Pope Francis died at 7:35 a.m. Rome time on Easter Monday, 21 April 2025. He was 88. Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Vatican camerlengo, announced it, saying Francis had died “with deep sorrow” in the Vatican’s account, at Casa Santa Marta, the guesthouse where he had lived since his election in 2013.
The Vatican later gave the cause as a stroke that put him into a coma and led to heart failure. A press office statement signed by Andrea Arcangeli, director of the Vatican City State’s Health and Hygiene Directorate, also listed a previous episode of acute respiratory failure, arterial hypertension and type II diabetes.
The death came a day after his last public appearance. On Easter Sunday he gave the blessing from the balcony of St. Peter’s, though an aide read the Urbi et Orbi message for him, and then rode the popemobile through the crowd, stopping several times to bless babies. He also met US Vice President JD Vance briefly.
A hard winter
Earlier in 2025 the pope had spent 38 days in hospital with a respiratory crisis that turned into double pneumonia, the longest stay of his 12-year papacy. His doctors said afterward that he was so ill they considered stopping treatment. He recovered and went home to the Vatican last month. As recently as last week, the Vatican said, he was improving.
Reaction
Mourners reached St. Peter’s Square shortly after the announcement, many praying, some in tears. At noon the bells of Rome’s churches began to toll slowly. By evening hundreds had gathered as Cardinal Mauro Gambetti led a rosary.
US President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social: “Rest in Peace Pope Francis! May God Bless him and all who loved him!” The two had a rocky relationship. Francis had sharply criticised Trump’s deportation policies in the months before his death. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called him “a great man and a great pastor.” Britain’s King Charles said he would be remembered for “his compassion, his concern for the unity of the Church.” Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, who had clashed with the pope over economic policy, said their differences “seem minor today.”
In Gaza, Father Gabriel Romanelli of Holy Family Catholic Church said Francis had made his daily phone call on Saturday to “send his blessings to all Gaza people.”
What comes next
Farrell runs the Vatican until a successor is chosen. The death starts nine days of mourning. Burial traditionally falls between the fourth and sixth day after death, and the body could lie in state at St. Peter’s Basilica as early as Wednesday, a Vatican spokesperson said. Cardinals from around the world are expected in Rome to mourn him and then elect his successor.
Francis was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio to Italian migrants in Buenos Aires in 1936. He was the first Latin American and the first Jesuit pope, and the first non-European pontiff in nearly 1,300 years. He pressed the church on migrants, the poor and the environment, and he faced resistance from ultra-conservatives for it. Progressive Catholics felt he should have gone further on ordaining married men and on teaching about homosexuality. The abuse scandals he had vowed to end kept damaging the church throughout his papacy.
Sources
- Pope Francis, voice for the poor who transformed the Catholic Church, dies on Easter Monday | CNN
- Pope Francis dies at 88, Vatican announces
