***Update
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican has begun a Rosary prayer in St. Peter’s Square in its first public commemoration following Pope Francis’ death.
Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, led the prayer as the sun set over the city.
Francis died Monday morning at 7:35 a.m., after having offered a final blessing to the faithful from the square on Easter Sunday.
St. Francis of Assisi as a model
Francis lived in the Vatican hotel instead of the Apostolic Palace, wore his old orthotic shoes and not the red loafers of the papacy, and rode in compact cars. It wasn’t a gimmick.
“I see clearly that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful,” he told a Jesuit journal in 2013. “I see the church as a field hospital after battle.”
If becoming the first Latin American and first Jesuit pope wasn’t enough, Francis was also the first to name himself after St. Francis of Assisi, the 13th century friar known for personal simplicity and care for society’s outcasts.
Francis formally apologized to Indigenous peoples for the crimes of the church from colonial times onward. And he went to society’s fringes to minister with mercy: caressing the deformed head of a man in St. Peter’s Square, kissing the tattoo of a Holocaust survivor, or inviting Argentina’s garbage scavengers to join him onstage in Rio de Janeiro.
(earlier)
LYON, France (AP) — Church bells tolled in mourning. Well-wishers flocked into pews. Tributes to Pope Francis poured in from around the world on Monday after the Vatican announced the pontiff's death at age 88.
The 266th pope was praised for his groundbreaking steps to honor the poor and the vulnerable; seek to end conflicts like those in the Middle East, Ukraine and Africa; protect the environment; and guide the Catholic Church toward greater tolerance controversial issues, among other things. Some critics say he didn't always go far enough. Others said he went too far.
Many recalled his legacy as the first pope from Latin America, and the first Jesuit to reach the pinnacle of church hierarchy, one who stressed humility over hubris for a Church beset with scandal and indifference.
Here's a look at some of the global reactions a day after his last public appearance on Easter Sunday to bless thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square.
— U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who met with the pope on Easter Sunday before traveling to India, wrote on social media that his “heart goes out” to the millions of Christians who loved him, and said: “I was happy to see him yesterday, though he was obviously very ill.”
— King Charles III praised the pope for his work on safeguarding the planet, and alluded to their multiple personal meetings — including a private visit on April 10 at the Vatican. “We were greatly moved to have been able to visit him earlier in the month,’’ the King wrote in a statement signed “Charles R.” It was the pope’s first known meeting with a foreign dignitary after he was hospitalized for five weeks with double-pneumonia.
— Church bells tolled in honor of Francis, from the recently reopened Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris to a lone bell at the St. Bartholomew Parish in Bulacan, in the Philippines, that was rung 88 times to signify “the 88 fruitful years of our dear Pope Francis,” the parish wrote on social media.
(earlier)
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has died, Cardinal Kevin Ferrell, the Vatican camerlengo announced.
Pope Francis died Monday, history’s first Latin American pontiff who charmed the world with his humble style and concern for the poor but alienated conservatives with critiques of capitalism and climate change.
Francis, who suffered from chronic lung disease and had part of one lung removed as a young man, was admitted to Gemelli hospital on Feb. 14, 2025, for a respiratory crisis that developed into double pneumonia. He spent 38 days there, the longest hospitalization of his 12-year papacy.
Here's the latest:
Vatican prepares first rituals for pope’s death
The Vatican is preparing the first rituals following Francis’ death: The body of the pope is expected to be transferred within the course of the day to the chapel of the Domus Santa Marta hotel where he lived, so that Vatican officials can pay their final respects.
There, the head of the Vatican health service examines the body, ascertains the cause of death and writes a report which is expected late Monday.
The body rests in the pope’s personal chapel for the ritual pronouncement of death, presided over by the camerlengo, the Vatican official who runs the Holy See administration between the death or resignation of one pope and the election of another.
For the public, the cardinal archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, is expected to lead a recitation of the Rosary prayer in St. Peter’s Square later Monday.