Pope Francis has ‘returned to the house of the Father’
Joshua McElwee |
Pope Francis, the first Latin American leader of the Roman Catholic Church, has died, ending an often turbulent reign marked by division and tension as he sought to overhaul the hidebound institution.
He was 88, and had suffered a serious bout of double pneumonia this year, but his death came as a shock after he had been driven around St Peter’s Square in an open-air popemobile to greet cheering crowds on Easter Sunday.
“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 on Monday,.
“At 7:35 (0535 GMT) this morning the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father.”
On Sunday, Francis had made his first prolonged public appearance since being discharged on March 23 from a 38-day hospital stay for pneumonia.
In an Easter Sunday message read aloud by an aide as the Pope looked on from the main balcony of St Peter’s Basilica, the pontiff had reiterated his call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
At the Vatican, tourists and pilgrims visiting for Easter expressed shock and grief.
The Pope had also held a brief meeting on Sunday with visiting US Vice-President JD Vance.
“My heart goes out to the millions of Christians all over the world who loved him,” Vance said on X.
Other world leaders were reacting to the Pope’s death with praise for his efforts to reform the worldwide church and offering condolences to the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni mourned the departure of “a great man, a great shepherd”.
Jose Ramos-Horta, the president of East Timor, where Francis visited in September 2024 as part of the longest foreign trip of his papacy, said the Pope “leaves behind a profound legacy of humanity, of justice, of human fraternity”.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Pope on March 13, 2013, surprising many church watchers who had seen the Argentine cleric, known for his concern for the poor, as an outsider.
He sought to project simplicity into the grand role and never took possession of the ornate papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace used by his predecessors, saying he preferred to live in a community setting for his “psychological health”.
He inherited a church under attack over a child sex abuse scandal and torn by infighting in the Vatican bureaucracy, and was elected with a clear mandate to restore order.
But as his papacy progressed, he faced fierce criticism from conservatives, who accused him of trashing cherished traditions. He also drew the ire of progressives, who felt he should have done much more to reshape the 2000-year-old church.
While he struggled with internal dissent, Francis became a global superstar, drawing huge crowds on his many foreign travels as he tirelessly promoted interfaith dialogue and peace, taking the side of the marginalised, such as migrants.
Unique in modern times, there were two men wearing white in the Vatican for much of Francis’ rule, with his predecessor Benedict opting to continue to live in the Holy See after his shock resignation in 2013 had opened the way for a new pontiff.
Benedict, a hero of the conservative cause, died in December 2022.
Francis appointed nearly 80 per cent of the cardinal electors who will choose the next Pope, increasing the possibility that his successor will continue his progressive policies, despite the strong pushback from traditionalists.
Given the nature of cardinal appointments Francis made during his papacy, there will inevitably be some expectation that the Argentine pontiff’s successor will be another non-European.
However, the election process that will take place once Francis is buried is highly secretive and nothing will be certain until white smoke pouring from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel tells the world that a new Pope has been picked.
Cardinals are a pontiff’s closest collaborators, running key departments at the Vatican and dioceses around the world.
When a Pope dies or resigns, those cardinals aged under 80 are eligible to enter a secret conclave to choose the new head of the nearly 1.4 billion-member Roman Catholic Church from among themselves.
The complex vote will reveal if the current cardinals, most of them put there by Francis, believe his embrace of liberal social values and his progressive reform agenda have gone too far and whether a period of retrenchment is needed.
The cardinals will set the date for the start of the conclave after they start arriving in Rome in the coming days.
Reuters
