 2015, Francis released Laudato si', the first-ever papal document on the environment. Its hard-hitting political analysis and focus on global inequality called upon world leaders for an urgent response to the climate crisis. Eight years later, he issued the followup Laudate Deum.
The Pope apologized several times for the Catholic Church's role in colonialism and justifying the seizing of Indigenous People's lands.
Over several days in the early spring of 2022, he met with Indigenous delegates and supporters who travelled from Canada to the Vatican, and spoke of his "sorrow and shame" about the abuse inflicted upon Indigenous children.
In July 2022, Francis made what he called a "penitential pilgrimage" to Canada to emphasize reconciliation and apologize for members of the Catholic Church who co-operated with the government's "devastating" policy of Indigenous residential schools.
The Pope, however, stopped short of saying the Catholic Church, as an institution, was responsible, disappointing some Indigenous people.
Weighing in on Gaza, Ukraine
In his final address from the balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square — a day before he died — he made an often-repeated plea for an end to the 18-month war in Gaza.
He called for an immediate ceasefire, condemned the "deplorable humanitarian situation," and appealed for the release of hostages held by Hamas militants in Gaza.
In early 2024, in an interview with the Swiss broadcaster RSI, Pope Francis said he thought Ukraine should have "the courage of the white flag" and negotiate with Russia, which had invaded its neighbour in February 2022, leading to the deaths of tens of thousands of people.
The comments triggered widespread anger, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissing them as "virtual mediation" from a distant religious figure not involved in helping his country. The Vatican clarified the comments a few days later, saying the Pope did not mean for Ukraine to surrender.
But observers said Francis's comments on the Russian invasion betrayed a far weaker grasp on the history of Eastern Europe and Russia than his predecessors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
"The Pope failed to see the war in Ukraine as a colonial war, as a potentially genocidal war," said Massimo Faggioli, a professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University near Philadelphia. "This was surprising because Pope Francis was very vocal on the dark chapters of colonialism."
Sexual abuse scandals
Francis brought transparency to a Vatican long plagued by allegations of financial corruption. But victims' groups and some observers say his response to the most damaging issue to the Catholic Church — the decades-old child sexual abuse scandals — fell short.
In 2014, Francis created the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. In 2017, two prominent abuse survivors on the commission resigned, citing "resistance," "reluctance" and a "lack of co-operation." Six years later, a founding member, Rev. Hans Zollner, left for similar reasons.
Francis's first, most egregious misstep was to defend Chilean Bishop Juan Barros, accused of ignoring a preacher's long-standing abuse of minors. In early 2018, Francis dismissed the accusations against Barros as "calumny," or slander, angering victims. A few months later, he apologized, saying he had made "grave errors" in defending Barros and accepted the bishop's resignation.
Following a global summit on clerical sexual abuse at the Vatican in 2019, the Pope introduced new regulations to report abuse to church officials and investigate bishops involved in abuse or coverups. He updated the law in 2023, but the Vatican provided no data on the effectiveness of the changes. Victims reported silence and stonewalling, and the Vatican's own child protection advisory commission said structural problems prevented basic justice.
Abortion 'hiring a hitman'
While Francis espoused what were seen by many as liberal attitudes for the head of a patriarchal, theocratic monarchy, he believed human rights extended to the womb and opposed abortion, even when the fetus was likely to die.
Several times, the Pope compared the procedure to "hiring a hitman" and said he "respected" the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court reversal of the nearly 50-year-old Roe v. Wade ruling that recognized the constitutional right to abortion.
Francis was the first pontiff to appoint several women to senior Vatican positions and give voting rights to female participants of a global church gathering. He also amended church laws to allow women to have greater roles during mass. While he expressed openness to women becoming deacons, he remained steadfast in his opposition to female ordination.
Francis, like previous popes, still viewed women "as special, or exotic or needing to be studied, [not] as equal persons in the church," said Mary Ellen Chown of the Canadian group Catholic Network for Women's Equality.
While Francis did not alter Catholic Church doctrine, he loosened rules and decentralized decision-making — something that rankled arch-conservative clergy members and politicians, who believed he made too many concessions to modernity on social issues.
The late Australian cardinal, George Pell, whose conviction for molestation was quashed after several months of imprisonment, described Francis's papacy as a "catastrophe" and bemoaned his "neo-Marxist jargon about exclusion" in an anonymous memo whose publisher later revealed was written by Pell.
Pope's health a concern for years
Francis's papacy lasted far longer than he himself predicted; in 2015, he said he thought his pontificate would span another one to three years, saying he believed "the Lord has placed me here for a short time, and nothing more."
His health was a concern even before the constant demands of being head of the Roman Catholic Church: At 21, he had part of his right lung removed due to a respiratory infection.
In 2021, Francis was hospitalized when he had part of his colon removed, and again two years later to repair an abdominal hernia and remove intestinal scar tissue.
In later years, he suffered from regular bouts of the flu, bronchitis and colds, often losing his voice, as well as sciatica and strained knee ligaments that made it necessary for him to use a cane, walker or wheelchair. His latest bout of bronchitis was diagnosed on Feb. 6, 2025, and as it worsened to become pneumonia, he was admitted to hospital, where he stayed for five weeks.
Picking a successor
As cardinals from around the world head to Rome to take part in the conclave to elect the next pope, Francis's legacy will be felt: 73 per cent of voting cardinals were appointed by the Argentinian.
Still, observers say that does not mean the next pope's views will necessarily align with those of Francis.
Faggioli said he expects a rebalancing with the next pope.
"I think Pope Francis's greatest legacy is that he was the first global pope, a pope who made it very clear that the church is not wedded forever to European Mediterranean culture," Faggioli said.
"This is a much bigger college of cardinals, much more diverse, from many more countries. It's going to be a highly unpredictable conclave."
With a file from Reuters