Pope Francis welcomed a more open, welcoming Catholic church that prioritized sympathy from the poor and disenfranchised people, including indigenous victims of residential schools run by the Canadian cathedral, the Vatican said in a video statement on Monday.
“Dear brothers and sisters, I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis with profound sorrow,” Cardinal Kevin Farrell announced on the Vatican TV channel.
“At 7:35 this morning, Roman Bishop Francis returned to his father’s house.”
Jorge Mario Bergoglio elected the leader of the Roman Catholic Church on March 13, 2013, and appeared in a brilliant situation after the unexpected resignation of Pope Benedict XVI.
Francis ushered in the first of many popes: the first in Latin America, the first of which was the Jesuit command, and the first to be named after Francis.
Francis also wrote history for history in the spring of 2022, when he apologized for the “tragic” behavior of some members of the Catholic Church that resided in the school system in Canada. A few months later, he said the system had carried out cultural “genocide”.
The beginning of humility before religious life
When Francis appeared on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica after he was elected, he joked that he “almost walked to the end of the earth” and found him.
On December 17, 1936, he was born in Buenos Aires in Buenos Aires, the eldest of five children of Italian immigrants.
As a kid, Francis worked in a family grocery store, playing soccer and dancing tango. He regularly attended church with his family, but he was not particularly religious until his teenage years of guilty pleasing.
In 1969, he was appointed part of the Jesuits, part of the Catholic order known for education and missionary work. Four years later, he became head of the Jesuits in Argentina in 1998.
“The Poor Church”
As the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Francis was regarded as a progressive pope, more concerned with executing church doctrine than his predecessors, John Paul II and Benedict, and more interested in opening the doors of the church to those who were excluded.
From the very beginning, his actions marked the Catholic church he wanted – “poor, poor.” He shunned the luxurious apostolic palace where the former pope lived, and chose to live in a small hotel within the Vatican walls.
He soon broke other traditions, and held a foot wash on Holy Thursday three days before Easter Sunday, from a church in Rome to an internal prison – where he became the first to include women and non-Christians among the prisoners who washed his hands.
“Who should I judge?”
Three months after becoming the pope, Francis said in June 2013 in response to a reporter’s question: “Who should I judge if a person is homosexual and seeks God and has good intentions?” Later, he encouraged homosexual parents to attend Mass with their children, saying that the law criminalizes homosexuality as “unjust”.
“As a gay Catholic, he gave me happiness and hope.” Mark Guevara, a member of 2SLGBTQ+ about lay Catholics, said an organization related to issues affecting 2SLGBTQ+ Catholics, women, indigenous peoples and abuse survivors.
Guevara said, “He reminded me that I am the beloved child of God.”
Following the global summit on the future of the Catholic Church in December 2023, the pope authorized pastors to provide informal blessings to couples to “irregular” (same-sex) union party couples, providing an exception to Africa after bishops protested on the mainland.
“The Pope said in his early days that he would not be obsessed with [opposing] Gay marriage, abortion and similar issues.
Care about the environment
June 2015, Francis release laudato si’the first ever papal document about the environment. Its tough political analysis and focus on global inequality calls for world leaders to respond urgently to the climate crisis. Eight years later, he released the follow-up Dear Dim.
The Pope repeatedly apologized for the role of the Catholic Church in colonialism and for the role of the occupation of the land of the indigenous peoples.
In the early spring of 2022, he met Indigenous representatives and supporters traveling from Canada to the Vatican and talked about the “sadness and shame” of the abuse he caused to indigenous children.
July 2022, Francis made what he called “pen pilgrimage” Stressing reconciliation to Canada and apologizing for members of the Catholic Church who work with the government’s “destructive” Aboriginal policies.
However, the Pope kept saying that Catholicism was responsible as an institution, disappointing some indigenous peoples.
Ukraine and “the courage of the white flag”
In early 2024 In an interview with Swiss broadcaster RSIPope Francis said he believes Ukraine should have the “courage of the white flag” and negotiated with Russia, which invaded neighbors in February 2022, killing thousands of people.
