VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Centuries of experience dealing with the death, or occasional resignation, of a pope has left the Catholic Church with thorough instructions detailing who has responsibility for planning the funeral, preparing for the election of a new pope and taking care of essential business in the meantime.
The instructions are found in St. John Paul II’s 1996 apostolic constitution, “Universi Dominici Gregis,” which was revised by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007 and again just before he resigned in 2013.
The funeral and burial of a pope who dies in office should take place “between the fourth and sixth day after death,” the document said. The exact date is determined at a meeting of all the cardinals able to reach the Vatican immediately after the papal death.
Thousands of people were present in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican April 21, 2025, as news of Pope Francis’ death spread. The Argentine pope died at 7:35 a.m. that morning at the age of 88. (CNS photo/Pablo Esparza)
The cardinals also determine when the conclave to elect a new pope should begin, although Pope Benedict’s update of “Universi Dominici Gregis” states that it should be at least 15 days from the death or resignation of the pope and can be no more than 20 days since the vacancy of the papacy.
An earlier start is possible, he said, “if it is clear that all the cardinal electors are present.” Cardinal electors are those who were under the age of 80 on the day the pope died or resigned.
The funeral marks the start of a mandated nine-day period of official mourning. For the next eight days other memorial Masses are celebrated in St. Peter’s Basilica. The nine-day period is known as the “novendiales.”
With the death of a pope, most top-level Vatican officials – including the prefects of dicasteries – lose their jobs, but that does not mean most Vatican employees get time off. Regular business continues with dicastery secretaries overseeing the steady flow of paperwork, correspondence and meeting planning.
However, the publication of documents, the nomination of new bishops and the approval of statutes for Catholic universities and religious orders are suspended. Anything that must be issued in the name of the Vatican or in the name of the pope must await the election of a new pope and the re-confirmation or appointment of prefects for the various offices.
The two senior Vatican officials who retain their titles and responsibilities are the “camerlengo” or chamberlain, currently U.S. Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell, whose job begins in earnest when a pope dies or resigns, and the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, Cardinal Angelo De Donatis. The Apostolic Penitentiary is a Vatican court dealing with matters related to the sacrament of confession and to indulgences, so keeping him in office ensures the possibility of absolution for penitents guilty of serious sin and seeking forgiveness.
“Universi Dominici Gregis” also specified that “the almoner of His Holiness will also continue to carry out works of charity in accordance with the criteria employed during the pope’s lifetime.” That position is held by Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, who also is prefect of Dicastery for the Service of Charity.
Everything having to do with the funeral and with preparations for the conclave to elect Pope Francis’ successor belongs to the College of Cardinals.
The rites and rituals used — from the formal verification of the pope’s death to the eight memorial Masses after the funeral — are published in the “Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis” (“Funeral Rites of the Roman Pontiff”), originally approved by St. John Paul II in 1998, but published only the day after his death in 2005.
In late 2024, the Vatican released a newer, simplified version on the orders of Pope Francis.
The physician who directs the Vatican health care service provides a civil certification of the pope’s death, including its cause.
But the ritual verification of the pope’s death takes place in the chapel of his residence and is presided over by the chamberlain, assisted by the dean of the College of Cardinals, the master of papal liturgical ceremonies and the physician.
If it ever was a custom to use a silver hammer to tap on the newly deceased pontiff’s forehead to make sure he is dead, it is a long disused practice.
The chamberlain also is responsible for placing seals on the pope’s study and bedroom and officially notifying the cardinal vicar for Rome and the archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Before the conclave, all the cardinals — including those over 80 — participate in “congregations.”
The “general congregation,” with all the cardinals, handles “important matters,” according to “Universi Dominici Gregis,” while “questions of lesser importance which arise on a daily basis or from time to time” are handled by the “particular congregation.”
The document says the cardinals draw lots to determine the three cardinals who will assist the camerlengo by serving three-day terms as members of the “particular congregation.” However, Pope Francis’ apostolic constitution on the Roman Curia, “Praedicate Evangelium,” said that “one of these is the Cardinal Coordinator of the Council for the Economy,” currently German Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising.
The general congregation meets under the leadership of the dean, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, and besides setting the date for the funeral and for the conclave, it is responsible for:
— Ensuring that a commission of their members prepares the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the Vatican residence where Pope Francis lived, for the cardinals during the conclave. Rooms will be assigned by lot.
— Preparing the Sistine Chapel for the election of a new pope.
— Assigning two clerics “known for their sound doctrine, wisdom and moral authority” to prepare meditations for the cardinals on problems the church faces and on choosing the next pope.
— Approving the expenditures associated with the death of the pope.
— Arranging for the destruction of the papal fisherman’s ring and the lead seal that had marked Pope Francis’ letters.
Although not as secret as the conclave, the cardinals and those assisting them at the meetings of the general congregation take an oath of secrecy regarding “all matters in any way related to the election of the Roman Pontiff or those which, by their very nature, during the vacancy of the Apostolic See, call for the same secrecy.”
During the general congregation meetings, the cardinals have the services of translators working in Italian, Spanish, English, French and German, as well as ushers and other aides.
Social
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis, who died April 21 at the age of 88 gave new energy to millions of Catholics – and caused concern for some – as he transformed the image of the papacy into a pastoral ministry based on personal encounters and strong convictions about mission, poverty, immigration and dialogue.
U.S. Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell, chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church, announced that Pope Francis had died at 7:35 a.m.
Pope Francis kisses a boy as he leaves his general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican Sept. 21, 2022. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
“His whole life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and his church,” Cardinal Farrell said in a video announcement broadcast from the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where Pope Francis lived and where he was recovering from pneumonia and respiratory infections. He had been released from Rome’s Gemelli hospital March 23 after more than five weeks of treatment.
Pope Francis “taught us to live the values of the Gospel with fidelity, courage and universal love, especially in favor of the poorest and most marginalized,” Cardinal Farrell said. “With immense gratitude for his example as a true disciple of the Lord Jesus, we commend the soul of Pope Francis to the infinite merciful love of the Triune God.”
The day before his death, the pope had appeared on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to give his Easter blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world). His voice was weak and he had trouble raising his arm to make the sign of the cross, but afterward he got into the popemobile and drove through the crowds in St. Peter’s Square.
Pope Francis was often practical and even poetic when speaking about family life, the environment and ministry in the church, but those also were the areas where he frequently unleashed the perplexity and even ire of some Catholics, who were convinced he was trying to change church teaching or practice.
The initial popularity of his pontificate began to be offset by caution and criticism from some sectors of the church, particularly because of the openness he showed toward gay Catholics and toward divorced and civilly remarried Catholics. While insisting he was not changing church teaching, he also insisted Catholics and their parishes must welcome all people seeking God with a sincere heart.
His insistence at World Youth Day in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2023 that in the church there is room for “todos, todos, todos” — “everyone, everyone, everyone” — became a frequent affirmation for the rest of his pontificate.
Pope Francis gives first Communion to children during a Mass at the Church of the Sacred Heart in Rakovski, Bulgaria, May 6, 2019. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
The iconic images of Pope Francis’ papacy were photographs of him embracing the sick, washing the feet of prisoners and eating with the poor.
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the image switched to photos of Pope Francis, standing alone in an empty St. Peter’s Square in the rain, verbalizing the fear many people felt, calling upon the Lord’s help to end the pandemic and raising a monstrance with the Blessed Sacrament to bless the city and the world.
