Throughout history, Popes have been referred to as Princes of the Church, or Vicars of Christ. From the outset, Pope Francis, who has died at the age of 88, was clear about which characteristic he would embrace.
The death of the 266th pontiff was announced by the Vatican Camerlengo, the official tasked with overseeing the day-to-day affairs of the Holy See, during the Sede vacante, the period between the death of a pope and the election of the next.
“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,” read an announcement by Cardinal Kevin Farrell.
The Pope suffered from chronic lung disease, and as a young man in his twenties had part of his lung removed. On 14th February, he was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital with a respiratory emergency, which developed into double pneumonia. In the last few days, he had seemed out of danger, but was under his doctors’ strict instructions to rest—instructions he only partially obeyed. On Easter Sunday, he addressed the crowds in St Peter’s Square for Easter Mass.
An Argentinian, who was born in Buenos Aires in 1936, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Pope in 2013, succeeding Pope Benedict XVI, who, citing ill health, made history as the first Pope in 600 years to resign the Holy See.
Since Pope Marcellus II in 1555, Popes have chosen new names in ascending to the papacy, a custom intended to reflect a spiritual rebirth or transformation. Individual Popes attach no little significance to the new names, and by choosing the name Francis, the former Bishop Bergoglio was signalling that his papacy would emulate St Francis of Assisi, who rejected the Church’s opulence in favour of humility and service to the poor and downtrodden.
Pope Francis brought a number of firsts to the papacy. He was the first Pope from the so-called Global South, in Latin America, and the first Pope from the order of Societas Iesu or the Society of Jesus (S.J.), whose mission is education, missionary work, social justice, and spiritual formation. Their professed motto, Ad maiorem Dei gloriam (for the Glory of God), emphasises their purpose in everything they do.
Like his sainted namesake, Pope Francis’s emphasis on humility and service to God brought him into conflict with more conservative voices, who preferred their Vicar of Christ to be more a Prince of the Church. In 2013, however, the new Pope began as he meant to go on. At his election, rather than taking the papal car, he travelled by bus to his hotel, where he paid the bill, as he left to a Vatican guest house, instead of the opulent papal apartments in the Vatican. There he would live until his death.
At his first appearance before the world’s media, he called for “a poor Church, a Church for the poor.” To the consternation of several powerful figures in the Church, it would soon be clear that the new Pope was not just paying lip service to the way of St Francis. He would go on to warn against economic inequality, racism, human trafficking, global warming and the destruction of the environment.
A reformist Pope, he faced significant opposition from a number of cardinals and powerful Vatican officials who attempted to block his reforms. He was a vocal critic of the Church’s extravagance, reminding senior clerics to live more humble lives. He tried to reform the Curia (the Church’s bureaucratic system), to make it more transparent, always stressing the need for simplicity. He tackled corruption and mismanagement, reorganised the financial structures of the Vatican, and oversaw the appointment of more lay people and women to positions of power within the Vatican.
Francis called upon world leaders to take responsibility for the world’s evils. In an almost 200-page papal encyclical in 2015, he urged the rich nations to “pay their grave social debt to the poor,” calling climate change “one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day.” Addressing economic inequality in a speech in Bolivia in the same year, he decried the obsession with money and the “idolatry of wealth”, which he described as Stercus Diaboli or the devil’s dung.
Such obsession, he said, led to corruption, exploitation, and injustice, especially at the expense of the poor and the environment.
He abhorred the ill-treatment of refugees and migrants, who he said should be treated with compassion and generosity, rather than as “pawns on the chessboard of humanity.” Following a visit to the Greek island of Lesbos, where migrants disembarked in huge numbers, dumped there in desperate condition by people smugglers, the Pope symbolically offered twelve Syrians refuge in the Vatican.
He repeatedly called for an end to Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip—the last time, just two days ago. In a practice begun in October 2023, the Pope made a daily telephone call to the Holy Family Church in Gaza, which he continued even when in hospital.
Like his predecessors, Francis was faced with the issue of clerical sexual abuse of children—a scandal that remains hidden in Africa, but which in the Western world has been largely brought out in the open. Unlike his predecessors, Francis established a formal mechanism to take responsibility for the crime, including encouraging whistleblowers by offering to protect them.
Perhaps in response to the dismay of survivors of the sexual abuse, who felt that the papacy did not seem to grasp its full extent, in 2019, Francis summoned Catholic bishops from around the world to Rome to discuss the issue. This was followed by an edict requiring nuns and priests to report the abuse—and those covering it up—to Church authorities.
Francis implied that the Church lacked compassion in its dealings with some groups, like homosexuals and even divorcees. Although he did not change the Church’s doctrine, he urged greater understanding and sensitivity, famously responding with “Who am I to judge”, when asked about homosexuality.
