In the early hours of April 21, Pope Francis, the first Jesuit and Latin American pontiff in the role, passed away at the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta. The Vatican announced his death in a statement on X (Twitter). He was 88 and had met the day before with American Vice President JD Vance briefly to exchange Easter greetings. Vance met earlier in the day with Cardinal Pietro Parolin to discuss humanitarian and trade issues, which had become a touchy subject between the Vatican and the Trump administration.
During Pope Francis’s 12-year stint in the papacy, he had been an agent for change. After Francis had inherited the role from his extremely conservative predecessor Benedict XVI, he strove to find a new way and place for Catholicism in the modern era.
Moving away from the conservatism that Roman Catholics held as a standard, Francis sought to look toward the marginalized of the world and offer open arms to them. Using the power of his position in the church, Francis spoke out on many increasingly important topics affecting the world today, whether showing love and help for migrants or voicing concern about the planet.
Many of his actions were due to a different idea of what, or who, the pope should be, and the Argentina native filled his leadership with those that shared his pastoral, welcoming approach to those in need. The motions were viewed positively by many Catholics already in the church, agreeing that the institution had become internally minded and had lost touch with everyday people, though some reacted with shock to what they saw as a tendency to be too progressive – especially when it came to the LGBTQ+ community.
Early on Francis reached out to gay Catholics who he felt had been alienated by the faith. One of the first indications of Francis’s thoughts on the LGBTQ+ community came in 2013, as he was christened from his prior title and name, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, to “Pope Francis.” When asked by a reporter a question about gay priests, Francis simply stated, “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?”
While in his role, Francis pushed the Vatican into making changes that would strongly affect how LGBTQ+ believers could participate in the church. Policy changes, such as allowing transgender people to be baptized & serve as godparents and allowing priests to offer blessings to same-sex couples, were among them. While full equality has still not been gained in the confines of the Catholic faith, the that have been taken are still notable as progress not seen before Francis’s era.
“Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God,” Francis said in a 2020 documentary. “You can’t kick someone out of a family, nor make their life miserable for this. What we have to have is a civil union law; that way they are legally covered.”
While Francis had a few early stumbles during his time as pope, he would take large steps in addressing the clerical sexual abuse crisis that had created an existential threat in the church. Adopting new rules that would hold top religious leaders in the Catholic church, including bishops, accountable for such actions and their cover-ups, Francis committed to making his churches a safer place.
Even in his final years, as several ailments and surgeries weighed on the religious figure, Pope Francis still made travels to often-forgotten and far-flung countries and sought to improve relations with many leaders throughout the fractured Christian world.
While a funeral date has not yet been set by the Vatican, the institution said a public viewing for Pope Francis could take place as early as the morning of April 23.
Additional material was added to this article by Qnotes staff.