GUWAHATI: Pope Francis, the first Latin American leader of the Roman Catholic Church passed away on Monday, April 21, 2025.
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“At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the home of the Father. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of his Church, Cardinal Kevin Ferrell," the Vatican camerlengo said in a video announcement.
Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Argentina, Francis was the first Jesuit to lead the world's almost 1.4 billion Catholics and the first from the Americas. He was elected on March 13, 2013, at age 76, surprising many Church watchers who had seen the Argentine cleric as an outsider.
Francis inherited a Church that was under global scrutiny over a child sex abuse scandal and torn by infighting in the Vatican bureaucracy. Over the years, he sought to forge a more open and compassionate church.
During his papacy, Francis faced criticism from conservatives and progressives alike.
While conservatives accused him of trashing cherished traditions, progressives felt he should have done much more to reshape the 2,000-year-old Church.
While he struggled with internal dissent, he strongly defended social justice, the rights of migrants and the environment and tackled the scourge of clerical sex abuse of children.
Over 12 years, he had reorganised the Vatican's bureaucracy, written four major teaching documents, made 47 foreign trips to more than 65 countries, and created more than 900 saints.
He had also held five major Vatican summits of the world's Catholic bishops to discuss contested issues such as women's ordination and changing the Church's sexual teachings.
Overall, Francis was widely seen as trying to open the staid global Church to the modern world. Among major decisions, he had allowed priests to offer blessings to same-sex couples on a case-by-case basis and had appointed women to serve as leaders of Vatican offices for the first time.