The comments sparked widespread outrage, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seeing them as “virtual mediation,” a distant religious figure without involving the country that helped him. The Vatican clarified the comments a few days later, saying the pope did not mean Ukraine surrendered.
But observers say Francis’ comments on the Russian invasion are much weaker than his predecessors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
“The Pope failed to view the Ukrainian war as a colonial war,” said Massimo Faggioli, professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University near Philadelphia. “This is surprising because Pope Francis is very voiced in the dark chapters of colonialism.”
Sexual abuse scandal
Francis brought transparency to the Vatican, which was suffered due to allegations of financial corruption. But victim groups and some observers say his response to the Catholic Church’s most harmful problems—a decade-old scandal of child sexual abuse—was insufficient.
In 2014, Francis established a religious committee to protect minors. In 2017, two prominent survivors of abuse of the committee resigned, citing “Resistance”, “reluctance” and “lack of cooperation”. Six years later, founding member Rev. Hans Zollner left for similar reasons.
Francis’ first, most serious mistake was defending Bishop Juan Barros of ChileAccused of ignoring missionaries to abuse minors for a long time. In early 2018, Francis dismissed the allegations against Barros as “Calumny”, or defamation, angering the victims. A few months later, he apologized, saying he had made a “serious mistake” in defending Barros and accepting the bishop’s resignation.
Following the global summit on sexual abuse in the instrument held in the Vatican in 2019, the pope proposed new regulations to report abuse to church officials and investigate bishops involved in abuse or cover-up. He updated the law in 2023, but the Vatican did not provide data on the effectiveness of the change. The victims reported silence and stone walls, and the Vatican’s own Advisory Committee on Child Protection said structural issues prevented fundamental justice.
Abortion “hire killers”
Although Francis embraced the liberal attitude that many consider to be the head of patriarchal, theocratic monarchy, he argued that human rights extended to the uterus and opposed abortion even if the fetus could die.
The Pope compared the procedure to the “hiring killers” several times and said he “respects” The U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 revoked the nearly 50-year-old Roe v. Wade case, which recognised the constitutional right to abortion.
Francis was the first pope to appoint several women to senior positions in the Vatican and grant voting rights to female participants in church gatherings around the world. He also revised the church laws to allow women to play a greater role during the Mass. Become a deacon when he opens up to womenhe firmly opposed the appointment of women.
Francis, like the former Pope, still considered women to be “special, exotic or women who need research, [not] As an equal figure in the church.
While Francis did not change Catholic doctrine, he relaxed the rules and dispersed decision-making, which confused the clergy and politicians who arched conservatives who believed he had made too much concessions to the modernity of social problems.
The late Australian Cardinal George Pell, convicted of harassment after being sentenced several months, described Francis’s Pope as a “catastrophe” and mocked his “neo-Marxist jargon” new term “anonymous memorandum” on exclusion, which was later written by Pell.
The health of the pope is a concern for years
Francis’s Pope lasted much longer than he had predicted himself. He said that in 2015, he believed that his characters would span one to three For years he said he believed “The Lord has left me here for a short time, that’s all.”
Even before his continued request to be the head of the Roman Catholic Church, his health was a concern: at the age of 21, his right lung was removed due to a respiratory infection.
In 2021, he was hospitalized when part of Francis’ colon was removed, and two years later he repaired the abdominal hernia and removed the scar tissue in the intestinal region.
In later years, he had frequent flu, bronchitis and colds, often losing sounds, sciatica and tense knee ligaments, which made it necessary for him to use sugar cane, walker or wheelchair. His latest bronchitis attack was diagnosed on February 6, 2025, and as it deteriorated into pneumonia, he was taken to the hospital where he stayed for five weeks.
Choose a successor
As cardinals from all over the world travel to Rome to attend the meeting to elect the next pope, Francis’ legacy will be felt: 73% of the votes are appointed by the Argentinians.
Nevertheless, observers say that this does not mean that the next pope’s view will necessarily be consistent with that of Francis.
Fagiliri said he expects a rebalancing of the next pope.
Francis’ greatest legacy is that he was the first global pope, and he made it very clear that the church will not always marry European Mediterranean culture. ”
“This is a larger cardinal college, diversified from more countries. It will be a very unpredictable meeting.”
