Pope Francis handed away at 7:35 a.m. on Easter Monday (April 21) at his house, following a prolonged illness, the Vatican announced.
Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Camerlengo of the Apostolic Chamber, made the assertion Monday morning from the Pope’s professional house, Casa Santa Marta.
The Pope have been hospitalized on February 14 because of headaches from bronchitis and became recognized with bilateral pneumonia 4 days later. He spent over a month in hospital therapy earlier than returning to his house to maintain his recovery.
Since 1415, all popes besides one have died in office. Benedict XVI, Francis’s predecessor who assumed the papacy in 2005, retired in 2013, bringing up a “loss of electricity of thoughts and body.”
The transfer of power
Detailed legal guidelines and rituals—a few courting returned to the Middle Ages—govern the switch of electricity from one pope to the next. In April 2024, Pope Francis authorised an up to date model of the Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis, the liturgical ee-e book that outlines the rites for a papal funeral. This up to date model will manual the approaching funeral Mass.
The passing of a pope initiates the Interregnum, the duration among papacies.
Traditionally, the Pope’s demise is established via way of means of the camerlengo, the cardinal who serves because the Church’s treasurer. He ceremonially calls out the Pope’s baptismal call 3 times, and if no reaction is received, pronounces him deceased. Under the up to date liturgical norms, this verification will now arise withinside the chapel in place of withinside the Pope’s room.
The Ring of the Fisherman—the papal signet ring bearing the seal of his pontificate—is ceremonially destroyed to indicate the stop of his rule. The papal condominium is then locked and sealed, and the camerlengo officially notifies the College of Cardinals of the Pope’s demise. This is observed via way of means of the Novendiale, a nine-day duration of mourning.
The Pope’s frame is wearing papal regalia and positioned in St. Peter’s Basilica for public viewing. In 2022, Pope Francis made preparations for his frame to be positioned in a easy coffin, forgoing the conventional 3 nested coffins fabricated from cypress, lead, and oak. According to the up to date Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis, his frame will probably be displayed on this single, less complicated coffin.
The funeral is usually held inside 4 to 6 days and is presided over via way of means of the Dean of the College of Cardinals. While maximum popes are buried underneath St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis expressed in 2022 his desire to be buried on the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, farfar from the Vatican.
Sede Vacante
With the passing or resignation of a Pope, the length of Sede Vacante—meaning “the seat is vacant”—begins, at some point of which the governance of the Church falls to the College of Cardinals.
Within 15 to twenty days, cardinals below the age of eighty acquire from round the arena to take part withinside the papal conclave, the name of the game election technique to select a brand new Pope.
In India, 4 cardinals below the age of eighty are eligible to vote withinside the conclave: Cardinal Filipe Neri Ferrão, Cardinal Cleemis Baselios, Cardinal Anthony Poola, and Cardinal George Jacob Koovakad.
The cardinals are sequestered withinside the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, wherein they vote in a couple of rounds till a unmarried candidate gets a two-thirds majority. After every unsuccessful vote, black smoke is emitted from the chapel’s chimney. When a brand new Pope is elected, white smoke is released.
A consultant of the College of Cardinals then seems on the principle balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica and proclaims, “Habemus papam” (“We have a Pope”) to the assembled faithful. The newly elected Pope, who historically selects a call in honour of a saint or a predecessor, then provides his first cope with to the general public from the balcony.
The office of the Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome and the seen head of the Catholic Church, which acknowledges Jesus Christ as its invisible head. He is likewise called the Supreme Pontiff, and his workplace is called the Papacy. The Papacy oversees the Holy See—the relevant governing frame of the Church—and Vatican City, which continues formal diplomatic family members with different nations.
Who was Pope Francis?
Pope Francis succeeded because the 266th pontiff in a line courting returned to Saint Peter in 30 CE. He have become the Pope on March 13, 2013, following Pope Benedict XVI.
He become the primary South American Pope and the primary from the Jesuit order. Born in 1936 in Buenos Aires as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, he become ordained a Jesuit priest in 1969. He have become a bishop in 1992 and become appointed Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998.
Pope Francis was considered to be a moderate. Previously, he said the Church needed to apologize to homosexuals and was against trickle-down free-market economic policy. Meanwhile, he was also against gay marriage, against ordaining women priests, and called abortion the “most horrific” of crimes.
He came into office in the wake of the Vatileaks scandal—leak of secret documents to expose corruption within the Vatican. As Pope, he has led the Church’s efforts at reform, seeking to eradicate corruption and respond to the “tragic instances of child abuse” he referred to in 2024 as a black mark on the Church’s reputation.
According to Francesca Ambrogetti, co-creator of the biography Pope Francis: His Life in His Own Words, who spoke to Reuters, Francis has been enormously appeared for his “sober and austere” lifestyle.
