He died at 7:35am local on April 21, 2025...Easter Monday.

Pope Francis, the Catholic Church's first pontiff from the New World and its first Latin American pope, had been recovering from an acute respiratory attack that began as bronchitis in early February of 2025 and turned into double pneumonia and a five-week long hospital stay that included time on a ventilator. He has suffered from chronic lung disease since he was a young man, and even had part of one lung removed in 1957.

The Pope was released from the hospital on March 23 to recover in his Vatican apartment. He sat out of St. Peter's Easter Mass on Sunday, but was able to greet the Easter crowd of nearly 35,000 in St. Peter's Square on Sunday from the main balcony of St. Peter's basilica. He said, "Dear brothers and sisters, happy Easter," before having his aide, Archbishop Diego Ravelli, deliver his “Urbi et Orbi” Easter papal address for him. The address focused largely on global conflicts and reiterated his call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Pope Francis then returned to the microphone to impart a final blessing before he was taken down to the Popemobile to tour the square among the crowd, briefly.

Pope Francis was the 266th pontiff in the history of the Roman Catholic Church.

He was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires, Argentina to an Italian father and Argentine mother on December 17, 1936. He began studying in the seminary and then joined the Jesuit Order on March 11, 1958 and was eventually ordained on December 13, 1969. Four years later he was named the provincial superior of the Jesuits in Argentina, he was named Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires in 1992, and became Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998. Bergoglio was elevated to Cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2001 following the papal consistory that year - the annual meeting of the Pope with College of Cardinals in Rome. Then on March 13, 2013 Cardinal Bergoglio was elected pope during the papal conclave following the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI. As his pontifical name, Bergoglio chose the name of "Francis" to honor St. Francis of Assisi, who is a Catholic Saint known for his service to the poor and ill, and the Patron Saint of animals and the environment.

Sede vacante.

The seat is vacant.

15 minutes ago, Colonels_Wear_Blue said:

Sede vacante.

The seat is vacant.

Not Catholic, but I find the election/selection process pretty fascinating. This will be the third chosen in my lifetime, and all relatively recent. It is an interesting thing to follow.

4 hours ago, gchs_uk9 said:

Not Catholic, but I find the election/selection process pretty fascinating. This will be the third chosen in my lifetime, and all relatively recent. It is an interesting thing to follow.

I am Catholic, but I'm definitely in the same boat being extremely fascinated with the papal selection process. It feels like they have all been pretty recent in my life to (I'm pretty sure you and I are right around the same age), and that's largely on account of the fact that Saint John Paul II was the 3rd longest-reigning pope in the history of the church at 26-1/2 years. St. Peter was the longest reigning pope at 34 years, then Pope Pius IX was pope for 31-1/2 years in the mid-1800s, and then JPII.

I'm pretty interested to see if the College of Cardinals looks outside of Europe again for the new pope. Pope Francis was the first non-European pope chosen in 1,270 years. Including Francis, there have only been 14 non-European popes in the histroy of the church:

34-38 AD - Pope St. Peter - Holy Land (Modern Day Palestine)
100-108 AD - Pope St. Evaristus - Holy Land (Modern Day Palestine)
157-168 AD - Pope St. Anicetus - Byzantine Empire (Modern Day Syria)
189-199 AD - Pope St. Victor I - Africa Proconsularis (Modern Day Tunisia)
311-314 AD - Pope St. Miltiades - Africa Proconsularis (Modern Day Tunisia)
492-496 AD - Pope St. Gelasius I - Africa Proconsularis (Modern Day Tunisia)
642-649 AD - Pope Theodore I - Holy Land (Modern Day Palestine)
685-686 AD - Pope John V - Byzantine Empire (Modern Day Syria)
686-687 AD - Pope Conon - Anatolia (Modern Day Turkey)
701-705 AD - Pope John VI - Anatolia (Modern Day Turkey)
708-708 AD - Pope Sisinnius - Byzantine Empire (Modern Day Syria)
708-715 AD - Pope Constantine - Byzantine Empire (Modern Day Syria)
731-740 AD - Pope St. Gregory III - Byzantine Empire (Modern Day Syria)
2013-2025 AD - Pope Francis - Argentina

Wondering if they go younger this time around.  John Paul II was 58 when he was elected pope in 1978.  Do they go that young again, or maybe younger?

