The Passing of Pope Francis and the Legacy of Mercy

At 7:35 a.m. on Easter Monday, 21 April 2025, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the camerlengo, announced from Casa Santa Marta that “the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father,” commending the eighty‑eight‑year‑old pontiff, who had devoted “his entire life to the service of the Lord and of his Church,” to divine mercy. Francis—born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, first Jesuit, Latin‑American, and Southern‑Hemisphere pope—had lived with chronic pulmonary weakness since pleurisy in adolescence and the partial removal of his right lung at twenty‑one. A bronchitic flare on 14 February became double pneumonia, requiring thirty‑eight days at Rome’s Gemelli clinic—the longest hospitalization of his twelve‑year pontificate—yet he insisted on presiding, from a wheelchair and often handing written texts to aides, over Angelus prayers, his 9 February outdoor Mass, and an Easter‑morning urbi‑et‑orbi blessing in St Peter’s Square before embarking on an unscheduled tour in the popemobile.

Even before the mid‑morning toll of St Peter’s great bourdon bell announced his passing to the city, the Vatican began the carefully scripted period of interregnum. Farrell, now acting as steward of the temporalities, conferred with the Apostolic Camera and notified the College of Cardinals that general congregations would open within ten days, after which the Sistine Chapel would be sealed for the conclave. Francis’s body lay in repose in Casa Santa Marta until late Tuesday, when the Swiss Guard escorted the simple wooden coffin—following the wish he had expressed forgoing the traditional triple casket—across the Cortile di San Damaso. Public veneration was to begin at dawn on Wednesday in St Peter’s Basilica, continue uninterrupted for three days, and culminate in a funeral Mass celebrated by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College, on Saturday morning. At Francis’s own request he would not be interred in the papal crypt but in a single coffin beneath the Borghese altar of Santa Maria Maggiore, the basilica where he always paused to pray before and after every journey.

Condolences crossed every political and religious frontier. UN Secretary‑General António Guterres called Francis “a transcendent voice for peace, human dignity and social justice.” US presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama lauded “the People’s Pope” who “shook us out of our complacency,” while Donald Trump and vice‑president J.D. Vance offered prayers despite earlier clashes over migration policy. Vladimir Putin praised his promotion of Catholic–Orthodox dialogue; Volodymyr Zelenskyy recalled the pontiff’s capacity “to give hope, ease suffering through prayer, and foster unity.” Latin‑American leaders—from Brazil’s Lula da Silva, who decreed seven days of national mourning, to Argentina’s Javier Milei, once a fierce critic—hailed a compatriot who “tirelessly sought to bring love where there was hatred.” Across the global South tributes stressed his climate encyclical Laudato si’ and advocacy for small‑island states: Barbados’s prime minister Mia Mottley called him “a beacon of moral strategic leadership,” East Timor’s José Ramos‑Horta ordered flags at half‑mast, and Kenya’s William Ruto saluted his “servant leadership.” Islamic, Jewish and Buddhist leaders joined the chorus: Israel’s president Isaac Herzog thanked him for friendship with the Jewish world, and the Dalai Lama praised his “simple, but meaningful life.”

European institutions echoed the sentiment. King Charles III recalled recent private meetings, directing Union Jacks to half‑mast and Changing‑the‑Guard music to turn solemn; Prime Minister Keir Starmer called him “a pope for the poor.” Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, noting private counsel she had received from the pontiff, remembered how he spoke at the G7 she hosted in 2024; Emmanuel Macron emphasized his deference to “the most fragile,” and Germany’s Olaf Scholz mourned “an advocate for the weak.” The Conference of European Rabbis praised his expansion of Nostra Aetate’s legacy, and Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt recalled joint commemorations of that declaration’s fiftieth anniversary.

Francis’s final months mirrored his entire pontificate: relentless engagement despite frailty, from daily phone calls to Christians sheltering in Gaza’s lone Catholic church and denunciations of “acts of genocide” there, to criticism of global indifference toward migrants and the earth’s poor. His Easter message, voiced hours before his death through Cardinal Angelo Comastri because breath failed him, reiterated appeals for climate stewardship and a ceasefire in every war zone. In Lula da Silva’s words, he lived St Francis of Assisi’s prayer, “bringing love where there was hatred” and “harmony where there was discord,” leaving a moral vacancy that will challenge his successor and the world.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1936, the child of Piedmontese immigrants, Bergoglio spent his ministry in the slums of his native city, chose the name Francis “for the poor and for peace,” and became the first non‑European pope in more than a millennium. Over twelve turbulent years he framed synods on the Amazon and on synodality, opened pathways for the laity and for women in governance, championed LGBTQ+ Catholics with the disarming phrase “Who am I to judge?”, decried an “economy that kills,” and confronted resistance from traditionalists who feared doctrinal drift. His encyclicals—from Laudato si’ to Fratelli tutti—and his pilgrimage to war‑scarred Mosul in 2021 confirmed a magisterium centred on mercy, dialogue and “integral ecology.” Even in decline he remained, in Barack Obama’s words, the pastor who “made us want to be better people.”

With the fisherman’s ring now broken, the loggia of St Peter’s stands empty, its red damask curtains awaiting the white‑robed figure who will emerge after the forthcoming ballot. In the meantime the world files past Francis’s bier, pays silent homage, and contemplates the legacy of a pope who tried, against formidable odds, to bend the arc of history toward fraternity.