Pope Francis, innovative leader of the Catholic Church, dies at 88

Rome – Pope Francis, who challenged the deeply rooted norms and his mission did To change the perception of the Catholic Church worldwide, he has died at the age of 88. The Vatican said that Pope Francis died just after 7:30 am Appearing in the Plaza de San Pedro In the Vatican on Easter Sunday to greet supporters.

The Vatican said in a statement later on Monday that Francis He died of a stroke That put it in a coma and led to irreversible heart failure.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Camerlengo of the Apostolic Chamber, formally announced the death of the Pope with A statement Saying: “At 7:35 This Morning, The Bishop of Rome, Francis, Returned to the House of the Father. His Senter Life was dedicated to the Service of the Lord and of His Church. Marginalized.

Tributes praising his leadership and devotion He quickly began to pour around the world.

Pope Francis had experienced a series of health problems in recent years, including two abdominal and several serious surgeries respiratory infections. He spent five weeks in it hospital In February and March 2025 with bronchitis that became pneumonia In both lungs. He marked the 12th anniversary of his papacy From your hospital room.

The pontiff was pushed into a wheelchair to the room for an interview. In his Vatican residence With News themezone’ Norah O’Donnell in April 2024. But while I had difficulty walking, he clearly spoke during the one -hour conversation on their prayers for an end of Wars in Gaza and Ukraine. However, in more recent appearances, the Pontiff clearly fought for breathing while pronouncing planned comments.

After being chosen by his fellow Catholic cardinals in 2013, he established the tone with his first official act as Pope, reversing a centenary tradition, simply asking for help.

Normally after A new Pope He is chosen, leave and bless the masses gathered in the Plaza de San Pedro in the Vatican. But when Francis was chosen, he came out and first asked the faithful to bless and pray for him.

“I want to ask you for a favor,” he said. “Before the bishop blesses people, I ask you to pray to the Lord to bless me.”

It may seem a subtle change, but together with his relative greeting and farewell to the crowd in Italian that day, he marked the pattern for his whole papacy. Pope Francis made it clear that he identified himself as a pilgrim brother, not as an imperial Pope. I did not want to continue leading a unidirectional monologue of the highest post of the Catholic Church, but a dialogue.

As Pope, the man previously known as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio chose to name himself after Francis de Asís, the patron saint of Italy, known for his simplicity and humanity.

The first Pope in the New World, Born and raised In Argentina, he said that he wanted “a poorer church” and one that “would include the excluded.”

He gave an example when choosing in the 201 room in Santa Marta, a small Vatican hotel that is generally used to visit priests, instead of in the luxurious papal apartments used by their predecessors. Pope Francis took his own bag and walked through Rome to buy his own pair of vessels.

His desire to communicate with common people sent the “popemobiles” to storage bullets.

“I cannot greet people from inside a can of Sardina,” he explained, “even if it is made of glass.”

It became one of the most popular public figures in the world, regularly speaking for the voiceless and leading with the example, either having homeless people, washing the feet of the inmates or providing a home in Italy for migrants and refugees fleeing from war or economic instability.

Pope Francis criticized consumerism and individualism, and insisted that “unfair economic structures” were a violation of human rights.

He also pressed for progress in the fight against climate change, even publishing an encyclical, a formal letter of himself to Catholic leaders around the world, on the subject. And reformed the curia, the central administration of the Church, allowing the lay men and women to direct Vatican offices, historically reserved positions for cardinals and bishops.

He continued giving his public prayers during the coronavirus blockages, but with the prohibited crowds, “The Pope of the People” was given his messages in an empty square in San Pedro.

Not losing time after receiving his vaccine covid, Pope Francis made a daring, first Papal visit to Iraqdespite the immense safety risks. In Mosul, where ISIS militants once looted Iglesias, Pope Francis prayed in them.

A few months later, his health finally reached him. He spent 10 days In a hospital in Rome In July 2021, he recovered from surgery scheduled to eliminate part of his colon. It was the first time he was hospitalized after being appointed Pope.

In 2022, a torn knee ligament finally forced him decelerate. I was using a wheelchair and canceling the Vatican celebrations and trips abroad, generating persistent rumors that Francis, such as Pope Benedict XVI, would. give up. When Benedict diedFrancis chaired His funeral, the first time in modern history, a Pope has put his predecessor to rest.

Over time, Francis’s papacy began to be defined by a theme that he did not choose: the wave of scandals of clerical sexual abuse that extended to the highest levels of the Catholic Church. He was accused, at first, of being insensitive in his slow response to the crisis.

He then tried to take control of the narrative, with a significant calling major clergymen to the Vatican in early 2019. From that meeting came new laws of the Vatican on sexual abuse and a mandate that each diocese established a clear report process. He also abolished the high -level confidentiality of the “Pontifical Secret”, which had wrapped the crisis of sexual abuse in another systemic secrecy.

His diplomatic ability was on display when played a key role By restoring relations between the United States and its enemy of decades, Cuba.

His simple style was a product of his humble beginnings. He was born on December 17, 1936 from an Italian immigrant rail worker and a housewife in Buenos Aires, Argentina. When he was young, he lost part of a lung due to an infection. He worked on several servile jobs and studied chemistry.

After being ordered as a priest at the end of the age of 32, he visited the low neighborhoods of Buenos Aires and take care of the poor characteristic of his city ministry.

During a press conference aboard a papal flight years later, he seemed to open a space for homosexuals in the church, with a single highly symbolic phrase: “Who am I judging?” He asked When a journalist fired a question about LGBTQ rights.

But although it may have received a generalized loan for changing the tone of the Church when it comes to acceptance, the teachings and policy of the Church did not change.

Despite causing fire to Catholic conservatives because they are too liberal, Pope Francis reaffirmed the doctrines of the Church of Long Data oppose same -sex marriageand in almost everything else, from birth control to order women.

He said he only brought a small bag to the papal conclave in 2013 that he saw him chosen, because he hoped to return home to Argentina.

Instead, neither his life, nor the papacy, were the same again.

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