The first major health scare of his pontificate came in July 2021 when, after reciting the Sunday Angelus, he went to Rome’s Gemelli hospital for what the Vatican said was pre-scheduled colon surgery. The three-hour operation included a left hemicolectomy, the removal of the descending part of the colon, a surgery that can be recommended to treat diverticulitis, when bulging pouches in the lining of the intestine or colon become inflamed or infected. The pope remained in the hospital 10 days.
Two years later, he was back at Gemelli for what the Vatican said was surgery to correct a hernia. He was taken to the hospital June 7 after his weekly general audience.
Throughout his pontificate, he occasionally canceled events because of bouts of sciatica, a sharp pain that radiates along the path of the sciatic nerve from the lower back and down each leg. But, beginning in late December 2020, he also started having difficulty with his right knee. He later said the problem was a torn ligament and, by early May 2022, he was regularly using a wheelchair. The knee problem also forced him to cancel several events and to postpone a trip to Congo and South Sudan, which he finally made Jan. 31-Feb. 5, 2023.
God’s mercy was a constant theme in his preaching and was so central to his vision of what the church’s ministry must embody that he led an extraordinary Holy Year of Mercy in 2015-16.
Elected March 13, 2013, the Argentine cardinal was the first pope in history to come from the Southern Hemisphere and the first non-European elected in almost 1,300 years. The Jesuit was also the first member of his order to be elected pope and the first member of any religious order elected in nearly two centuries.
He spent much of the first nine years of his pontificate pursuing two ambitious projects: revitalizing the church’s efforts at evangelization – constantly urging outreach rather than a preoccupation with internal church affairs – and reforming the central administration of the Vatican, emphasizing its role of assisting bishops around the world rather than dictating policy to them.
His momentum and popularity outside the church seemed to falter in 2018 because of new revelations about the extent of clerical sexual abuse in the church and of bishops’ efforts to cover up the scandal, as well as instances in which, initially, Pope Francis seemed more prone to believe bishops than victims.
Pope Francis’ focus on the pastoral aspect of his ministry, and the ministry of all priests, led him to shed elements of protocol and even safety concerns that would have distanced him from crowds at his public appearances; he kissed thousands of babies, drank the popular Argentine mate herbal tea whenever anyone in the crowd offered it, and tenderly embraced people with disabling or disfiguring ailments.
In the first years of his pontificate, he invited small groups of Catholics – beginning with the Vatican gardeners and garbage collectors – to join him for his early morning Mass in the chapel of his residence, and his short homilies quickly became a primary vehicle for his teaching. With an average congregation of fewer than 50 people, the intimate setting gave the pope the space to minister simply and directly, as most of the world’s priests do.
The morning Masses were livestreamed during the strictest of the COVID-19 lockdowns in the spring of 2020; but in May that year, the Vatican stopped providing any coverage of his daily liturgies.
Pope Francis releases a dove as a sign of peace outside the Basilica of St. Nicholas after meeting with the leaders of Christian churches in Bari, Italy, July 7, 2018. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
Eight months after taking office, Pope Francis published his apostolic exhortation, “Evangelii Gaudium” (“The Joy of the Gospel”), a detailed vision of the program for his papacy and his vision for the church – particularly the church’s outreach and its response to challenges posed by secular culture.
Faith, he constantly preached, had to be evident in the way one treated the poor and weakest members of society. He railed against human trafficking and rallied forces inside and outside the church to cooperate in halting the trade in people. Not counting a brief visit to Castel Gandolfo to meet retired Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis’ first trip outside of Rome was to visit migrants – many brought across the Mediterranean by smugglers – in Lampedusa, a southern Italian island just 70 miles from Tunisia.
Although initially he said he did not like to travel and insisted he would not be a globetrotter like St. John Paul II was, he made 47 foreign trips, bringing his close-to-the-people papacy to the centers of global power, but especially to the “peripheries” of the world’s influence and power.
Making his first-ever trip to the United States, Pope Francis visited in September 2015 and became the first pope to address a joint meeting of Congress. Referring to himself as a “son of immigrants” — and pointing out that many of the legislators were, too — he pleaded for greater openness to accepting immigrants. Throughout the trip, planned around the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, he defended marriage and the family, insisted on the sacredness of all human life and urged the people of the United States to work together to help one another and offer hope to the world.
Pope Francis’ simple lifestyle, which included his decision not to live in the Apostolic Palace and his choice of riding around Rome in a small Fiat or Ford Focus instead of a Mercedes sedan, sent a message of austerity to Vatican officials and clergy throughout the church. He reinforced the message with frequent admonitions about the Gospel demands and evangelical witness of poverty and simplicity.
The pope also stressed the importance of collegiality, or consultation with his brother bishops, and established an international Council of Cardinals to advise him on reform of the Vatican bureaucracy and governance of the universal church. The council had as many as nine members, never more than three of whom were Vatican officials.
CLERICAL SEX ABUSE
At the suggestion of the Council of Cardinals, Pope Francis instituted the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which was led by Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston and included experts in child protection, psychology and survivors of clerical sexual abuse. But like his predecessors, Pope Francis had a checkered record of dealing with the abuse scandal and with allegations of cover-up leveled against bishops.
In early 2018, Pope Francis traveled to Chile and seemed surprised by the cold reception he received. During the trip, he strongly defended now-retired Bishop Juan Barros of Osorno, who had been accused of covering up for a notorious abuser, the late-Father Fernando Karadima. The pope told reporters that the people making accusations were liars.
It was only after he returned to Rome that he sent top investigators to Chile to study the clerical sex abuse scandal there, invited survivors to the Vatican for private meetings and called all the country’s bishops to Rome for a meeting, which ended with most of the bishops offering their resignations.
Even as the Chile drama continued to unfold, the Vatican announced that credible allegations of the sexual abuse of a minor had been made against Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington. Pope Francis accepted his resignation from the College of Cardinals in July 2018, suspended him from ministry and ordered him to a life of prayer and penance pending a canonical trial. The Vatican’s report on how McCarrick managed to rise to the position of cardinal and archbishop of Washington despite decades of rumors of sexual misconduct finally was released in November 2020.
The Vatican announced six months later that a tribunal of the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith found McCarrick guilty of “solicitation in the sacrament of confession and sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power,” and the pope dismissed him from the priesthood.
Pope Francis called the presidents of the world’s bishops’ conferences, heads of the Eastern Catholic churches and representatives of religious orders to a summit in February 2019 to listen to the voices of abuse survivors, to pray and to understand the obligatory steps every bishop and superior must take when an abuse allegation is made.
Less than three months later, he published “Vos estis lux mundi” (“You are the light of the world”), a document setting out universal procedures for reporting suspected abuse, carrying out initial investigations and protecting victims and whistleblowers. It included procedures for holding bishops and religious superiors accountable and mandated that bishops report to the Vatican all cases of suspected abuse, including possession of child pornography.
In June 2021, he promulgated a revision of the section of the Code of Canon Law dealing with crimes and punishments; the revision made many of the procedures in “Vos estis” a permanent part of church law, made mandatory many of the previously suggested measures for handling allegations and expanded the application of canons dealing with abuse to religious and laypeople who have a role, office or function in the church — not just clergy. He slightly revised “Vos estis” in early 2023 and made its procedures definitive.
