Pope Francis has died, the Vatican announced on Monday, ending a groundbreaking pontificate that sought, however haltingly, to reshape the Roman Catholic Church into a more inclusive institution.
Standing somberly behind a microphone at the Vatican, Cardinal Kevin Farrell announced the pope’s death. “At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father,” he said. An American of Irish origin, Cardinal Farrell becomes the Vatican’s de facto administrator after the death of a pope.
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, the archbishop of New York, remembered Pope Francis at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. “We can never choreograph our own birth or death, can we? That’s always in God’s hands,” the cardinal said. “But if you could choreograph it, you couldn’t choreograph it any better than what happened.”
The U.N. Secretary General António Guterres offered his condolences to Catholics and lauded Pope Francis as “a messenger of hope, humility and humanity.” Guterres added that Francis had left “a legacy of faith, service and compassion for all — especially those left on the margins of life or trapped by the horrors of conflict.” The pope visited the U.N. headquarters in New York in 2015, where he delivered a speech at the opening of the annual General Assembly urging the world to focus more on environmental justice and caring for the world’s poorest people.
President Trump, speaking ahead of the White House Easter Egg Roll, said he had ordered flags at half-staff in honor of Pope Francis. “He was a good man,” Trump said.
