Vatican announces death of Pope Francis aged 88

Pope Francis, the first Latin American leader of the Roman Catholic Church, has died on Easter Monday aged 88.

The Vatican said he died following a stroke, less than 24 hours after appearing in a wheelchair at St Peter’s Square to lead an Easter address in front of thousands of worshipers.

The Pope’s death follows a period of ill-health that saw him spend five weeks in hospital with double pneumonia.

Services have been held around the world as the word’s 1.4bn Catholics begin to mark the Pope’s death, and mourners have started to arrive at the Vatican.

Francis, who was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was elected as Pope in 2013.

In a statement published by the Vatican early on Monday, Cardinal Kevin Farrell said the pope had “returned to the home of the Father”.

A statement continued: “He taught us to live the values ​​of the Gospel with fidelity, courage and universal love, especially in favour of the poorest and most marginalised.”

In a later statement, the Vatican confirmed Francis died after suffering a stroke and subsequent irreversible heart failure. It also said the pontiff had fallen into a coma.

Pope Francis’s body will be moved to the Chapel of Domus Sanctae Marthae, the Vatican guesthouse where he opted to live after becoming Pope, as opposed to the more lavish papal apartment used by his predecessors.

Cardinal Farrell – who holds the position of camerlengo, the cardinal who oversees the transition to a new Pope – will be joined by other senior church figures and Francis’s family later on Monday when he presides over the official confirmation of the pontiff’s death.

Francis will lie in state in St Peter’s Basilica, where mourners will be able to attend to pay their respects, before a funeral is held, which usually takes place within four to six days after a Pope dies.

The Pope requested that some elements of the elaborate death rites which usually take place after a pontiff’s death be dispensed with, including using an ornate coffin and displaying his body on a raised platform.

Francis’s death sets in motion the process of selecting a new Pope through an election known as a conclave, which typically takes place 15 and 20 days after a Pope’s death.

The College of Cardinals – the Church’s most senior officials – will be summoned to Rome to take part in the secretive vote. In this case 135 cardinals – those aged under 80 – will be eligible to take part.

They will be shut in the Vatican until they reach an agreement, cut off from communicating with the outside world, in a process that can take days.

The outcome will set the direction of the Church, possibly for decades. The Pope appointed cardinals from a broader range of geographic and ideological backgrounds than some of his successors, which could make the outcome of the process even more difficult to predict than usual.

Francis had endured bouts of ill-health in recent years, and was most recently discharged from Rome’s Gemelli Hospital on 23 March after being treated for pneumonia in both lungs.

The stay involved two “very critical episodes” which endangered his life, according to one of his doctors, and medics had advised a period of rest.

Francis continued to make some public appearances in his final weeks. Although the pontiff missed services on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, he did mark Holy Thursday with a traditional visit to Regina Coeli prison. However, he did not take part in the tradition of washing prisoner’s feet.

During his final public appearance on the balcony of St Peter’s basilica on Easter Sunday, Francis spoke briefly but did not recite a full blessing, instead inviting an archbishop to do so on his behalf.

Even so, his appearance on a key day in the Catholic calendar was celebrated by worshipers.

In the hours after his death was confirmed, tributes poured in from around the globe.

The acting head of the Church of England, the Archbishop of York, described him as a “holy man of God” who was “also very human”.

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni praised the Pope as a “great man” and said she had the privilege of enjoying his friendship, advice and teachings.

King Charles III, who met with the Pope privately in early April during his state visit to Italy, said in a statement that he was “deeply saddened” to hear of the Pope’s death and praised his “tireless commitment”.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer shared his condolences “to the whole of the Catholic Church” and called the pontiff a “Pope for the poor, the downtrodden and the forgotten”.

US President Donald Trump wrote on social media: “Rest in peace Pope Francis! May God Bless him and all who loved him!”

Before he took the name Francis as his papal name, the Pope was called Jorge Mario Bergoglio

He was born on 17 December 1936 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where his parents had fled to from their native Italy to escape fascism.

In 2013, Francis’s predecessor Benedict XVI became the first Pope to retire voluntarily in almost 600 years – and for almost a decade, the Vatican was home to two Popes.

Francis was chosen to succeed him during the conclave that followed Benedict’s departure, and became the first non-European Pope since Syrian-born Gregory III, who died in 741.

During his early life, Francis worked as a nightclub bouncer and floor sweeper, before graduating as a chemist.

Prior to being elected as Pope, Francis positioned himself as a compromise candidate by appealing to conservatives while attracting the reformers with his liberal stance on social justice.

His early actions as Pope included washing the feet of the elderly and prisoners and advocating for the rights of refugees and migrants.

But on many of the Church’s teachings, Pope Francis was a traditionalist.

He was at times supportive of some kind of same-sex unions for gay couples, but Francis did not favour calling it marriage. This, he said, would be “an attempt to destroy God’s plan”.

Shortly after becoming Pope, he took part in an anti-abortion march in Rome – calling for rights of the unborn “from the moment of conception”.

Francis’s papacy heralded many firsts, and while he never stopped introducing reforms to the Catholic Church, he remained popular among many traditionalists.