Pope Francis, street priest turned tradition-defying pontiff, dies at 88 after stroke

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Pope Francis, the first non-European pontiff in 1,300 years, whose charming, informal style and acceptance of gay couples shifted the Vatican into a more tolerant era, has died. He was 88.

The Vatican confirmed that Francis died at 7:35 a.m. local time on Easter Monday. He had spent five weeks in hospital, until March 23, while Catholics around the world prayed for his recovery.

The Pope’s cause of death was cerebral stroke, coma and irreversible cardiocirculatory collapse, according to a statement released by the Holy See press office late Monday, which noted that the Pope was affected by a previous episode of acute respiratory failure.

His death came the morning after his fleeting encounter with U.S. Vice-President JD Vance at the Pope’s Vatican residence. Shortly thereafter, he celebrated Easter mass from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica. He was clearly weak and, after saying a few words, passed the text to Archbishop Diego Ravelli, the Master of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations.

The outpourings of grief and respect were immediate.

“His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of his Church,” Cardinal Kevin Ferrell, the Vatican camerlengo (administrator of property) said.

In a statement, the Holy See said: “He taught us to live the values of the Gospel with fidelity, courage and universal love, especially in favor of the poorest and most marginalized. With immense gratitude for his example as a true disciple of the Lord Jesus, we commend the soul of Pope Francis to the infinite merciful love of the One and Triune God.”

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American-Israeli film director Evgeny Afineevsky, a close friend of Francis’s whose documentary on the Pope was released in 2020, said: “Our beloved Holy Father just left us. I am completely heartbroken.”

Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Argentina, Francis became Pope in 2013 and earned the hearts of millions of Christians for his desire from the onset to oversee a “poor Church for the poor,” a stand that set him apart from the decorous and somewhat aloof style of his academic predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, the former Joseph Ratzinger of Germany.

Francis was a street priest at heart, making do without the traditional luxuries conferred on popes in the opulent Vatican City setting. He was driven around in a cheap Fiat, wore simple white cassocks and abandoned the Apostolic Palace, the Pope’s official residence, choosing instead to live in a plain guest house called the Casa Santa Marta next to St. Peter’s Basilica.

Francis was hospitalized on Feb. 14 in Rome’s Agostino Gemelli University Policlinic hospital, fighting bronchitis, double pneumonia and, at times, fever and the initial stages of kidney failure. In early March, his condition was made worse by aspirating some of his own vomit. He required non-invasive ventilation a few times.

He had been in declining health for several years and admitted to Gemelli at least four times. In 2021, he underwent surgery to relieve a stricture of the colon caused by diverticulitis. Two years later, he underwent abdominal surgery to repair an incisional hernia.

Still, he always managed to rally, rarely missing scheduled Vatican events and travelling endlessly. In his dozen years as Pope, he made more than 45 foreign trips, including the first visits by a pontiff to Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Myanmar, Bahrain, Mongolia and North Macedonia. He wanted to visit Ukraine during the war but, after several false starts, never managed to make what would have been a gruelling trip, since Ukrainian airspace is closed.

Since 2022, inflammation of the ligaments in his right knee had largely confined him to a wheelchair. Still, he made every effort to move short distances with a wooden cane or walker. On his flight to Canada in July of that year, when he apologized for the church’s role in abuses at the country’s residential schools, he plied the narrow aisles of a packed Airbus jet on his feet to greet every passenger. At times, he grimaced in pain but refused to sit down.

The Pope was a fighter until the end, using moments of relative comfort in the hospital to see visitors, pray, sip coffee and make statements about injustices or war as speculation abounded that he would resign, as his predecessor did. In a text released for his regular Sunday Angelus prayer on March 2, he appealed for peace from his hospital room. “From here, war appears even more absurd. Let us pray for tormented Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Myanmar, Sudan and Kivu,” he said.

He also described his frailty as a blessing and his illness as an “opportunity to share in body and spirit the condition of so many sick and suffering people.” Even when he was in critical condition, he made nightly video calls from his hospital bed to the Holy Family parish in northern Gaza, the only Catholic parish in the largely obliterated strip. “Although we had a blackout in the whole area of Gaza City, he insisted and managed to contact us,” the parish’s priest, the Rev. Gabriel Romanelli, told Vatican News in late February.

Francis was born in Argentina and spent his entire prepapacy career in that country. A Jesuit – a member of the Society of Jesus, a religious order known for education, research and humanitarian causes – he was made archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998. Pope John Paul II appointed him cardinal in 2001. He was considered a long-shot candidate for the papacy after Benedict stepped down in 2013. When he was elected, he became the third non-Italian pope in a row, a blow to the Italian bloc of cardinals who wanted one of their own to run the Holy See.

When Francis entered the hospital in February, the unofficial race to replace him got under way. Generally speaking, the conclave, or election, happens two weeks after a pope dies and is buried. Francis is breaking tradition yet again by choosing to be interred not in the crypt beneath St. Peter’s Basilica but in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, his favourite church and one of Rome’s four major papal basilicas.

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Already there is ample speculation that the next pope will come from Asia or Africa, the two regions where the church is still strong and growing. Regular church attendance in Europe and North America has been shrivelling for more than half a century; many churches have been deconsecrated and turned into housing. In Italy, one of the most Catholic countries in the world, Italians typically go to church for weddings, baptisms and funerals, not regular Sunday masses.

Cardinals who are less than 80 years old are eligible to elect the new pope. Of the 138 cardinal electors, 110 were appointed by Francis, suggesting that a cardinal who is philosophically attuned to his liberal, down-to-earth style could emerge as the winner from the secret vote held in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel. Conclaves become global media events, with hundreds of reporters waiting for white smoke to emerge from the chapel’s chimney, signalling the election of the new pope. John Allen, a Vatican analyst and author of the book Conclave, calls it “an event surrounded by legend, one that uniquely blends theatre with mystery, politics with prayer.”