[Episcopal News Service] Pope Francis, who led the Roman Catholic Church and its 1.3 billion members worldwide since 2013, died the morning of April 21 at his residence in the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta. He was 88.
A day earlier, from a balcony at St. Peter’s Basilica, seated in a wheelchair, Francis blessed a crowd of tens of thousands gathered in the square to celebrate Easter. He spent Holy Thursday with inmates at a Rome prison, one he’d previously visited to perform the washing of the feet.
The papacy will remain vacant until a conclave convenes in Rome to elect the new pontiff.
“My heart is heavy at the death of our brother in Christ, Pope Francis,” Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe said in an April 21 statement. “Throughout his life and ministry, he has been a witness for the Gospel and a champion for the poor and marginalized. Especially in this season, I give thanks for his powerful advocacy on behalf of migrants and refugees.
“Pope Francis, who was the first Latin American pope, understood these siblings in Christ are never at the edges, fearful and alone. As he once wrote, ‘In the faces of the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, strangers and prisoners, we are called to see the face of Christ who pleads with us to help.’”
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The Rt. Rev. Deon Johnson, Bishop of The Diocese of Missouri, posted this tribute:
Champion of the marginalized and displaced. Crusader for the forgotten and the overlooked. Pope Francis embodied the faith he envisioned for the Church: humble, simple, and selfless. May he rest secure in the arms of Author of Creation, in this season of resurrection!
“Love is the greatest power for the transformation of reality because it pulls down the walls of selfishness and fills the ditches that keep us apart.” -Pope Francis
The Rev. Aaron Rogers, Priest at St. Stephen’s and the Vine, shares this excerpt from the Pope’s final sermon on April 18, 2025:
“Let us admit it: we have been prisoners of the roles we choose to continue playing, fearful of the challenge of a change in the direction of our lives. Yet you are always there, silently standing before us, in every one of our sisters and brothers exposed to judgement and bigotry. Religious disputes, legal quibbles, the so-called common sense that keeps us from getting involved in the fate of others: a thousand reasons drag us to the side of Herod, the priests, Pilate and the crowd. Yet, it could be otherwise. You, Jesus, do not wash your hands of all this. You continue to love, in silence. You have made your choice, and now it is our turn. . .
“The cross has its price, as do all the deepest bonds, the greatest loves. The burden you bear speaks of the Spirit that moves you, the Holy Spirit ‘who is Lord, the giver of life.’ Why, really, are we afraid even to question you about this? In truth, we are the ones who gasp, out of breath, as a result of our attempts to flee responsibility. All we need do is to stop running away and to remain in the company of those you have given us, in the situations where you have placed us. To bind ourselves to them, recognizing that only in this way can we stop being prisoners of ourselves. Selfishness burdens us more than the cross. Indifference burdens us more than sharing. . .
“Today’s builders of Babel tell us that there is no room for losers, and that those who fall along the way are losers. Theirs is the construction site of Hell. God’s economy, on the other hand, does not kill, discard or crush. It is lowly, faithful to the earth. Your way, Jesus, is the way of the Beatitudes. It does not crush, but cultivates, repairs and protects.”
– Pope Francis, ‘The Way of the Cross’ Colosseum, Rome, April 18, 2025