BISHOPS, SYNODS AND SAINTS
While acknowledging the suffering many Catholics endured under the communist government in mainland China, the Vatican announced in September 2018 that Pope Francis had approved a provisional agreement with the Chinese government on the nomination of bishops. The agreement, while hailed by some as a step toward unifying the Catholic community in China and normalizing Catholic life there, was seen by critics, including a retired cardinal from Hong Kong, as a betrayal of Catholics who risked their lives to avoid cooperating with the communist government.
The Vatican and China renewed the agreement for another two years in October 2020, 2022 and 2024.
The world Synod of Bishops was given greater prominence under Pope Francis, who continued the reforms begun by Pope Benedict to ensure it was a real forum for discussion and not just a place to make speeches.
Pope Francis called two gatherings of the Synod of Bishops to focus on the pastoral care of the family. The first, an extraordinary synod, was in October 2014, and a larger gathering met at the Vatican a year later. Although most media attention was focused on proposals to make it easier for some divorced and civilly remarried couples to return to the sacraments, Pope Francis insisted the agenda was much larger.
“The Lord is asking us to care for the family, which has been, from the beginning, an integral part of his loving plan for humanity,” he told participants at the opening Mass for the 2014 gathering.
In March 2016, Pope Francis published his post-synodal apostolic exhortation, “Amoris Laetitia” (“The Joy of Love”), which insisted that because each family that has experienced brokenness has a different story, those differences must be considered when determining if such couples eventually can access the sacraments.
The synod met again in October 2018 to focus on young people, the faith and vocational discernment. Just five months later, Pope Francis released “Christus Vivit” (“Christ Lives”), a combination letter to young people about their place in the church and a plea to older members of the church not to stifle the enthusiasm of the young, but to offer gentle guidance when needed.
His next synod was the special gathering in October 2019 focused on the Amazon and on ways to provide pastoral care to a widely scattered flock while protecting the region’s Indigenous people and safeguarding the environment.
The pope’s reflection on the synod, “Querida Amazonia” (“Beloved Amazonia”) was released less than four months later and contained few concrete ideas for action. Instead, Pope Francis called Catholics to work together to realize the “dreams” of an Amazon region where the rights of the poor and Indigenous are respected, local cultures are preserved, nature is protected, and the Catholic Church is present and active with “Amazonian features.”
In October 2021, Pope Francis launched a two-year process of listening on the local, diocesan and national levels in preparation for a synod focused on working “For a synodal church: communion, participation and mission.”
While maintaining the synod’s identity as a meeting primarily of bishops from around the world, the pope expanded the participation by naming several dozen laypeople – women and men – as voting members of the synod, which met in both October 2023 and October 2024. The full participation of non-bishops was not the only innovation: the first gathering was preceded by an ecumenical prayer vigil and a three-day retreat. The assembly was moved to the Paul VI Audience where members sat at round tables and practiced “conversations in the Spirit,” giving each person a chance to speak without interruption and time for prayer before discussing what was heard.
Between the two synod assemblies, Pope Francis took off the table, at least temporarily, some of the more complex, sensitive issues raised in the listening sessions and at the first synod assembly in 2023. Instead, he set up 10 study groups to look at issues such as ministry by women, seminary education, relations between bishops and religious communities and the role of nuncios; the groups were asked to work on proposals to give the pope by June 2025.
He told synod members those questions required more time, but he promised that “this is not the classical way of postponing decisions indefinitely.”
Pope Francis made exceptional use of “equivalent canonizations” — the practice of simply declaring a holy person a saint based on widespread devotion to him or her, but without the normal requirement of verifying a miracle attributable to the candidate’s intercession. In the first 13 months of his pontificate, Pope Francis used the formula to create five new saints, including one of his favorite Jesuits, St. Peter Faber, a 16th-century priest who was one of the founding members of the Society of Jesus.
He also waived the requirement of a miracle needed for the canonization of Pope John XXIII, who opened the Second Vatican Council, and proclaimed him a saint along with Pope John Paul II. He named several modern-day saints, including Sts. Oscar Romero and Teresa of Kolkata. And he announced would canonize Blessed Carlo Acutis, a teenaged tech whiz, April 27 during the special Jubilee for Adolescents.
When the pope died, the Vatican had not immediately announced what would happen with the canonization or the jubilee events.
Pope Francis insisted being holy is not boring or impossible, and that it grows through small, daily gestures and acts of loving kindness. Holiness was the topic of his third apostolic exhortation, “Gaudete et Exsultate” (“Rejoice and Be Glad”), published in March 2018.
EARLY YEARS
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital city, Dec. 17, 1936. His father was an immigrant from northwestern Italy and his mother an Argentine of Italian origin. He was especially close to his paternal grandmother, whom he later credited with inspiring his “journey of faith.”
As a teenager, the future pope swept floors in a factory, ran tests in a chemical laboratory and worked as a bouncer in a bar. When he was 21, he suffered a severe infection, and doctors removed the upper half of his right lung.
He earned a chemical technician’s diploma from his high school and entered the Jesuit novitiate in March 1958. After studying liberal arts in Santiago, Chile, he returned to Argentina and earned his licentiate in philosophy from the Colegio San Jose in San Miguel. Between 1964 and 1965, he was a teacher of literature and psychology at Inmaculada high school in the province of Santa Fe, and, in 1966, he taught the same courses at the prestigious Colegio del Salvador in Buenos Aires.
SOCIETY OF JESUS
In 1967, he returned to his theological studies and was ordained a priest Dec. 13, 1969. He later recounted that he wanted to serve as a missionary in Japan, but that his superiors refused because of his medical history.
After his perpetual profession as a Jesuit in 1973, he became master of novices at the Seminary of Villa Barilari in San Miguel. Later that same year, he was appointed superior of the Jesuit province of Argentina, a role in which by his own account he proved a divisive figure.
“I was only 36 years old. That was crazy. I had to deal with difficult situations, and I made my decisions abruptly and by myself,” he recalled four decades later, in an interview as pope. “My authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultraconservative.”
Controversy later arose over his stance during Argentina’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship, which cracked down brutally on political opponents. Estimates of the number of people killed and forcibly disappeared during those years range from about 13,000 to more than 30,000.
Citing a case in which two young priests were detained by the military regime, critics said then-Father Bergoglio, as Jesuit provincial, did not do enough to support church workers against the military dictatorship. Others countered that he had negotiated behind the scenes for the two priests’ release.
During this period, the future pope ran a clandestine network that sheltered or shuttled to safety people whose lives were in danger because of the nation’s military-backed dictatorship. According to witnesses, the future pope never let on to anyone what he was doing, and those who helped him find rides or temporary housing for “guests” never realized until years later that they had been part of his secret strategy.
After his term as provincial, he returned to San Miguel as a teacher at the Jesuit school, a job rarely taken by a former provincial superior. In 1986, following a few months of study in Germany, he was sent to serve as spiritual director to Jesuits in the central Argentine city of Cordoba, where he went through what he later called a “time of great interior crisis.”
BISHOP AND CARDINAL
In May 1992, Father Bergoglio was called back to Buenos Aires to serve as one of the archdiocese’s three auxiliary bishops. He kept a low profile in the job, spending most of his time in ministry at the local Catholic university, counseling priests and preaching and hearing confessions.
