Pope Francis, whose nearly 12-year papacy ushered in a more open, welcoming Catholic Church that prioritized empathy for the poor and disenfranchised — including Indigenous victims of Canada's church-run residential schools — has died at 88, the Vatican said in a video statement Monday.
"Dear brothers and sisters, it is with profound sadness I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis," Cardinal Kevin Farrell announced on the Vatican's TV channel.
"At 7:35 this morning the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father."
The election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as leader of the Roman Catholic Church on March 13, 2013, came about under remarkable circumstances, after Pope Benedict XVI's surprise resignation.
Francis ushered in a number of firsts for a pope: the first from Latin America, the first from the Jesuit order and the first to take the name Francis.
Francis also made history in the spring of 2022, when he apologized for the "deplorable" conduct of some members of the Catholic Church in Canada's residential school system. A few months later, he said that system had carried out a cultural "genocide."
When Francis appeared on the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica moments after his election, he joked the cardinals "almost went to the ends of the Earth" to find him.
He hailed far from the power centre of the Vatican, born in Buenos Aires on Dec. ...
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