VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis, history’s first Latin American pontiff who charmed the world with his humble style and concern for the poor but alienated conservatives with critiques of capitalism and climate change, died Monday. He was 88.
Bells tolled in churches from his native Argentina to the Philippines and across Rome as news spread around the world.
“At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the home of the Father. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of his Church,” Cardinal Kevin Farrell said from the chapel of the Domus Santa Marta, where Francis lived.
Francis, who suffered from chronic lung disease and had part of one lung removed as a young man, was admitted to Gemelli hospital on Feb. 14, 2025, for a respiratory crisis that developed into double pneumonia. He spent 38 days there, the longest hospitalization of his 12-year papacy.
He made his last public appearance on Easter Sunday—a day before his death—to bless thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square, drawing wild cheers and applause. Beforehand, he met U.S. Vice President JD Vance.
Francis performed the blessing from the same loggia where he was introduced on March 13, 2013, as the 266th pope.
From his first greeting that night—a remarkably normal “Buonasera” (“Good evening”) — to his embrace of refugees and the downtrodden, Francis signaled a very different tone for the papacy, stressing humility over hubris for a Catholic Church beset by scandal and accusations of indifference.
The Argentine-born Jorge Mario Bergoglio brought a breath of fresh air into a 2,000-year-old institution that had seen its influence wane during the troubled tenure of Pope Benedict XVI, whose surprise resignation led to Francis’ election.
But Francis soon invited troubles of his own, and conservatives grew increasingly upset with his progressive bent, outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics and crackdown on traditionalists. His greatest test came in 2018 when he botched a notorious case of clergy sexual abuse in Chile, and the scandal that festered under his predecessors erupted anew.
But groups that advocated for more action on sexual abuse expressed disappointment in Francis’ legacy.
“Pope Francis was a beacon of hope to many of the world’s most desperate and marginalized people. But what we most needed from this pope was justice for the Church’s own wounded, the children and adults sexually abused by Catholic clergy. In this realm, where Francis had supreme power, he refused to make the necessary changes,” said Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of the U.S.-based group BishopAccountability.
‘We Are on the Same Boat’
Pope Francis demanded his bishops apply mercy and charity to their flocks, pressed the world to protect God’s creation from climate disaster, and challenged countries to welcome those fleeing war, poverty and oppression.
After visiting Mexico in 2016, Francis said of then-U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump that anyone building a wall to keep migrants out “is not Christian.”
While progressives were thrilled with Francis’ radical focus on Jesus’ message of mercy and inclusion, it troubled conservatives who feared he watered down Catholic teaching and threatened the very Christian identity of the West. Some even called him a heretic.
Francis added women to important decision-making roles and allowed them to serve as lectors and acolytes in parishes. He let women vote alongside bishops in periodic Vatican meetings, following long-standing complaints that women do much of the church’s work but are barred from power.
Sister Nathalie Becquart, whom Francis named to one of the highest Vatican jobs, said his legacy was a vision of a church where men and women existed in a relationship of reciprocity and respect.
“It was about shifting a pattern of domination—from human being to the creation, from men to women—to a pattern of cooperation,” said Becquart, the first woman to hold a voting position in a Vatican synod.
Still, a note of criticism came Monday from the Women’s Ordination Conference, which had been frustrated by Francis’ unwillingness to push for the ordination of women.
“His repeated ‘closed door’ policy on women’s ordination was painfully incongruous with his otherwise pastoral nature, and for many, a betrayal of the synodal, listening church he championed. This made him a complicated, frustrating, and sometimes heart-breaking figure for many women,” the statement said.
If becoming the first Latin American and first Jesuit pope wasn’t enough, Francis was also the first to name himself after St. Francis of Assisi, the 13th-century friar known for personal simplicity and care for society’s outcasts.
Francis formally apologized to Indigenous peoples for the crimes of the church from colonial times onward. And he went to society’s fringes to minister with mercy: caressing the deformed head of a man in St. Peter’s Square, kissing the tattoo of a Holocaust survivor, or inviting Argentina’s garbage scavengers to join him onstage in Rio de Janeiro.
“We have always been marginalized, but Pope Francis always helped us,” said Coqui Vargas, a transgender woman whose Roman community forged a unique relationship with Francis.
His first trip as pope was to the island of Lampedusa, then the epicenter of Europe’s migration crisis. He consistently chose to visit poor countries where Christians were often persecuted minorities, rather than the centers of global Catholicism.
And then Francis, the crowd-loving, globe-trotting pope of the peripheries, navigated the unprecedented reality of leading a universal religion through the coronavirus pandemic from a locked-down Vatican City.
“We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented,” Francis told an empty St. Peter’s Square in March 2020. Calling for a rethink of the global economic framework, he said the pandemic showed the need for “all of us to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other.”
What’s Next
The death of a pope starts a centuries-old ritual involving sacred oaths by the cardinals electing a successor, the piercing of ballots with a needle and thread after they’re counted, and then burning them to produce either the white or black smoke to signal if there’s a new leader for the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics.
The election itself is shrouded in secrecy, with cardinals forbidden from communicating with the outside world what happened during the voting in the conclave behind the frescoed walls of the Sistine Chapel. While there were some leaps of artistic license, the process is in many ways as it was depicted in last year’s Oscar-winning film “Conclave.”
St. John Paul II rewrote the regulations on papal elections in a 1996 document that remains largely in force, though Pope Benedict XVI amended it twice before he resigned. Here is what happens when a pope dies, a period known as the “sede vacante,” or the “vacant See.”