He was named coadjutor archbishop in 1997 and became archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998; Pope John Paul II named him to the College of Cardinals three years later.
As leader of an archdiocese with more than 2.5 million Catholics, Cardinal Bergoglio strove to be close to the people. He rode the bus, visited the poor, lived in a simple apartment and cooked his own meals. Many of his flock continued to refer to their cardinal-archbishop as “Father Jorge.”
The cardinal reached out to leaders of other religions in his multicultural city, most notably Rabbi Abraham Skorka, with whom he co-hosted a television show and co-authored a book addressing a range of moral, cultural and social topics. Rabbi Skorka and Omar Abboud, a Muslim leader from Buenos Aires, later became the first non-Christian leaders to join a papal entourage when Pope Francis had them accompany him during his May 2014 visit to the Holy Land.
As cardinal, he was one of the presidents of the 2001 Synod of Bishops, which focused on the role of bishops in the church, and was elected to the synod council, bringing him to the attention of fellow bishops around the world.
His international reputation was enhanced by his work at the 2007 assembly of the Latin American bishops’ council, CELAM, and particularly by his role as head of the committee that drafted the gathering’s final document on reforming and reinvigorating the church’s evangelizing efforts on the continent.
A SURPRISE CHOICE
Cardinal Bergoglio was a known and respected figure within the College of Cardinals, so much so that no one disputed a respected Italian journal’s report that he received the second-highest number of votes on all four ballots cast in the 2005 conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI.
In retrospect, that result made him an obvious candidate at the conclave after Pope Benedict’s resignation eight years later, yet few commentators focused on him in the run-up to the event, particularly because of his age.
While Pope Benedict cited his declining energy in his resignation announcement, many people speculated that it also was tied to the scandal that had erupted over revelations of corruption and incompetence at the Vatican. At the cardinals’ meetings prior to the 2013 conclave, the need to reform the Vatican bureaucracy was a common theme of concern.
But Cardinal Bergoglio’s concerns were broader and more fundamental than problems of administration. In a speech to the gathering, he warned against “self-referentiality and a kind of theological narcissism” in the church and argued the next pope “must be a man who, from the contemplation and adoration of Jesus Christ, helps the church to go out to the existential peripheries” to spread the Gospel.
His election March 13 came on the second day of the conclave, on its fifth ballot, a surprisingly quick conclusion to an election that apparently had begun with no clear favorite.
A NEW STYLE OF BEING POPE
The surprises continued at a fast rate, among them the new pope’s choice of name, which he later explained was intended to honor St. Francis of Assisi, “the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who loves and protects creation.”
Pope Francis’ very first words to the crowd in a rainy St. Peter’s Square were disarmingly informal: “Buona sera” (“good evening”). Many noted that he was wearing only his white papal cassock without the traditional ermine-trimmed, red velvet cape called a mozzetta, which his predecessors had worn on the same occasion. Before bestowing his traditional blessing, he bowed and asked for the blessing of the crowd. In an interview later, he said he had not prepared what he would say or do, but “I felt deeply that a minister needs the blessing of God, but also of his people.”
Under his watch, the papal charities office increased its outreach, particularly to the homeless who live near the Vatican. Sleeping bags were handed out at Christmas, showers were installed in the public bathrooms in St. Peter’s Square and a special, private tour of the Vatican Gardens and Vatican Museums was arranged.
Like St. John Paul used to do, Pope Francis also insisted on personally administering the sacrament of reconciliation. Making parish visits in Rome, he arrived early to meet with the parish council, parents of recently baptized babies and usually a group involved in charitable work. But before celebrating Mass, he always left time to hear confessions.
Still, it apparently was a complete surprise, even to Pope Francis’ closest aides, when, at a penance service in 2014 in St. Peter’s Basilica, instead of going to the confessional to hear confessions, he turned and knelt at another confessional to receive absolution first.
He also set aside the usual practice of washing the feet of 12 priests during a public celebration of the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper. Instead, he celebrated smaller Masses – closed to the public – and washed the feet of Catholic and non-Catholic youths at a juvenile detention facility in 2013. Ten years later, he returned to the same jail to wash the feet of young men and women.
For four of the next six years, he celebrated the Mass at Italian prisons, including two in Rome, one in Paliano and one in Velletri. In 2014, he washed the feet of people with severe physical handicaps at a rehabilitation center, and in 2016, he celebrated the liturgy and foot-washing ritual at a center for migrants and refugees.
In early January 2016, the then-Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments issued a formal decree at the pope’s request, changing the rubrics of the Roman Missal, which mention only men having their feet washed. Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman at the time, said the pope wanted to highlight “this dimension of the gesture of Christ’s love for all.”
A NEW APPROACH TO EVANGELIZATION
“Go out” was Pope Francis’ constant plea to every Catholic, from curial cardinals to the people in the pews. More than once, he told people that while the Bible presents Jesus as knocking at the door of people’s hearts to get in, today Jesus is knocking at the doors of parish churches trying to get out and among the people.
In the early years of his papacy, his daily homilies at Mass in the chapel of his residence were summarized by Vatican news outlets and became key vehicles for helping Catholics live and share their faith in word and in deeds. But even his more formal homilies at large liturgies were relatively simple and conversational.
A large section of “Evangelii Gaudium” was devoted to suggestions for improving priests’ homilies, which he said were all too often moralistic, disorganized and long-winded.
Pope Francis’ criticisms of clergy did not stop there; he warned priests against a “business mentality, caught up with management, statistics, plans and evaluations” and “ostentatious preoccupation with the liturgy, doctrine and the church’s prestige.”
While he stressed God’s limitless mercy and readiness to forgive, the pope was unsparing in denouncing Christians for “enmity, division, calumny, defamation, vendetta, jealousy and the desire to impose certain ideas at all costs, and even persecutions which appear as veritable witch hunts. Whom are we going to evangelize if this is the way we act?”
Pope Francis also sought to correct what he saw as an overemphasis on certain moral teachings at the expense of the essential Gospel message.
“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods,” the pope told an interviewer. “The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear, and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.”
The interview was published about a month after he told reporters, “A gay person who is seeking God, who is of goodwill – well, who am I to judge him?”
Some critics saw the statements as dangerous signs of leniency, but even if he did so less frequently than his immediate predecessors, Pope Francis also taught about those moral issues. For example, meeting Catholic physicians in November 2014, he insisted that in “the light of faith and the light of correct reason, human life is always sacred and always of ‘quality.’ There is no human life that is more sacred than another” and no “human life qualitatively more significant than another.”
He also constantly urged support for the traditional family and, as he did during a talk at the Vatican in November 2014, insisted “children have the right to grow up in a family with a father and mother capable of creating a suitable environment for the child’s development and emotional maturity.”
SPEAKING OUT FOR THE POOR AND THE PERSECUTED
“How I would like a church that is poor and that is for the poor,” Pope Francis told reporters three days after his election and, from the start, he made economic justice one of his major themes.
“Just as the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills,” he wrote in “Evangelii Gaudium.”
Pope Francis’ blunt language about the deadly impact of the “idolatry of money” and an economic model without moral constraints or obligatory sharing led to some extreme reactions, including accusations that he was a Marxist or a socialist.
He responded that he was just trying to be a Christian. “When money, instead of man, is at the center of the system, when money becomes an idol, men and women are reduced to simple instruments of a social and economic system, which is characterized – or better yet, dominated – by profound inequalities,” he said in an interview.
