ROME—The 12-year reign of the first Jesuit pope and first pope to be elected to lead the Roman Catholic Church to come from Latin America, Pope Francis, has died at the age of 88.
The pope had been hospitalized for several weeks following a bout of double pneumonia yet had managed to make an appearance (albeit wheelchair bound) at the Easter Mass in the Vatican. His passing came just hours after meeting with US Vice-president JD Vance.
His time at the helm of the Catholic Church ushered in a more open and welcoming Catholic Church, prioritizing empathy for the poor and the disenfranchised. That included Indigenous victims of our nation’s church-run residential schools. In the spring of 2022, he made a historic and long called for apology for the deplorable conduct of some members of the Catholic Church during the church’s stewardship of much of the residential school system. Just a few months later, he would go on to say that system had carried out a cultural “genocide.”
Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires on December 17, 1936, as the oldest of five children of Italian immigrants, Pope Francis’ ascension to the head of the Roman Catholic Church on March 13, 2013, came as a surprise when Pope Benedict XVI unexpectedly stepped down-popes usually serve until death.
As a child, young Jorge worked in his family’s grocery store, played soccer and danced the tango—all normal activities for an Argentinian youth. He attended church regularly with his family but was not especially religious until he had a powerful experience during confession as a teen.
In 1969, Fr. Bergoglio was ordained into the priesthood as part of Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, a Catholic order known for education and missionary work. Four years later, he became head of the Jesuits in Argentina, then archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998. In 2001, he was appointed a cardinal by Pope John Paul II.
In June 2013, just three months after becoming pope, the new head of the Catholic Church responded to a reporter’s question about LGBTQ+ people in the church by saying, “If a person is gay and seeks God and has goodwill, who am I to judge?” He would later encourage same-sex parents to attend mass with their children and called laws that criminalized homosexuality unjust. Quite a revolution in the usually very staid Christian denomination.
Going even further, in December 2023, Pope Francis authorized priests to provide informal blessings to couples in “irregular” (same sex) unions, creating an exception for Africa after bishops from the continent protested.
In June 2015, he released the ‘Laudato si’, the first-ever papal document on the environment. A hard-hitting political analysis that focuses on global inequality calls upon world leaders to urgently respond to the climate crisis—eight years later, he issued a follow-up, the Laudate Deum—challenging leaders to commit to binding reduction targets.
The Pope would go on to apologize several times for the Catholic Church’s role in colonialism and justifying the seizing of Indigenous People’s lands.
His passing will be mourned by Catholics across the globe, while the cardinals of the church will soon gather to elect his successor—a person who will have huge slippers to fill.
