Pope Francis, Latin America’s first pontiff who ministered with charm and humility, dies at 88

VATICAN CITY AP Pope Francis history s first Latin American pontiff who charmed the world with his humility and concern for the poor but alienated conservatives over situation change and critiques of capitalism died Monday He was Bells tolled in church towers across Rome after the announcement which was read out by Cardinal Kevin Farrell the Vatican camerlengo from the chapel of the Domus Santa Marta where Francis lived At this morning the Bishop of Rome Francis returned to the home of the Father His entire life was dedicated to the amenity of the Lord and of his Church Farrell declared Francis entered Gemelli hospital on Feb for a respiratory predicament that developed into double pneumonia and at days became the longest hospitalization of his papacy Part of his right lung was removed in the late s after a bout of pneumonia and he suffered from chronic lung affection He emerged on Easter Sunday his last populace appearance a day before his death to bless thousands of people in St Peter s Square drawing wild cheers and applause The death now sets off a weekslong process of allowing the faithful to pay their final respects first for Vatican functionaries in the Santa Marta chapel and then in St Peter s for the general inhabitants followed by a funeral and a conclave to elect a new pope From his electoral process on March the Argentine-born Jorge Mario Bergoglio signaled a different papacy embracing refugees and the downtrodden especially following the troubled tenure of Pope Benedict XVI who surprisingly resigned But conservatives grew increasingly upset with Francis progressive bent outreach to LGBTQ Catholics and crackdown on traditionalists He badly botched a notorious event of clergy sexual abuse in The crowd-loving globe-trotting pope also navigated the church through the coronavirus pandemic from a locked-down Vatican City declaring it has shown us that we cannot live without one another or worse still pitted against one another Elected on a mandate for change Francis was elected on a mandate to modification the Vatican bureaucracy and its finances but he went further shaking up the church itself without changing its core doctrine Petitioned about a purportedly gay priest he famously responded Who am I to judge a welcoming message to the LGBTQ population and those who felt shunned by the church Francis changed church positions on the death penalty declaring it inadmissible in all circumstances and modified its stand on nuclear weapons by saying their possession was immoral In other firsts he approved an agreement with China on bishop nominations that had vexed the Vatican for decades and charted new relations with the Muslim world by visiting the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq But his real revolutionary change came in emphasizing the church should be a refuge for those on society s fringes movers the poor prisoners and outcasts Evoking St Francis of Assisi Francis lived in the Vatican hotel rather than the Apostolic Palace wore his old orthotic shoes rather than the traditional red loafers and used compact cars If being the first Latin American and Jesuit pope wasn t enough he was the first to name himself after St Francis of Assisi the th century friar known for personal simplicity his message of peace and care for society s outcasts and nature His first trip as pope was to the Italian island of Lampedusa epicenter of Europe s migration predicament and he consistently visited countries where Christians were persecuted Missteps on priestly sexual abuse But over a year passed before Francis met survivors of priestly sexual abuse Casualties groups questioned whether he understood the scope of the complication His papacy s greatest predicament came in when he discredited Chilean casualties of abuse and stood by a bishop linked to their abuser a notorious pedophile Francis later invited the casualties to the Vatican for a personal mea culpa and summoned the leadership of the Chilean church to have them resign Another situation erupted over ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick the retired archbishop of Washington and a counselor to three popes Francis had sidelined McCarrick after an accusation he had molested a teenage altar boy in the s The Vatican s onetime U S ambassador Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano still accused Francis of rehabilitating McCarrick early in his papacy Francis eventually defrocked McCarrick after an examination determined he sexually abused adults as well as minors Two popes in the Vatican Francis electoral contest after Pope Benedict XVI s stunning decision to resign and retire the first in years created the unprecedented reality of two popes on Vatican grounds Despite the potentially uncomfortable shadow Francis embraced Benedict as an elder statesman and adviser until his Dec death Francis didn t pursue the anti-abortion agenda of Benedict or St John Paul II although he starkly likened it to hiring a hit man to resolve a trouble But he reversed Benedict s signature liturgical legacy by reimposing restrictions on celebrating the Latin Mass He declared he was healing divisions but conservatives and traditionalists blasted the move as an attack on them and the old liturgy Francis slowly shifted the balance of power from doctrinaire church leaders to more pastoral ones appointments reflected in choosing cardinals who will elect his successor His boldest anti-corruption strategies were wrestling the Vatican s bureaucrats into financial line limiting compensation and ability to receive gifts and eliminating obstacles to prosecuting cardinals criminally He authorized a police raid of Vatican offices that led to a criminal trial into a botched London real estate venture Economic justice was major to Francis who reported he craved a poor church that is for the poor Francis criticized trickle-down economics in his first major teaching document saying the powerful feed upon the powerless without regard for ethics the context or even God He elaborated on that in an ecological encyclical which denounced the structurally perverse system that exploited the poor and risked turning Earth into an immense pile of filth A religious calling at age Born in Buenos Aires Jorge Mario Bergoglio was the eldest of five children of Italian immigrants He credited his grandmother Rosa with teaching him how to pray He disclosed he decided on the priesthood at entering the diocesan seminary four years later In he switched to the Jesuit order attracted by its missionary tradition and militancy He was named head of the Jesuits in Argentina in at age ssociated Press religion coverage receives help through the AP s collaboration with The Conversation US with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc The AP is solely responsible for this content His tenure coincided with the start of Argentina s - dictatorship and dirty war when the military waged a brutal campaign against left-wing guerrillas and other regime opponents Like countless Bergoglio didn t publicly confront the junta He was accused of effectively allowing two slum priests to be kidnapped and tortured by not publicly endorsing their work Only in a authorized biography did he recount how he persuading the family priest of dictator Jorge Videla to call in sick so that he could say Mass in the junta leader s home and successfully appeal for mercy Associated Press writer Colleen Barry contributed from Milan Associated Press religion coverage receives endorsement through the AP s collaboration with The Conversation US with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc The AP is solely responsible for this content This story has been updated to correct the spelling of the camerlengo s last name It is Farrell not Ferrell Source