In the modern world, the earth itself is one of the poor as it faces the threat of pollution and destruction, he wrote in his 2015 encyclical letter, “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home.”
Pope Francis cited “a very strong scientific consensus” recognizing global warming and how human activity seriously contributes to it. He said all who believe in God and all people of goodwill have an obligation to take steps to mitigate climate change, clean the land and the seas, and start treating all of creation – including the unborn and the poor – with respect and concern.
As a follow-up to “Laudato Si’,” and with a view to the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Dubai, the pope published “Laudate Deum” (“Praise God”) in October 2023. He insisted on the importance of listening to the scientific community and on the need to build an inclusive culture of caring for the common home through personal action and national and international institutions.
Just as he turned to St. Francis of Assisi’s love for creation in “Laudato Si’,” he turned to the saint’s teaching on “fraternal openness” for his encyclical, “Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship,” signed at the tomb of the Assisi saint and released on the saint’s feast day, Oct. 4, 2020.
Believing in God as creator of all people carries with it an obligation “to acknowledge, appreciate and love each person, regardless of physical proximity, regardless of where he or she was born or lives,” he wrote.
Of course, the pope expressed his concern for the poor not only in words but through gestures such as celebrating his birthday with homeless people and insisting that a visit — and often a meal — with people assisted by a Catholic charity be part of most of his trips within Italy and abroad.
For Pope Francis, helping the defenseless also meant paying special attention to prisoners, victims of war and, particularly, Christians and other religious minorities persecuted for their faith.
Meeting in October 2014 with an international criminal law group, Pope Francis said, “All Christians and people of goodwill are called today to work not only for abolition of the death penalty — whether it be legal or illegal and in all its forms — but also to improve prison conditions out of respect for the human dignity of persons deprived of their liberty. And this, I connect with life imprisonment. … Life imprisonment is a hidden death penalty.”
In August 2018, saying he was building on the development of Catholic Church teaching against capital punishment, Pope Francis ordered a revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to assert “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person” and to commit the church to working toward its abolition worldwide.
Throughout his papacy, Pope Francis continued the tradition of popes being an untiring voice for peace, urging an end to armed conflict, supporting dialogue and encouraging reconciliation. He called Russia’s war on Ukraine “madness” and called on the world’s bishops to join him in consecrating Ukraine and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. He was vocal in seeking peace for Ukraine and throughout the Middle East, and he worked with Anglican and Presbyterian leaders for peace in South Sudan, visiting Juba with the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury and the moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland in February.
REFORMING THE VATICAN
Elected with a mandate to reform the Roman Curia, Pope Francis told the College of Cardinals in February 2015, “The aim to reach is that of promoting greater harmony” and collaboration among Vatican offices “with the absolute transparency that builds up authentic synodality and collegiality,” or shared responsibility for the good of the whole church. “The reform is not an end in itself, but a way to give a strong Christian witness, to promote more effective evangelization, a more fruitful ecumenical spirit and encourage a more constructive dialogue with all.”
Just two months earlier, the pope grabbed people’s attention when he turned his traditional Christmas talk to curial officials into an exercise for them in the “examination of conscience.” He asked them to think about how they might have fallen prey to a host of spiritual ills, including “spiritual Alzheimer’s,” “existential schizophrenia,” seeking publicity, the “terrorism of gossip” and even a poor sense of humor.
On March 19, 2022, the ninth anniversary of the inauguration of his papacy, he finally promulgated “Praedicate Evangelium” (“Preach the Gospel”), his complete restructuring of central church offices to emphasize the church’s missionary focus and the Curia’s role as assisting the pope and local bishops.
Pope Francis also launched investigations of the Vatican’s accounting practices and the Vatican bank and expanded the reach of Vatican City laws against money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
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SCRANTON – On Monday, April 21, 2025, the Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, released the following statement upon the death of Pope Francis.
Just hours before his death, Pope Francis appeared on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to deliver his Easter blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world) at the Vatican April 20, 2025. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
“I join with Catholics from the Diocese of Scranton and around the world today in grieving the death of our beloved Holy Father, Pope Francis, who returned to the house of our Heavenly Father in the morning hours of Easter Monday, shortly after sharing his blessing upon the world on Easter Sunday.
“While we feel an overwhelming sense of loss, we are comforted by the incredible legacy of love, compassion and mercy that Pope Francis bestowed upon the Church – a legacy that will continue to inspire and guide us well into the future.
“Pope Francis will long be remembered as a shepherd who drew us all closer to the heart of Christ. During his 12 years as pope, and more than 50 years as a priest, Pope Francis made it his mission to share the endless compassion of God. His words, which I have often quoted in my homilies, always pointed us toward the essential truths of our faith – that God is love, that mercy is the cornerstone of our salvation, and that our mission is to reflect that divine mercy in our daily lives.
“During one of the defining moments of Pope Francis’ papacy, his proclamation of the Year of Mercy in 2015-2016, he called the entire Church to reflect on the richness of God’s mercy, reminding us that we are all invited to experience and share this mercy with one another, especially those most in need. His focus on God’s mercy – and that no one can be excluded from it – was not just an abstract teaching. It permeated his words and actions, from his encounters with the poor and marginalized, to his tireless efforts to foster peace and reconciliation around the globe.
“Pope Francis’ ministry was a living witness to the Gospel message. By putting Christ at the center of his life, he was able to demonstrate his great love for the poor, was able to use his voice to call for the care of creation, and worked tirelessly to build bridges of understanding among all Christians.
“Like so many people, I will never forget Pope Francis standing alone, delivering a blessing in an empty, rain-slicked Saint Peter’s Square in March 2020, during the height of the coronavirus, bringing hope to a desperate world. During those days, while so many were facing fear, isolation, and uncertainty, through his words and actions, Pope Francis reminded the world that Christ – and the Eucharist – are our true signs of hope.
“As we mourn the passing of Pope Francis, I ask the people of the Diocese of Scranton to offer their prayers for the peaceful repose of his soul. May God grant him the gift of eternal life and bring comfort to those who mourn his passing.
“In gratitude for his life and teachings – I will celebrate a special Diocesan Memorial Mass for Pope Francis on Tuesday, April 22, 2025, at 12:10 p.m. at the Cathedral of Saint Peter in Scranton. All are invited to attend.
“Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen.”
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The hope Christians have is not a sign of avoiding reality but of trusting in the power of God to defeat sin and death as the resurrection of Jesus clearly shows, Pope Francis wrote in his Easter message.
“All those who put their hope in God place their feeble hands in his strong and mighty hand; they let themselves be raised up and set out on a journey,” said the message, read before Pope Francis gave his Easter blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world) April 20.
The pope’s voice was weak, as it has been since he was released from the hospital March 23, and he barely raised his arms as he made the sign of the cross, but the tens of thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square were appreciative and clapped loudly after saying, “Amen.”
Pope Francis appears on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to deliver his Easter blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world) at the Vatican April 20, 2025. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
“Together with the risen Jesus,” he wrote in his message, those who trust in God “become pilgrims of hope, witnesses of the victory of love and of the disarmed power of life.”
The 88-year-old pope, who is still recovering from pneumonia, was not present at the Easter morning Mass in St. Peter’s Square but arrived shortly after noon to give the solemn blessing.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance and his family did not attend the Mass either, but Vance arrived at the Vatican at about 11:30 a.m. for a private meeting with Pope Francis in the papal residence, the Domus Sanctae Marthae. The Vatican said the meeting lasted just a few minutes and allowed the two to exchange Easter greetings.
