Pope Francis dies aged 88

Sydney Morning Herald

21-04-2025

While many popes are buried in the crypts beneath St Peter's Basilica, Francis made it known in December 2023 that he wanted a vastly stripped-back funeral service and to be buried in Rome's Basilica of Santa Maria. The funeral Mass is expected to be held in St Peter's Square. The last pope to be buried outside the Vatican was Leo XIII, who died in 1903 and is buried in the Basilica of St John Lateran in Rome.
Cardinals will then lock themselves in the Sistine Chapel, disconnected from news media and telephones to block any outside influence, and undertake several rounds of voting until a candidate receives a two-thirds majority. The process could take days, if not weeks, before the result is announced when white smoke rises from the Sistine Chapel.
Born in Buenos Aires in 1936, Francis' reign was controversial from the beginning when he was elected to the role following the shock resignation of former pope Benedict – the first pontiff to quit in 600 years. The pair formed a close bond in the almost 10 years that followed, when there were unusually two popes in the Vatican. Benedict died on the last day of 2022.
Francis, the 266th pontiff in the church's 2000-year history, inherited the role at a time of great crisis and difficulty for the church, which had been battered by sexual abuse scandals, mired in financial mismanagement and polarised between conservatives and progressives.
Although he did not change doctrine, he was revolutionary in every other way by almost immediately attacking clericalism, seeking to empower the laity, promoting women to positions of power in the bureaucracy – although not ordaining them priests – and speaking out about climate change.
While he became known for his compassion and kindness, this did not apply to the clergy. He clashed publicly with the more conservative factions within the church and removed bishops who had not dealt forthrightly with sexual abuse. He also fought hard to reform the Holy See and Vatican City State, establishing an anti-corruption authority that carried out financial audits of entities belonging to them.
During the recent synod, during which Catholics around the world were asked about their vision for the future of the church, he called for 'an ever more symphonic and synodal church', using the metaphor of an orchestra to refer to divisions between progressives and conservatives, saying one section or instrument could not play alone or drown out the others. It was his job, as 'conductor' to listen and try to achieve a 'creative fidelity'.
He fought without great success to change the church's power dynamics and give a greater voice to lay Catholics, including women, and people on the margins of society.
In an interview during his first year in office, he said he would not obsess over abortion, same-sex marriage and birth control since everyone knew what the church taught on these topics.
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Late last year, Francis surprised many when he named 21 new cardinals in a power play that will ensure the now 140-member College of Cardinals – whose main job is to elect the next pope – is 80 per cent made up of those of his choosing.
The percentage of Asian and African cardinal electors has grown significantly – reflecting Francis' quest to increase the Church's embrace of the developing world – while that of those from Europe has fallen. His visit to the Philippines in January 2015 included the largest papal event in history with an estimated 6 million attendees in his final Mass in Manila, surpassing the then-largest papal event at World Youth Day 1995 at the same venue 20 years earlier.
But his papacy also faced fierce criticism from within the ranks of the church, most famously when an essay was published, thought to be written by the late cardinal George Pell, in January 2023 condemning Francis as a 'catastrophe' and depicting the Vatican's political prestige 'at a low ebb' while condemning his 'grave failures to support human rights in Venezuela, Hong Kong, mainland China, and now in the Russian invasion'.
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