Pope Francis: Life in pictures (2025)

Pope Francis died on Monday (Apr 21), aged 88, ending a 12-year papacy marked by attempts to reform the Catholic Church.

Only a day earlier, the frail-looking pope haddelighted crowds at the Vatican on Easter Sunday with an appearance on the balcony at Saint Peter's Basilica.

"He lived this Easter and then he went," a worshipper said with tears in her eyes as she visited the Vatican on Monday.

FROM BUENOS AIRES TO THE VATICAN

Pope Francis, whose real name was Jorge Bergoglio,was born on Dec 17, 1936, into a family of Italian immigrants who had settled in Buenos Aires.

He attended a technical high school and worked for a while as a chemical technician at a food laboratory. After he decided to become a priest, he studied at the diocesan seminary and in 1958 entered the Jesuit religious order.

He was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1969, rapidly rising to head the order in Argentina.

On Mar 13, 2013, he became thefirst pope from Latin America and the first Jesuit to hold the post.He was 76 when he was elected, taking over after Pope Benedict XVI became the first pontiff since the Middle Ages to step down.

Pope Francis endeared himself to millions of Catholics with his simplicity when he spoke minutes after his election as pope.

"Brothers and sisters, good evening," were his first words from the balcony of St Peter's Basilica, departing from the traditional salutation "Praised be Jesus Christ!".

FOOTBALL FAN

While his predecessor loved Mozart, Pope Francis' passion was football.

His love of the sport was inseparable from his loyalty to the San Lorenzo club in Buenos Aires, where he went to watch matches with his father and brothers.

"It was romantic football," he recalled.

He often recounted playing as a young boy on the streets of Buenos Aires, using a ball made of rags.

DEFENDER OF SOCIAL JUSTICE

Throughout his papacy, Pope Francis strongly defended social justice and spoke out for the rights of refugees.

He visited the Greek island of Lesbos and brought a dozen refugees to Italy on his plane, and asked Church institutions to work to stop human trafficking and modern slavery.

He ordered his charity arm to help the homeless in the neighbourhood around the Vatican, opening a shelter and a place for them to have baths and haircuts and see foot doctors. He gave the homeless a private tour of the Sistine Chapel.

CHURCH FOR THE POOR

Pope Francis renounced the spacious papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace and never moved out of the Vatican guest house where he and the other cardinals who entered the conclave of 2013 were billeted in simple rooms.

From the start, Francis sent clear signals to priests and bishops about the type of Church he wanted.

He said there was no room for "careerists or social climbers" among the clergy, told cardinals they should not live "like princes," and said the Church should not "dissect theology" in lush salons while there were poor people around the corner.

"If investments in banks fall, it is a tragedy and people say 'what are we going to do?' but if people die of hunger, have nothing to eat or suffer from poor health, that's nothing. This is our crisis today. A Church that is poor and for the poor has to fight this mentality," he said early in his papacy.

PROGRESSIVE CHURCH

Under his watch, an overhauled Vatican constitution allowed any baptised lay Catholic, including women, to head most departments in the Catholic Church's central administration.

He put more women in senior Vatican roles than any previous pope, but not as many as progressives wanted.

His desire to connect extended to telephone calls. He became known as the "cold call pope" for phoning people unannounced, usually after they had written to him about a problem or he had heard that they had been touched by tragedy.

"This is Francis," were the words that incredulous people heard on the other end of the line. "Really, this is Pope Francis."

At the same time, conservatives were unhappy with the pope because of his informal style.

They baulked at his calls for the Church to be more welcoming to LGBT people and divorced Catholics and at his clampdowns on the use of the traditional Latin Mass.

Despite many efforts, Pope Francis also struggled to get a grip on the Church's crisis over sexual abuse by clerics.

WORLDWIDE PRESTIGE

Pope Francis enjoyedconsiderable prestige internationally, with worldleaders praising him for having strongly defended social justice, the rights of migrants and the environment.

He made 47 trips outside of Italy, visiting more than 65 states and territories.

These included the first trip by any pope toIraq, the United Arab Emirates, Myanmar, North Macedonia, Bahrain and Mongolia.

In 2024, he made a four-nation Asia Pacific tour that stretched over 11 days. It was the longest trip of his papacy, covering Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Singapore.