Who’s in Charge?
After the pope has died, the camerlengo, or chamberlain, must certify the death and seal the papal apartment. He runs administrative and financial duties of the Holy See until a new pope takes over.
The largely ceremonial job of camerlengo is currently held by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Irish-born American head of the Vatican’s laity office, who also announced the death on Monday morning.
Nearly all prefects of Vatican offices lose their jobs when a pope dies, but a few stay on, including the foreign minister and the master of liturgical ceremonies, who plays a key role in assembling the conclave.
The dean of the College of Cardinals summons the cardinals for the funeral, presiding at the Mass before the conclave begins. That position is currently held by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the retired head of the Vatican’s office for bishops.
In November 2024, Francis reformed the rites to be used for his funeral, simplifying them to emphasize his role as a mere bishop and allowing for burial outside the Vatican. Francis has chosen to be buried in St. Mary Major Basilica, where his favorite icon of the Virgin Mary, the Salus Populi Romani, is located.
What’s the Timing?
The death of a pope begins a precise sequence of events that include the confirmation of death in the pontiff’s home, the transfer of the coffin to St. Peter’s Basilica for public viewing, a funeral Mass and burial. Interment must take place between the fourth and sixth day after his death.
After the funeral, there are nine days of official mourning, known as the “novendiali.”
During this period, the cardinals arrive in Rome. To give everyone time to assemble, the conclave must begin 15-20 days after the “sede vacante” is declared, although it can start sooner if the cardinals agree.
Who Can Elect a Pope?
Only cardinals under age 80 are eligible to vote. Current regulations notionally limit the number of electors to 120, but popes have often exceeded that ceiling. According to the most recently updated Vatican statistics, there were 135 cardinals under age 80 and eligible to vote. Cardinals over age 80 can be elected pope.
Those over 80 can’t vote but can participate in pre-conclave meetings, known as general congregations, in which church problems are discussed. It was in these meetings in 2013 that then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio spoke about the need for the church to go to the “existential peripheries” to find those who suffer—an off-the-cuff speech that helped his election.
Who Are Possible Candidates?
Any baptized Roman Catholic male is eligible to be pope, but since 1378, only cardinals have been selected. Some current leading candidates:
— Cardinal Pietro Parolin of Italy, 70, Francis’ secretary of state and a veteran Vatican diplomat.
— Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Canada, 80, head of the Vatican’s bishops office from 2010 to 2023.
— Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Austria, 80, a student of Pope Benedict XVI and thus ostensibly having appeal for conservatives.
— Cardinal Luis Tagle of the Philippines, 67, brought by Francis to head the Vatican’s massive missionary office.
— Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Italy, 69, a Francis protégé who headed the Italian bishops conference.
How Are The Votes Taken?
A first ballot is held in the Sistine Chapel on the afternoon after the initial Mass. If no pope is elected, over the ensuing days two ballots are held each morning and two each afternoon.
The ballots are rectangular pieces of paper with the words: “Eligo in Summum Pontificem” (“I elect as supreme pontiff”) written on top, with a space for a name. Each cardinal makes his choice, folds the paper in half, walks to the front of the chapel and declares: “I call as my witness Christ the Lord, who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one who before God I think should be elected.”
He then puts the ballot on a tray and tips it into a receptacle.
Three designated cardinals, known as scrutineers, check each ballot to see if it is filled out correctly. Each name is read aloud and counted, with the results announced to the conclave after each round.
If no one gets the needed two-thirds of votes, the ballots are pierced with a needle and thread, which is then knotted and placed on a tray, and another round of voting is prepared.
Benedict modified some of John Paul’s 1996 conclave rules, most notably excluding his vision that a pope could be elected by a simple majority if voting was stalemated. Benedict decreed that a two-thirds majority is always needed, no matter how long it takes. He did so to prevent cardinals from holding out for the 12 days foreseen by John Paul and then pushing through a candidate with a slim majority.
What About Secrecy?
Benedict also tightened the oath of secrecy in the conclave, making clear that anyone who reveals what went on inside faces automatic excommunication.
In John Paul’s rules, excommunication was always a possibility, but Benedict revised the oath that liturgical assistants and secretaries take to make it explicit, saying they must observe “absolute and perpetual secrecy” and explicitly refrain from using any audio or video recording devices.
They now declare: “I take this oath fully aware that an infraction thereof will incur the penalty of automatic excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See. So help me God and these Holy Gospels, which I touch with my hand.”
Cardinals also are bound by secrecy, although the threat of excommunication only hangs over them explicitly if they are found to have accepted payment for their vote, allowed secular powers to influence it or entered into pacts with other cardinals to back a candidate.
Do We Have a Pope?
After the ballots are pierced, they are burned in a cylindrical stove at the end of the voting session. Black smoke from the Sistine Chapel chimney means no decision; white smoke signals the cardinals have chosen a pope and that he has accepted.
Chemical cartridges are added to ensure there is no confusion over the color. To produce black smoke, a cartridge containing potassium perchlorate, anthracene—the component of coal tar—and sulfur is burned with the ballots. For white smoke, a cartridge of potassium chlorate, lactose and chloroform resin is burned with the ballots.
Bells also are rung to signal the election of a pope, for further clarity.
The new pope is introduced from the loggia overlooking St. Peter’s Square with the words, “Habemus Papam!” (“We have a pope!”) and his chosen papal name. The new pope then emerges and gives his first blessing.
___
Associated Press writer Colleen Barry contributed from Milan.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