Vance had met April 19 with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, and with Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, the Vatican foreign minister. The Vatican said they discussed efforts to defend religious freedom as well as the international situation, especially regarding countries affected by war, political tensions and difficult humanitarian situations, with particular attention to migrants, refugees and prisoners.”
Security in and around St. Peter’s Square was tight. Just outside the square, an Italian army officer manned a large anti-drone gun, which he said uses electromagnetic pulses to disable the drone operator’s ability to control it.
With his voice still weak, Pope Francis wished everyone a Happy Easter and then asked his master of liturgical ceremonies, Archbishop Diego Ravelli, to read his message, which insisted that “Easter is the celebration of life!”
“God created us for life and wants the human family to rise again,” he wrote. “In his eyes, every life is precious! The life of a child in the mother’s womb, as well as the lives of the elderly and the sick, who in more and more countries are looked upon as people to be discarded.”
Pope Francis condemned the “great thirst for death” seen in violence and wars around the world and in the “contempt” people, including government leaders, direct toward “the vulnerable, the marginalized and migrants!”
As is traditional for the message, the pope also prayed for peace in war-torn nations, mentioning by name: Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, Yemen, Sudan, South Sudan, Congo and Myanmar.
Pope Francis condemned “the growing climate of antisemitism throughout the world.” But he also called attention to “the people of Gaza, and its Christian community in particular, where the terrible conflict continues to cause death and destruction and to create a dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation.”
“I appeal to the warring parties: call a ceasefire, release the hostages and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace,” the papal message said.
Pope Francis had chosen Cardinal Angelo Comastri, retired archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, to be his delegate to preside over the morning Mass and read his homily.
Some 50,000 tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, roses and other flowers and bushes decorated the steps leading up to St. Peter’s Basilica while garlands framed the main entrance to the atrium of the basilica and adorned the central balcony.
Because Easter fell on the same day on the Julian and Gregorian calendars, meaning Catholic and Orthodox were celebrating on the same day, the Vatican added Byzantine “stichera” or hymns and “stichos” or Psalm verses after the chanting of the Gospel in Latin and in Greek.
The homily the pope prepared focused on the Easter Gospel’s description of Mary Magdalene running to tells the disciples that Jesus had risen and Peter and John running to verify the news.
Running, the pope wrote, “expresses the desire, the yearning of the heart, the inner attitude of those who set out to search for Jesus.”
And because he has risen from the dead, people must look for Jesus in someplace other than the tomb, the pope’s text said.
“We must take action, set out to look for him: look for him in life, look for him in the faces of our brothers and sisters,” he said. “We must look for him without ceasing. Because if he has risen from the dead, then he is present everywhere, he dwells among us, he hides himself and reveals himself even today in the sisters and brothers we meet along the way, in the most ordinary and unpredictable situations of our lives.”
Jesus “is alive and is with us always, shedding the tears of those who suffer and adding to the beauty of life through the small acts of love carried out by each of us,” Pope Francis wrote.
After the Mass, the Easter blessing, Pope Francis got in the popemobile and rode around St. Peter’s Square, waving to the crowd and blessing babies.
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) – As the lights of St. Peter’s Basilica were extinguished and silence settled through the sprawling interior, a single flame — the paschal candle — pierced through the gloom, representing the light of the risen Christ which “quietly shines forth, even though we are in darkness,” Pope Francis said.
Before the wounds of selfishness and violence present throughout the world, “the promise of new life and a world finally set free awaits us; and a new beginning, however impossible it might seem, can take us by surprise, for Christ has triumphed over death,” he wrote in his prepared homily for the Easter Vigil at the Vatican April 19.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, inserts wax nails representing Christ’s wounds into the paschal candle in the atrium of St. Peter’s Basilica at the beginning of the Easter Vigil Mass at the Vatican April 19, 2025. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)
The pope, still recovering from respiratory infections, did not attend the Mass but he made an appearance in the basilica earlier in the day to pray, and upon exiting, he greeted a group of pilgrims from Pittsburgh present there. His homily at the Easter Vigil was read by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals.
The vigil began in the atrium of the basilica with the blessing of the fire and lighting of the paschal candle. A deacon carried the candle into the darkened church, chanting “lumen Christi” (“the light of Christ”) three times, to which the congregation responded, “Deo gratias” (“thanks be to God”). As the flame was shared among the faithful, candles throughout the basilica were lit and the lights gradually rose.
After the clergy — 34 cardinals, 24 bishops and 260 concelebrating priests — processed to the altar, the Exsultet, the solemn Easter proclamation, was sung by Deacon Nicholas Monnin, a seminarian from the Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend studying at the Pontifical North American College in Rome.
In the Exsultet, the deacon invited all of creation to rejoice in the light of Christ, a theme echoed in the pope’s homily.
“The light of the Resurrection illumines our path one step at a time; quietly, it breaks through the darkness of history and shines in our hearts, calling for the response of a humble faith, devoid of all triumphalism,” Pope Francis wrote.
The pope acknowledged that the Resurrection does not erase the suffering of the world but enters into it. “We cannot celebrate Easter without continuing to deal with the nights that dwell in our hearts and the shadows of death that so often loom over our world,” he said in his written message.
“Christ indeed conquered sin and destroyed death,” he wrote. “Yet in our earthly history the power of his Resurrection is still being brought to fulfilment. And that fulfilment, like a small seed of light, has been entrusted to us, to protect it and to make it grow.”
During the Mass, Cardinal Re baptized three catechumens: two Italians and one Albanian. He also confirmed them and gave them their first Communion.
In his homily, the pope emphasized that the Resurrection is not a private consolation but a call to witness for all Christians.
Through small, everyday actions and decisions inspired by the Gospel “our whole life can be a presence of hope,” he wrote. “We want to be that presence for those who lack faith in the Lord, for those who have lost their way, for those who have given up or are weighed down by life; for those who are alone or overwhelmed by their sufferings; for all the poor and oppressed in our world; for the many women who are humiliated and killed; for the unborn and for children who are mistreated; and for the victims of war.”
“In the risen Jesus,” the pope added, “we have the certainty that our personal history and that of our human family, albeit still immersed in a dark night where lights seem distant and dim, are nonetheless in God’s hands.”
The Holy Year 2025, Pope Francis said, is a time for renewed faith and action for Christians. “We should feel strongly within us the summons to let the hope of Easter blossom in our lives and in the world!”
“Let us make room for the light of the risen Lord,” he wrote, “and we will become builders of hope for the world.”
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Against the backdrop of deep differences with the Trump administration over migration and foreign aid as well as concerns for Ukraine and for Gaza, the Vatican secretary of state welcomed U.S. Vice President JD Vance to the Vatican.
Vance met with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, and with Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, the Vatican foreign minister, April 19 in the Apostolic Palace.
A Vatican statement said areas of agreement, such as the defense of religious freedom, as well as the areas of tension with the Trump administration were discussed.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, shakes hands with U.S. Vice President JD Vance during a meeting in the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican April 19, 2025. Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, the Vatican foreign minister, looks on. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
“There was an exchange of opinions on the international situation, especially regarding countries affected by war, political tensions and difficult humanitarian situations, with particular attention to migrants, refugees and prisoners,” the Vatican statement said.
