“At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the home of the Father.” With that sentence, read from the chapel of the Domus Santa Marta, the Vatican told the world on Easter Monday that Pope Francis was dead at 88.
Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the camerlengo, delivered the announcement. Francis, he said, “taught us to live the values of the Gospel with faithfulness, courage, and universal love, especially for the poorest and most marginalized.” Francis was the 266th Bishop of Rome and sovereign of Vatican City.
By early afternoon the Vatican gave the cause: a stroke that put him into a coma and led to heart failure, AP reported. He had come home only weeks earlier after 38 days in Gemelli hospital with a respiratory crisis that became double pneumonia, the longest stay of his 12-year papacy. The day before he died, he gave an Easter blessing and toured St. Peter’s Square in the popemobile as crowds cheered.
The first rites
Officials sealed the pope’s formal apartment in the Apostolic Palace that afternoon. They draped a red ribbon through the door handles, poured wax on the bow and pressed Francis’s papal seal into it. That evening Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, led a rosary in the square, with Sister Raffaella Petrini, president of the Vatican City State, giving the first reading.
Under the new rites Francis approved last year, his body is placed in a wooden coffin with a zinc one inside, and it will no longer lie on a raised bier in the basilica. The coffin is placed facing the pews. The public could begin paying respects as early as Wednesday, the Vatican said. A funeral must be held four to six days after the death, with a conclave to follow. A candidate needs two-thirds of the vote, and four rounds of balloting are held each day.
The canonization of Carlo Acutis, planned for April 27, was postponed.
Tributes
President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social: “Rest in Peace Pope Francis! May God Bless him and all who loved him!” Vice President JD Vance, who met the pope on Easter Sunday, wrote that “though he was obviously very ill,” he was glad to have seen him. Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said she had enjoyed his “friendship, his counsel and his teachings.” Irish President Michael Higgins credited him with recognizing the “essential dignity” of every human being. Riccardo di Segni, the chief rabbi of Rome, said his pontificate opened a new chapter in relations between Judaism and Catholicism.
Francis had faced lung trouble since youth, when part of a lung was removed. This was his fourth hospital stay as pope. He had part of his large intestine removed in 2021 and used a wheelchair, cane or walker because of bad knee ligaments.
