This morning, the world lost Pope Francis—a man who felt more like a friend than a distant figure in a white cassock. He was 88, and his 12 years as pope changed how millions saw the Catholic Church. At 7:35 a.m., Cardinal Kevin Farrell broke the news with a trembling voice: “Our dear Francis has gone home to God.” In St. Peter’s Square, you could hear the gasps, the quiet sobs, as the crowd absorbed the loss of a pope who seemed to know them personally.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio—Francis to us—was born in 1936 in Buenos Aires, the son of Italian immigrants. He grew up in a noisy, tango-loving neighborhood, dreaming of being a chemist before God tugged him toward the priesthood. When he became pope in 2013, the first from Latin America, he didn’t just take the name Francis after St. Francis of Assisi; he lived it. He swapped the papal palace for a modest guesthouse, carried a beat-up briefcase, and once snuck out to buy his own glasses in Rome. “I’m just a man,” he’d say, grinning—and you believed him.
Yesterday, Easter Sunday, he was out there again—frail but stubborn, waving from his popemobile under a spring sky. He’d been sick—pneumonia had him down this winter—but there he was, blessing the crowd and even joking with U.S. Vice President JD Vance, slipping him three chocolate Easter eggs for his kids. “Keep the faith,” he told Vance, his eyes twinkling. No one knew those were his last hours. Word in Rome is it might’ve been a stroke, sudden and merciless, but the Vatican’s keeping that close for now.
The tributes came fast. Argentina’s President Javier Milei, who once butted heads with Francis, called him “a father to us all.” UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he’d miss his “heart for the hurting.” Even Donald Trump, who’d clashed with Francis over border walls, posted a grainy photo of their 2017 handshake, writing, “He was a good man. Rest easy.” Vance, still shaken, mentioned that rainy 2020 prayer Francis gave in an empty St. Peter’s Square during the pandemic. “It felt like he was praying for me, for all of us,” he said.
Francis had a way of making you feel seen. He’d kneel to wash the feet of inmates, cradle refugees’ babies, or stop his car to hug a sick child. He railed against greed, begged for the planet’s care, and opened the Church’s doors to people who’d felt shut out—divorced couples, gay Catholics, the poor. That ruffled feathers. Some bishops grumbled he was too soft, too modern. The abuse scandals weighed heavy on him, too; he tried to fix things, but survivors often felt let down. Still, he kept going—apologizing, listening, trying.
Now, the Vatican’s in that strange, quiet time they call sede vacante—no pope, just waiting. Francis wanted no fuss: a plain wooden coffin, a simple funeral in a few days, and burial at St. Mary Major Basilica, not St. Peter’s. Soon, cardinals will huddle in the Sistine Chapel to pick the next pope. Will it be someone like Francis—maybe Asia’s Cardinal Tagle or Africa’s Cardinal Sarah? No one knows.
In the square today, people lingered. An old woman named Anna clutched a photo of Francis, tears streaking her face. “He spoke to my soul,” she whispered. In Buenos Aires, kids lit candles outside his old parish. In my own neighborhood, my neighbor Sofia—who’s not even Catholic—said, “He made me want to be kinder.” That was Francis—reaching past the pews, past borders, to nudge us all toward love.
His last words to a crowd were, “Don’t stop dreaming of a better world.” As the bells toll tonight, I think he’d want us to keep trying.