While “other issues of mutual interest were also discussed,” the Vatican said that “hope was expressed for serene collaboration between the State and the Catholic Church in the United States, whose valuable service to the most vulnerable people was acknowledged.”
The vice president arrived at the Vatican with his wife, Usha, and three children: Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel. Cardinal Parolin greeted all of them before holding talks with Vance and his entourage.
Vance was in Rome for talks with the Italian government and, with his family, was visiting tourist sites in the city and participating in Holy Week and Easter services. The Vance family attended the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion in St. Peter’s Basilica April 18 and was expected to attend Easter morning Mass in St. Peter’s Square April 20.
A quick encounter with Pope Francis was possible Easter morning but was not scheduled officially as the pope continues to recover after a long hospitalization.
The pope, in a letter to U.S. bishops in early February, strongly supported their traditional assistance to migrants and refugees and criticized threats and policies of “mass deportations” announced by Trump and vigorously defended by Vance.
Pope Francis had described Trump’s immigration policy as a “major crisis.”
Every nation has the right to defend itself and keep its communities safe “from those who have committed violent or serious crimes while in the country or prior to arrival,” the pope had written. However, “the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness.”
In a January interview, Vance, who joined the Catholic Church in 2019, questioned the motives of the U.S. bishops’ criticism of Trump’s immigration policies, suggesting their objection to the suspension of a federal refugee resettlement program had to do with “their bottom line.”
The pope and the U.S. bishops noted that helping the stranger is a Gospel tenet and, the bishops said, their work with refugees cost more than the government grants covered.
Pope Francis’ February letter also responded to an assertion Vance made in a Fox News interview about the Catholic concept of “ordo amoris” (the order of love or charity).
The concept, Vance said, teaches that “you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country. And then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.”
However, the pope said, “Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. In other words: the human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings!”
In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica April 18, Cardinal Parolin said the Vatican supported approaching global problems with “multilateralism and a policy based on cooperation among states, international law and diplomacy, rather than on opposition and the logic of power.”
Asked about the Trump administration’s growing frustration at not ending Russia’s war on Ukraine, a frustration that seems focused on Ukraine’s unwillingness to cede territory, Cardinal Parolin responded, “As Pope Francis has repeatedly reminded us, peace cannot be imposed, it is built patiently, day after day, through dialogue and mutual respect.”
At the same time, the cardinal said, “anything that promotes a just and lasting peace is to be considered helpful.”
Cardinal Parolin also was asked about Israel’s continuing bombardment of Gaza and Trump’s remarks that Palestinians whose homes have been destroyed in Gaza should be resettled elsewhere and the territory turned into a “Riviera.”
“For the Holy See,” the cardinal said, “the principles of the social doctrine of the church remain clear: Self-defense is lawful, but it can never imply the total or partial annihilation of another people or the denial of their right to live in their own land.”
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ROME (CNS) – Today’s “builders of Babel” are constructing a hell on earth, rejecting everyone they decide are “losers,” Pope Francis wrote in the meditations for the Way of the Cross.
“Your way, Jesus, is the way of the Beatitudes. It does not crush, but cultivates, repairs and protects,” the pope wrote for the nighttime ceremony April 18 in Rome’s Colosseum.
“Today’s builders of Babel tell us that there is no room for losers, and that those who fall along the way are losers. Theirs is the construction site of hell,” he wrote. “God’s economy, on the other hand, does not kill, discard or crush. It is lowly, faithful to the earth.”
A large illuminated cross is displayed before the start of the Way of the Cross outside the Colosseum in Rome April 18, 2025. (CNS photo/Pablo Esparza)
Each year, the pope usually chooses a different person or group of people to write the series of prayers and reflections that are read aloud for each of the 14 stations, which commemorate Christ’s condemnation, his carrying the cross to Golgotha, his crucifixion and his burial. However, the pope himself wrote the commentaries and prayers for the Holy Year this year like he did for last year’s Year of Prayer.
For the third year in a row, Pope Francis was scheduled to follow the nighttime Way of the Cross service from his Vatican residence for health reasons as an expected 25,000 people gathered outside the ancient amphitheater.
Cardinal Baldassare Reina, papal vicar of Rome, was designated to fill in for the pope, presiding over the Good Friday ceremony and offering the final blessing at the end. Representatives of different groups were to take turns carrying a bare wooden cross, including: migrants, young people, people with disabilities, volunteers, charity workers, educators and members of “Ordo Viduarum,” a group of widows who serve the church.
The pope’s commentaries and prayers this year looked at how “the road to Calvary passes through the streets we tread each day.”
Jesus came to change the world and, “for us, that means changing direction, seeing the goodness of your path, letting the memory of your glance transform our hearts,” he wrote in his introduction.
“We need only hear his invitation: ‘Come! Follow me!’ And trust in that gaze of love,” and from there “everything blossoms anew,” he wrote, and places torn by conflict can move toward reconciliation, and “a heart of stone can turn into a heart of flesh.”
For the first station, “Jesus is condemned to death,” the pope highlighted how Jesus respects human freedom and trusts everyone by placing himself “in our hands.”
Pilate could have freed Jesus, but “he chose not to,” the pope wrote, asking the faithful to reflect on how “we have been prisoners of the roles we choose to continue playing, fearful of the challenge of a change in the direction of our lives.”
“We can learn marvelous lessons from this: how to free those unjustly accused, how to acknowledge the complexity of situations, how to protest lethal judgments,” the pope wrote, because it is Jesus who is “silently standing before us, in every one of our sisters and brothers exposed to judgment and bigotry.”
“Religious disputes, legal quibbles, the so-called common sense that keeps us from getting involved in the fate of others: a thousand reasons drag us to the side of Herod, the priests, Pilate and the crowd. Yet, it could be otherwise,” he wrote.
For the second station, “Jesus carries his cross,” the pope wrote that the bigger burden is trying to avoid the cross and evade responsibility.
“All we need to do,” he wrote, “is to stop running away and to remain in the company of those you have given us, to bind ourselves to them, recognizing that only in this way can we stop being prisoners of ourselves.”
“Selfishness burdens us more than the cross. Indifference burdens us more than sharing,” the pope wrote.
For the seventh station, “Jesus falls the second time,” the pope underlined how Jesus was not afraid to stumble and fall.
“All those who are embarrassed by this, those who want to appear infallible, who hide their own falls yet refuse to pardon those of others, reject the path that you chose,” he wrote.
“In you, all of us were found and brought home, like the one sheep that had gone astray,” his meditation said.
“An economy in which the ninety-nine are more important than the one is inhumane. Yet we have built a world that works like that: a world of calculation and algorithms, of cold logic and implacable interests,” he wrote.
However, he wrote, “when we turn our hearts to you, who fall and rise again, we experience a change of course and a change of pace. A conversion that restores our joy and brings us safely home.”
In his prayer for the 11th station, “Jesus is nailed to the cross,” the pope asked that people pray to God to “teach us to love” when “we are bound by unjust laws or decisions,” when “we are at odds with those uninterested in truth and justice, and when everyone says, “There is nothing to be done.”
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Jesus, who redeemed humanity by giving up his life on the cross, shows that it is not strength that saves the world, but the “weakness” of boundless love, the papal preacher told thousands of people gathered for the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion, including U.S. Vice President JD Vance.
