Pope Francis

Pope Francis (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio;, , . December 17, 1936 – April 21, 2025) was the 266th"Argentina's Bergoglio elected as new pope,"  Reuters, 13 March 2013; "List of Popes,"  Catholic Encyclopedia (2009); retrieved 13 March 2013. pope of the Roman Catholic Church. He was elected on March 13, 2013. He chose the name Francis to honour St. Francis of Assisi. He was succeeded by Pope Leo XIV on the 8th of May 2025.

Francis was the first Jesuit pope.  He was also the first pope in more than a millennium who is not European.Cockerton, Paul. "It's Pope Francis I: First non-European elected to lead Catholic Church for 1,000 years," The Mirror (UK). 13 March 2013; retrieved 13 March 2012.  He was the first pope ever to come from the Americas, and the first from the Southern Hemisphere.

From 1998 until he was elected as the pope, Francis was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires.  Throughout his life, both as an individual and a religious leader, he had been known for his humility, his concern for the poor, and his commitment to dialogue as a way to build bridges between people of all backgrounds, beliefs, and faiths.  He expressed concern about the effects of global warming.<ref>

After L'Osservatore Romano reported this, several priests expressed their support for the law. Gay people believe that the church's opposition and Bergoglio's language actually helped the law get passed.  They also think that Catholic officials reacted by taking a less harsh tone in later debates on social issues such as parental surrogacy.

On July 29, 2013, Pope Francis gave an interview to some journalists who were traveling with him. When asked if there should be gay priests, Pope Francis replied: In 2023, Francis wrote a text called Fiducia Supplicans. In this text, he states that Catholic priests can bless couples, who have not been married according to the teaching of the Catholic Church. This includes same-sex marriages.

 Role of women 
Francis was opposed to the idea that women should be able to become priests. In the same interview by L'Osservatore Romano of 2013, Francis was asked if women should become priests, He replied:Early in his papacy, he started a dialogue, to explore if women should be able to become deaconesses. In 2016,  he created the Study Commission on the Women's Diaconate to research the role of female deacons in early Christianity.Daniel Burke and Holly Yan, Pope Francis creates commission to study history of female deacons , CNN (2 August 2016). Its report was not made public.Colleen Dulle, Pope Francis says no to women deacons in '60 Minutes' interview , America (21 May 2024). In 2019, Francis said  that the commission was unable to come to a consensus.Joshua J. McElwee, Francis: Women deacons commission gave split report on their role in early church , National Catholic Reporter (7 May 2019). In April 2020, Francis started a new commission, led by Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi with a new membership, to study the issue.Joshua J. McElwee, Francis creates new women deacons commission, naming entirely different membership , National Catholic Reporter (8 April 2022). Francis delayed a decision on the issue for several years. In interviews in late 2023 and 2024, he appeared to reject the idea of women deacons, saying that "holy orders is reserved for men." Francis said that "the fact that the woman does not access ministerial life is not a deprivation, because her place is much more important" and that women had a charism separate from "the ministerial way."

In January 2021, Francis issued Spiritus Domini, which allowed bishops to institute women to the ministries of acolyte and lector. These functions had been reserved to men beforehand. In many parts of the world,, Catholic women already had these functions. In contrast to men, women were not ordained. Francis wrote that these ministries are fundamentally different from those reserved to ordained clergy. The following month, Francis appointed women to several positions previously held only by men: a French member of the Xaviere Missionary Sisters, Nathalie Becquart, was appointed co-undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops, and Italian magistrate Catia Summaria became the first woman Promoter of Justice in the Vatican's Court of Appeals.

In April 2023, Francis announced that 35 women would be allowed to vote at the Sixteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops ("just over 10%" of all voters), marking the first time women are allowed to vote at any Catholic Synod of Bishops.