Statement from Bishop John Iffert of the Diocese of Covington.

4 minutes ago, Tranquility Base said:

Wondering if they go younger this time around.  John Paul II was 58 when he was elected pope in 1978.  Do they go that young again, or maybe younger?

I was reading up on that this afternoon, actually, and I remembered researching a bunch of information on ages during the 2013 Papal Conclave. Most information on dates of birth and ages prior to the 14th Century/Renaissance is considered largely unreliable - and that's if the info existed at all. There were a few popes prior to the 1300s whose ages were noted because of how young they were, but accurate info from that time is otherwise pretty absent.

I just dug out my old laptop and pulled an Excel file I made during the 2013 Papal Conclave of all the previous popes and their known ages, election dates, deaths, etc. (I'm SUCH a big Excel nerd, lol.) Looks like since 1300 the average age of the 73 popes that have been elected has been 62.3 years old at the time of their election. The youngest pope elected in that span was Pope Leo X, who was 37 when he was elected in 1513. Leo X was from the Medici family, and many historians have attributed his young age at the time of his election to the many connections his family infamously held within the Catholic Church and the Vatican.

Since 1700 the average age of the 24 popes that have been elected has been 65.6 years old at the time of their election. There have only been 6 of those 24 who were under the age of 60 at the time of election: Benedict XV was 59 when elected in 1914, St. John Paul II was 58 when elected in 1978, Pius VI was 57 when elected in 1775, Pius VII was also 57 when elected in 1800, Pius IX was 54 when elected in 1846, and Clement XI was 51 when elected in 1700.

What was special about the year 1978 in papal history?

• It was the "Year of the 3 Popes".
• Pope Paul VI died in early August 1978.
• Pope John Paul I was elected in late August 1978 and died only 33 days later.  He was also the last pope from Italy.
• Pope John Paul II was elected in October 1978 and lasted over 26 years.

I was a freshman at Thomas More College in the fall of 1978.  I remember walking into class and asking someone why the flag was at half-mast.  He said that the Pope died.  I replied, "yeah, over a month ago".  "No," he said, "another one died".  That was a big "no way" moment for me.  Just like this morning was a "no way" moment hearing that Pope Francis died overnight after seeing him on TV giving speeches, meeting people and taking a trip around the Square shaking hands.

This is not likely to be a terribly drawn out process for us to learn who our new Pope will be.

Since 1800, the average period of time that passes from one Pope's death (or his retirement, in the case of Benedict XVI) to the election of the new Pope has been an average of 27 days, and since Pius IX in 1846 it's only been 22 days. The average length of the Papal Conclaves since 1800 has been 11 days, and since Pius IX the average Conclave has only been 4 days long.

Pius VIII
Conclave Duration: 36 Days (24 Feb 1829 - 31 Mar 1829)
Days Since Last Papal Reign Ended: 49 Days (10 Feb 1829 - 31 Mar 1829)

Gregory XVI
Conclave Duration: 47 Days (14 Dec 1830 - 2 Feb 1831)
Days Since Last Papal Reign Ended: 53 Days (30 Nov 1830 - 2 Feb 1831)

Pius IX
Conclave Duration: 3 Days (14 Jun 1846 - 16 Jun 1846)
Days Since Last Papal Reign Ended: 15 Days (1 Jun 1846 - 16 Jun 1846)

Leo XIII
Conclave Duration: 2 Days (18 Feb 1878 - 20 Feb 1878)
Days Since Last Papal Reign Ended: 13 Days (7 Feb 1878 - 20 Feb 1878)

Pius X
Conclave Duration: 5 Days (31 Jul 1903 - 4 Aug 1903)
Days Since Last Papal Reign Ended: 16 Days (20 Jul 1903 - 4 Aug 1903)

