Pope Francis, the Argentine Jesuit who became the first Roman Catholic pontiff from the Americas, has died, the Vatican said Monday. He was 88.
In a video address, Cardinal Kevin Farrell announced the news. “Dearest brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis,” he said, according to a translation.
“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. He taught us to live the values of the Gospel with faithfulness, courage, and universal love, especially in favor of the poorest and the marginalized,” the Cardinal said.
“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 Triune God.”
Francis, who was elected the church’s 266th pope after the retirement of Benedict XVI in 2013, was born as Jorge Mario Bergoglio in the middle-class neighborhood of Flores in Buenos Aires on Dec. 17, 1936.
He was the first Jesuit pope and the first pope from the Southern Hemisphere. He was the first person from outside Europe selected to lead the church in nearly 1,300 years, after Pope Gregory III of Syria, who was chosen in 731.
The son of an Italian immigrant father and an Italian Argentine mother, Francis was the eldest of five children. As a student, he worked as a janitor and nightclub bouncer before becoming a chemical technician.
Francis was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1969 and became head of the Society of Jesus order in Argentina and Uruguay in 1973 at the youthful age of 36, holding the position until 1979.
Pope John Paul II appointed Francis a bishop in 1992, and six years later Francis became archbishop of Buenos Aires. In 2001 John Paul made him a cardinal.
Todos, todos, todos!’
Francis presided over the Catholic Church during a time of rising tension. In 2021, U.S. bishops drafted a proposal that would have denied communion to newly elected President Joe Biden for his support of abortion rights. The vote by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to draft the plan came over objections from the pope’s top doctrinal advisor, Cardinal Luis Ladaria.
More than two months later, Francis himself strongly hinted his opposition to the proposal by the U.S. bishops, telling reporters: “Communion is not a prize for the perfect.”
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