Today, the Vatican announced the death of Pope Francis, head of the Roman Catholic Church, at age 88. The pope’s death comes just one day after he addressed a crowd of thousands in St. Peter’s Square following Easter Sunday Mass.
“At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the home of the Father. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of his Church,” Cardinal Kevin Farrell said from the chapel of the Domus Santa Marta, where Francis lived.
Pope Francis was the first Jesuit and Latin American pontiff in the history of the Catholic Church. Among many distinctions, he is remembered for his strong support of the arts. While a funeral date has not yet been announced, Pope Francis’s final wishes were to be buried at the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome, according to the Vatican.
Who Was Pope Francis?
Pope Francis was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on December 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was the first pope from the Jesuit Order, the first from the Americas, and the first born or raised outside of Europe since the 8th-century Syrian pope Gregory III.
Francis joined the Jesuit Order in 1958, after recovering from a severe illness. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1969, became the archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998, and was made a cardinal of the Catholic Church by Pope John Paul II in 2001.
After Pope Benedict XVI resigned from the papacy on February 28, 2013, a papal conclave elected Francis as his successor on March 13. Francis chose his papal name in honor of St. Francis of Assisi, the beloved patron saint of ecology and animals, who founded the Franciscan religious order.
“Contemporary Art Can Open Our Eyes,” Said Francis
Alongside leading the Roman Catholic Church, the pope is also the head of Vatican City. The latter role involves overseeing the Vatican Museums, which house a significant portion of the papal art collection. Spanning cultures and centuries, the collection dates back to the papacy’s 1506 acquisition of Laocoön and His Sons.
In 2023, Pope Francis ordered the Vatican Museums to return three Parthenon marble fragments to Greece. Vatican officials described the pope’s decision as “a concrete sign of his sincere desire to follow in the ecumenical path of truth.” Meanwhile, the British government has long declined requests to repatriate the Parthenon marbles at the British Museum.
Pope Francis also championed contemporary art. In his first year as pope, Vatican City participated in the Venice Biennale, one of the world’s largest and most prestigious contemporary art fairs, for the first time in the small country’s history. Last year, Francis also became the first pope to attend the Venice Biennale. He visited Vatican City’s pavilion at the Giudecca Women’s Prison, where he said, “The world needs artists. I hope with all my heart that contemporary art can open our eyes.”