Benedict XV
Conclave Duration: 4 Days (31 Aug 1914 - 3 Sep 1914)
Days Since Last Papal Reign Ended: 15 Days (20 Aug 1914 - 3 Sep 1914)

Pius XI
Conclave Duration: 5 Days (2 Feb 1922 - 6 Feb 1922)
Days Since Last Papal Reign Ended: 15 Days (22 Jan 1922 - 6 Feb 1922)

Pius XII
Conclave Duration: 2 Days (1 Mar 1939 - 2 Mar 1939)
Days Since Last Papal Reign Ended: 20 Days (10 Feb 1939 - 2 Mar 1939)

John XXIII
Conclave Duration: 4 Days (25 Oct 1958 - 28 Oct 1958)
Days Since Last Papal Reign Ended: 19 Days (9 Oct 1958 - 28 Oct 1958)

Paul VI
Conclave Duration: 2 Days (19 Jun 1963 - 21 Jun 1963)
Days Since Last Papal Reign Ended: 18 Days (3 Jun 1963 - 21 Jun 1963)

John Paul I
Conclave Duration: 2 Days (25 Aug 1978 - 26 Aug 1978)
Days Since Last Papal Reign Ended: 18 Days (3 Jun 1963 - 21 Jun 1963)

John Paul II
Conclave Duration: 3 Days (14 Oct 1978 - 16 Oct 1978)
Days Since Last Papal Reign Ended: 18 Days (28 Sep 1978 - 16 Oct 1978)

Benedict XVI
Conclave Duration: 2 Days (18 Apr 2005 - 19 Apr 2005)
Days Since Last Papal Reign Ended: 17 Days (2 Apr 2005 - 19 Apr 2005)

Francis
Conclave Duration: 2 Days (12 Mar 2013 - 13 Mar 2013)
Days Since Last Papal Reign Ended: 13 Days (28 Feb 2013 - 13 Mar 2013)

How many Cardinals are there and how many became Cardinals under Pope Francis?

57 minutes ago, Voice of Reason said:

How many Cardinals are there and how many became Cardinals under Pope Francis?

There are currently 252 Cardinals in the College of Cardinals, and 149 of them became Cardinals during Pope Francis' consistories.

Cardinals who have already passed their 80th birthday are ineligible to participate in Papal Conclaves, so of the 252 total current Cardinals, there are 135 that are eligible to participate in the upcoming Papal Conclave, and all but 27 of the eligible Cardinal Electors were elevated to Cardinal in consistories during Pope Francis' papacy.

The Papal Funeral is going to be on Saturday, April 26 at 10:00am local (4:00am Eastern). The body of Pope Francis has already been prepared, dressed in his liturgical clothes, and placed in an open coffin at the Santa Marta residences in the Vatican, where his apartment was. The coffin will be processed to St. Peter's basilica on Wednesday morning, and he will lie in state until the funeral on Saturday, which I'm pretty sure is intended to take place outdoors in St. Peter's Square.

Pope Francis had requested to be buried at St. Mary Major, a large basilica in Rome that Francis was fond of visiting before and after trips out of the country. He will be interred in an underground tomb beside the Pauline Chapel at the basilica, and he requested that his tomb be prepared "without particular ornamentation," so it will be marked only with his name in Latin form: "Franciscus." Pope Francis will be the first pope to be buried outside the walls of the Vatican since Pope Leo XIII, who died in 1903. Leo XIII is buried in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome.

In 2023 there where over 50,000 mourners who came to attend the funeral of Pope Benedict XVI, who had stepped down and retired from the papacy a decade prior. And in 2005 there were over 300,000 present at Pope St. John Paul II's funeral, with an estimated 4 million who came to Rome to view his body and pay respects prior to the funeral service.

The assumption is that the Papal Conclave to determine the new pope will begin sometime between May 6 and May 11. The current Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, will be responsible for running the Conclave and has not yet given any definite word on when it will begin.