 Divorced people who married again 
Francis published Amoris Laetitia in 2016. Amoris Laetitia is mostly about the role of the family and about marriage. It also addresses the problem, that the Catholic Church does not really accept a divorce. There is only an annulment of marriage. People whose marriage was not annulled, who marry again have a problem: they should be excommunicated, and excluded from all Church rituals. There was some disagreement, about the question, if Amoris Laetitia changed the practice, that these people should have access to the sacraments of the church.Oullet, Marc (21 November 2017), "Accompanying, Discerning, Integrating Weakness" , L'Osservatore Romano, retrieved 29 November 2017 Francis had written: "It is important that the divorced who have entered a new union should be made to feel part of the Church." He called for "a responsible personal and pastoral discernment of particular cases". He went on to say: "It is true that general rules set forth a good which can never be disregarded or neglected, but in their formulation they cannot provide absolutely for all particular situations."

Amoris Laetitia had been implemented in different ways by bishops around the world. In 2016, four cardinals asked Francis to clarify his position. This is known as dubia, and is in the form of a direct question, that can be answered with either yes or no. They wrote him a letter, containing five such questions.  In November 2016, the cardinals made their letter public, as they had not received a response from Pope Francis. Their questions focus on "whether there are now circumstances under which divorced and remarried persons can receive communion, whether there are still 'absolute moral norms' that prohibit Catholics from taking certain acts, and how the pope understands Catholic teaching on the role of conscience in making moral decisions". 

Beliefs about non-Catholics

Three days after being elected Pope, Pope Francis told thousands of news reporters:

[Since] many of you do not belong to the Catholic Church, and others are not believers, I give this blessing from my heart, in silence, to each one of you, respecting the conscience of each one of you, but knowing that each one of you is a child of God.  May God bless you.

It is very rare for a Pope to bless people who are not Catholics.  By doing this, the Pope was showing that he accepted people who belonged to different religions.

In a speech on 20 March, Pope Francis said that some people do not follow any religion, but still search "for truth, goodness and beauty."  He said these people are important allies in protecting human dignity; making peace; and caring for the Earth. This meant the Pope was saying that atheists could be allies of the Catholic Church, instead of enemies.

In the same speech, the Pope said that Catholic and Jewish people are connected "by a most special spiritual bond."  To Muslim leaders at the speech he said: "[To] Muslims, who worship God as one, living and merciful, and [call on] him in prayer ... I greatly appreciate your presence ... [In] it, I see a ... sign of a will to grow in mutual esteem and in cooperation for the common good of humanity."

In September 2013, Francis wrote a letter that was published in la Repubblica newspaper.  The letter said that atheists would be forgiven by God if they followed their consciences and did what they thought was right.  The newspaper's editor, who is not a Catholic, wrote back with a list of questions.  Francis wrote back:

You ask me if the God of the Christians forgives those who don't believe and who don't seek the faith. I start by saying—and this is the [most important] thing—that God's mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and [truly sorry] heart. The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience. Sin, even for those who have no faith, exists when people disobey their conscience.

Recognition

Francis was named the 2013 Time Person of the Year in December 2013.

Death

Pope Francis died on April 21, 2025 at his residence, Casa Santa Marta in Vatican City from cardiac arrest after having a stroke. He was 88 years old. His death was announced by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the camerlengo of the Catholic Church. He said, "At 7:35 this morning the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father. His whole life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and His Church.".

His funeral took place on 26 April 2025. He was buried at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, becoming the first pope to be buried in the Santa Maria Maggiore since Clement IX in 1669.

Related pages

 List of popes

Other websites

 Vatican: the Holy See – Vatican website
  Catholic Hierarchy, Pope Francis
  Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church , Cardinal Bergoglio 

Notes

References



Category:Popes
Category:1936 births
Category:2025 deaths
Category:21st century in religion
Category:Time People of the Year
Category:Writers from Buenos Aires
Category:Deaths from stroke
Category:Deaths from heart failure
Category:Deaths from cardiac arrest