Pope Francis dies at 88

Pope Francis, the first Latin American, has died in Rome at the age of 88.

His death was announced by Cardinal Kevin Farrell in a statement released by the Vatican. He said: "Dearest brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis.

""At 7.35am this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and His Church.

"He taught us to live the values ​​of the Gospel with fidelity, courage and universal love, especially in favour of the poorest and most marginalised.

"With immense gratitude for his example as a true disciple of the Lord Jesus, we commend the soul of Pope Francis to the infinite merciful love of the One and Triune God."

Since the Vatican has announced his death, all the high offices of the Holy See have ceased and the Holy See is in the hands of the Cardinal Camerlengo, the Irish Kevin Farrell, who will exercise his functions until a new Pontiff is elected. The Jubilee 2025 celebrations will also be suspended until then.

Rome is already listening in shock to the tolling of the bell for the dead in St Peter's Basilica, echoing throughout the city centre. It reminds us that the voice of Francis, the one that resounded in political and religious forums in defence of the "discarded", as he called immigrants, the unemployed, the elderly, the sick and the unborn, has been extinguished.

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The last time a Pope died in office was John Paul II on 2 April 2005, who died of septicaemia at the age of 85, after a long period of Parkinson's disease which necessitated a tracheotomy. Benedict XVI resigned on February 28, 2013 , at the age of 85, and died nine years later, on December 31, 2022, at the age of 95.

In the next few hours, the dean cardinal, Giovanni Battista Re, will summon all the cardinals to Rome, although only those under 80 years of age, the so-called "electors", are obliged to travel to the Eternal City to participate in the conclave and elect a new Pontiff. The Pope's funeral is due to take place in less than a week's time.

The new man of reference in the Holy See is the Cardinal Camerlengo, currently the Irish Kevin Farrell, 77, who since 2016 has been prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life. While in office, until the next pope is elected, he will in practice exercise the government of the Holy See, but only for matters of ordinary administration.

With the death, those who preside over departments of the Vatican Curia, with a few exceptions, automatically cease to hold office. All events related to the Jubilee of Hope, planned for the whole of 2025, which the next Pope will have to decide whether to resume or cancel definitively, will also be interrupted.

Francis, the first Latin American bishop of Rome, was elected Pope on 13 March 2013 with the mission of cleansing the Vatican of everything that smacked of "careerism" and corruption and to show the Christian proposal to a polarised and accelerated world.

He had the ability to keep the Catholic Church united during the years of coexistence with his predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. It was the first time that two popes lived together serenely and showed appreciation for each other. "For me he was a father, you don't know how much he helped me on this path," he explained to the ABC correspondent in the book interview 'The Successor'. Until Benedict XVI's death in December 2022, Francis fended off those who tried to use Ratzinger to attack him and those who used him to pit him against his predecessor's admirers.

Francis was an "intelligent conservative" who tried to maintain the simplicity of the early days of the Catholic Church and abandon the superficial elements that overshadow the strength of its message. «I prefer a Church that is bruised, wounded and stained by going out into the streets, rather than a Church sickened by enclosure and the comfort of clinging to its own securities," he explained shortly after being elected, in his programmatic document, "Evangelii Gaudium".

When he presented this boldness to Catholics, it resulted in divisions between two extremes, ranging from Catholics who looked askance and perplexity at his gestures of openness and considered them a break with the past, to believers who tried to see in his proposals a "new" Church , opposed and at odds with that which his predecessors had led.

His health deteriorated progressively from March 2022, when he began to show his mobility problems serenely in public due to a serious knee injury. At the end of March 2023 he had to be hospitalised for bronchitis. He returned to hospital two months later, in June 2023, when he was forced to undergo surgery to resolve a hernia in his intestine that was causing an occlusion.

Rehabilitation was causing him problems until at least the spring of 2024. At the end of January 2025 he contracted bronchitis again, which prevented him from making long public speeches and forced him to return to hospital.

"I am a man who is always forgiven. Throughout my life I also had moments of crisis, of emptiness, of sin, stages of worldliness . And then the Lord managed to free me from them," he confessed in January 2025 in his autobiography 'Hope'. I feel ungrateful, because in the face of so many benefits received, I have made many mistakes, many negligences,» he said in his personal assessment.