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Pope Francis has died, aged 88, the Vatican has announced.
He led the Catholic Church for 12 years, having been elected in March 2013 following the historic resignation of his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI.
Francis spent his final weeks at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, where he was admitted on February 14 after having difficulty breathing.
It later emerged he was suffering from a complex respiratory tract infection and double pneumonia, which can inflame and scar both lungs and makes breathing more difficult.
Francis was the first Jesuit pope, the first pope from the Americas, the first from the Southern Hemisphere and the first non-European pontiff since Pope Gregory III, more than 1,000 years earlier.
His death triggers the start of the solemn process to elect a new pope, beginning with the papal funeral in the coming days and end with a plume of white smoke emanating from the Sistine Chapel.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the man who would become Pope Francis, was born on December 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires.
He was the son of a migrant family who moved to Argentina from northern Italy.
Once destined to become a man of science, he trained as an industrial chemist before a chance encounter with an unknown priest set him on the path to priesthood.
Prior to his ordination in 1969, he went out with girls, danced the tango and even worked briefly as a nightclub bouncer.
In a 2010 biography, Bergoglio told authors Francesca Ambrogetti and Sergio Rubin: ‘I love tango and I used to dance when I was young.’
Of the female friend with whom he used to share this love of tango, he added: ‘She was one of a group of friends I went dancing with. But then I discovered my religious vocation.’
He studied first in the diocesan seminary before moving to the Society of Jesus and was appointed head of the Jesuit province in Argentina aged 36 in 1973, remaining in post until 1979.
Bergoglio’s experiences of Argentina’s Dirty War in the 1970s and 1980s transformed the conservative, ambitious bishop into a more compassionate priest.
He became Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and was appointed to the college of cardinals by Pope John Paul II in 2001.
His eventual election as pope was foreshadowed later that year when he stepped in as the general rapporteur of the Synod of Bishops that year when Cardinal Edward Egan was called back to New York after the 9/11 attacks.
Argentine journalist and Francis biographer Elisabetta Piqué told the National Catholic Reporter in 2021: ‘Bergoglio’s role in that synod of 2001 was very important and crucial for his later election.
‘In fact, he worked so well as relator, replacing Egan, that he started being known and noticed in Rome as someone papabile.
‘From then on he remained on the radar of many cardinals — not just progressives — looking for a successor of John Paul II.’
The 2005 conclave to elect John Paul II’s successor is widely reported to have been a two-horse race between Joseph Ratzinger – the man who would soon become Benedict XVI – and Bergoglio.
A conclave diary purporting to have been written by an anonymous cardinal in the Italian media claimed Bergoglio received 40 votes on the third ballot, just before Ratzinger crossed the two-thirds threshold and became pope.
Following Benedict’s resignation in February 2013, Bergoglio was elected pope on March 13, taking the papal name Francis in honour of Saint Francis of Assisi.
He later revealed the inspiration for the name: ‘Next to me was the Archbishop Emeritus of São Paulo, also Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Clergy, Cardinal Claudio Hummes: a great friend, a great friend!
‘When it got a little dangerous, he comforted me. And when the votes went up to two-thirds, the usual applause came, because the Pope was elected.
‘He hugged me, kissed me, and said: “Don’t forget the poor!” And that word entered here: the poor, the poor. Then, immediately, in relation to the poor, I thought of Francis of Assisi.’
Standing on the balcony of St Peter’s Square on the night of his election, he told the thousands of faithful gathered below and the millions watching on live TV that the cardinals had gone to ‘the ends of the earth’ for a new pope.
‘The Francis Effect’ gained him an almost rockstar-like appeal in the early days with his less formal approach to the papacy than his predecessors.
Asked to describe himself, Francis replied candidly: ‘I am a sinner.’
He shunned the plush papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace for a room at the Casa Santa Marta guesthouse.
Francis also opted for ordinary black shoes to the red loafers made famous by Benedict and preferred the title Bishop of Rome to the more grandiose Supreme Pontiff or Vicar of Christ.
After his election, he famously returned to the Church-run residence where he was staying during the run-up to the conclave to pay his bill.
Through his time as pope, he was also praised for his more forward-thinking stance on LGBTQ+ issues compared to his predecessors.
Francis made his most famous comment on that subject a little more than four months after his election when, on a flight back from Rio de Janeiro, a journalist asked him about gay priests.
‘If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will,’ the pope asked, ‘who am I to judge?’
It was the first time a pontiff had ever used the word ‘gay’ in reference to sexuality.
People with ‘homosexual tendencies’ are children of God and should be welcomed by the church, the Catholic leader said.
To mark ten years of Pope Francis heading up the Church, Dr Gregory Ryan from the Centre for Catholic Studies at Durham University previously spoke to Metro UK about his legacy.
He said: ‘Several of the voices who are now vociferously exercising their right to criticise the pope are the same people who, in a previous generation, were trying to emphasise that the role of Catholic clergy and Catholic bishops was to be in line and not to dissent from papal teaching.
‘That’s one of the things that’s turned around.
‘There was criticism of Benedict and John Paul II, but it tended to come from theologians, academics and activists.
‘What’s unique here is that some of it is coming from the bishops as well.’
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