In 2016, he issued the Amoris Laetitia, or The Joy of Love, a reflection on love, marriage, family life, and the Church’s role in supporting the family. The document asked for understanding of people’s different situations, such as cohabitation, single parenting, and allowing the sacrament for divorcees.
This was one of the many ways Pope Francis tried to make the Church more relevant to modern life, without fundamentally changing the Church’s doctrine. Not even social media and other new technologies escaped his notice. He was arguably more popular among young people than many of his predecessors. Warning them about over-dependence on materialism and modern technology, he wryly reminded them that “happiness was not an app you can download on your phones.”
Pope Francis will also be remembered as a bridge builder with other faiths. After the murder of a Catholic priest in an act of terrorism, Francis offered a conciliatory thought: “I think it is not right to identify Islam with violence,” he said, adding, “I think that in nearly all religions there is always a small fundamentalist group… We [Catholics] have them.” He was the only Pope to visit Iraq, shrugging off the security risk. Indeed, an assassination attempt against him on the visit was foiled.
For Rwanda, a predominantly Catholic country, April is the month of Kwibuka—this year, Kwibuka 31—the remembrance and commemoration of the Genocide Against the Tutsi. The Catholic Church was a conduit for a genocide ideology, which in 1994 would culminate in the mass murder of over a million men, women and children. Alone among the Church’s leaders, Pope Francis expressed contrition on the Church’s behalf.
“In the name of the Catholic Church, I ask forgiveness from God for the sins and failings of the Church and its members, among whom are priests, religious, and lay people who succumbed to hatred and violence…” he said, adding that he hoped that the recognition would contribute to a “purification of memory.”
It was further than any leader of the Catholic Church had gone. But it must be noted that to this day, the Vatican has continued to shield priests and nuns from facing justice for their part in the crime of genocide.
The Secret World of Electing a New Pope
After the death of a Pope, the Camerlengo declares Sede Vacante (“the seat is vacant”). In a few days—around twenty—the College of Cardinals, appointed by the pontiff himself, who for the first time will include Rwanda’s Cardinal Antoine Kambanda, will be travelling to Rome to elect the new Pope.
They will do so in a “cum clave”—conclave—literally meaning “with key”, appropriately. Only 120, who must be under eighty years old, are Cardinal electors. They will gather under Michelangelo’s famous Sistine Chapel to begin the election process. The words extra omnes, or “everyone out”, will be declared, whereupon only the electors, a few officials, and some medical personnel will be left in the chapel, and the key turned to lock.
Complete secrecy will be maintained. The cardinals are sworn to secrecy, completely shut off from the outside world. No forms of communication, digital or analogue, will be permitted—not even letters. The chapel itself is swept for any listening devices. The secrecy is both spiritual and practical. Historically, the papacy was a centre of power and influence, and monarchies attempted to impose their own Popes, to the extent of threatening the cardinals to manipulate the results of the election.
The secrecy also allows the cardinals freedom from external distractions, so that their decision is based on their conscience and can be trusted by the faithful. The cardinals will sleep and eat in St Martha’s House, close to the Sistine Chapel, which was built for the purpose.
Voting begins after Mass. Votes are cast each day until a candidate emerges with a two-thirds majority. After every seven ballots, a day is taken for prayer and reflection. If after thirty ballots there is no clear result, a candidate will be elected by a simple majority.
Theoretically, any baptised Catholic male can be elected Pope. But any non-cardinals whose hopes might be raised should know that not since 1378, with the election of Pope Urban VI, has a non-cardinal been elected Pope. Each voter is given a card, with eligo in summum pontificem (“I elect as supreme pontiff…”) on it, which is dropped into a chalice.
To guard against any electoral malpractice, after each ballot, the cards are burned, with chemicals added for white or black smoke, which is seen outside through a chimney.
White smoke declares to the anxiously waiting world that a new Pope has been elected. The newly elected Pope is asked if he consents to be elected. If he does, he is asked which name he chooses as Pope. The cardinals then pledge obedience to him and lead him to the Room of Tears, where he is dressed in a white cassock, skullcap, and red slippers. Vatican tailors prepare for the moment with three sets of vestments in different sizes, in the expectation that one is bound to fit the new figure.
The Dean of the Cardinals then goes to the balcony to announce to the faithful: “Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum: Habemus Papam” – “I announce to you with great joy that we have a Pope.”
Among the likely candidates are rumoured to be Matteo Zuppi from Italy, Pietro Parolin and Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines. Parolin is seen as a progressive cardinal. There are likely to be sharp divisions as conservative cardinals try to regain power after Pope Francis’s progressive papacy, encapsulated in the words of the Mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri: “Rome, Italy and the world are mourning an extraordinary man, a humble and courageous pastor who knew how to speak to everyone’s heart.”