Today’s world, which is “marked by the myth of performance and seduced by the idol of individualism, struggles to recognize moments of defeat or passivity as possible places of fulfillment,” Capuchin Father Roberto Pasolini, preacher of the papal household, said in his homily April 18 in St. Peter’s Basilica.
The Good Friday service, which commemorates Christ’s passion and death on the cross, was presided over by Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Dicastery for Eastern Churches. But, following tradition, the homily was delivered by the preacher of the papal household.
Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Dicastery for Eastern Churches, concludes the Good Friday Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican April 18, 2025. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)
Pope Francis, who was not present at the service, had asked different cardinals to lead the different liturgical events over Holy Week and Easter as he continues to recover from double pneumonia and a lengthy hospitalization.
Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, attended the liturgy with his wife, Usha, a practicing Hindu, and his three children after meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni earlier in the day. He was in Rome for private talks with Italian and Vatican officials; he was scheduled to meet with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, April 19.
In a post on X April 18 before the liturgy, the vice president said, “I’m grateful every day for this job, but particularly today where my official duties have brought me to Rome on Good Friday.”
“I had a great meeting with Prime Minister Meloni and her team, and will head to church soon with my family in this beautiful city. I wish all Christians all over the world, but particularly those back home in the US, a blessed Good Friday. He died so that we might live,” Vance wrote.
In his homily, Father Pasolini said that Jesus, nailed to the cross and stripped of everything, “chooses to give us his life and his Spirit entirely. It is not a passive surrender, but an act of supreme freedom, accepting weakness as the place where love can become full.”
“It is not autonomy or great feats that give meaning to life, but the ability to transform limitations into an opportunity for giving. With this gesture, Jesus reveals to us that it is not strength that saves the world, but the weakness of love that holds nothing back and surrenders itself,” he said.
The priest explained the importance of contemplating and venerating the cross during the liturgy as an opportunity to renew one’s trust “in the way God chose to save the world” and in recognizing the cross is “the only possible direction of our lives.”
“We know well that our strength will not be sufficient to accomplish this journey, but the Holy Spirit, who has already filled our hearts with sweet hope, will come to the aid of our weakness to remind us of the most important thing: Just as we have been loved, so we will be able to love — friends and even enemies,” he said.
“When pain, fatigue, loneliness or fear lay us bare, we are all tempted to shut down, to stiffen up, to feign self-sufficiency,” he said. Yet it is during those moments that the truest love becomes possible, when one does not impose oneself, but allows oneself to be helped.
“Asking for what we need, and allowing others to offer it to us, is perhaps one of the highest and most humble forms of love,” Father Pasolini said.
“To do so, we need only to abandon all pride, but also all illusions that we can save ourselves with our own strength. And to recognize that we cannot, and, above all, do not want to live all on our own,” he said.
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ROME (CNS) – While he did not celebrate Mass or wash the feet of inmates, Pope Francis made his customary Holy Thursday visit to a detention facility, arriving at Rome’s Regina Coeli jail at about 3 p.m. April 17.
The pope was welcomed by Claudia Clementi, the jail’s director, and met with about 70 inmates in the building’s rotunda, a space where various wings of the jail intersect. The inmates who joined the pope are those who regularly participate in the jail’s religious education program, the Vatican press office said.
In 2018 the pope had celebrated the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper at Regina Coeli, which is less than a mile from the Vatican. But his continuing convalescence, after spending more than a month in the hospital, meant there was no Mass or foot washing ritual.
Pope Francis greets inmates during a Holy Thursday visit to Rome’s Regina Coeli jail April 17, 2025. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
Pope Francis told the inmates, “Every year I like to do what Jesus did on Holy Thursday, washing feet, in a prison,” the Vatican said. “This year I cannot do it, but I can and want to be close to you. I pray for you and your families.”
The pope personally greeted each of the people in the rotonda, prayed the Lord’s Prayer with them and gave his blessing.
Vatican photos of the visit also show him in the prison yard waving at inmates looking out the barred windows of their cells and waving from the rotonda to inmates pressed together against an iron and glass door hoping to see him.
The Italian Ministry of Justice website said that as of April 16, there were 1,098 men detained in the jail awaiting trial or sentencing. The facility is designed to hold fewer than 700 prisoners.
As he left the prison, sitting in the front passenger seat of a small car, he stopped to speak to reporters and told them, “Every time I enter these doors, I ask myself, ‘Why them and not me?'”
He has explained on several occasions that all people are sinners, himself included, but grace, providence, family upbringing and other factors play a determining role.
Pope Francis, who was elected in 2013, has continued a Holy Thursday practice he began as archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina: usually celebrating the Mass of the Lord’s Supper at a prison or detention facility and washing the feet of inmates.
In his first year as pope, he set aside the usual papal practice of washing the feet of 12 priests during a public celebration of the Holy Thursday Mass by going to a juvenile detention facility and washing the feet of Catholic and non-Catholic teens. He returned to the same jail in 2023 to wash the feet of young men and women.
In 2014, he washed the feet of people with severe physical handicaps at a rehabilitation center, and in 2016, he celebrated the liturgy and foot-washing ritual at a center for migrants and refugees.
On Holy Thursday in 2020, the COVID lockdown led the pope to celebrate the Mass at the Vatican with a small congregation and omit the optional foot-washing ritual.
Pope Francis also has celebrated the Mass at prisons outside Rome — in the towns of Paliano, Velletri and Civitavecchia.
After the pope’s “private” visit to Regina Coeli, Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, celebrated the basilica’s parish Mass of the Lord’s Supper.
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Bishop Bambera’s 2025 Easter Message
Dear Friends,
“Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised.”
These words from Saint Luke proclaimed this year during the great Vigil of Easter, point to the foundation of our hope as Christians. They are words that beckon us forth – just as they did for the first followers of Jesus – to confront the reality of His resurrection and the miracle of Easter.
They are also words that have endured for two millennia and have provided consolation and peace for all who have turned to the Church to encounter God’s mercy and to find a way forward amid a broken, suffering world.
The Resurrection is depicted in this 17th-century painting. Easter, the chief feast in the liturgical calendars of all Christian churches, commemorates Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead. Easter is celebrated April 20 this year. (OSV News artwork/Bridgeman Images)
Sadly, however, not unlike the experience of the early Church, for all that we affirm as Christians, life continues to confront us with suffering and death. We have only to look to the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, to lands around the globe that are enveloped by political unrest and disrespect for human life, to our own country fraught with division, fear and hatred, not to mention to the grief and pain that we so often experience in our families and personal lives. The scope of suffering that is present throughout our world is incomprehensible.
Yet, despite the burdens that are borne by so many, if we are humble and wise enough to open our lives to the power of God, every one of us can point to the life-giving presence of the Risen One in our midst.
Indeed, in announcing the Jubilee Year of Hope that we’re blessed to experience this year, Pope Francis invited us to focus on the miracle of Easter.
“The death and resurrection of Jesus,” he proclaimed, “is the heart of our faith and the very basis of our hope” as Christians.
As such, in as much as we are the blessed recipients of this hope, Jesus’ gift of Himself on the cross also becomes a pattern for our lives as His disciples.
“During this Holy Year,” the Holy Father has reminded us, “we are also called to be signs of hope for those of our brothers and sisters who experience hardships of any kind.” … Don’t underestimate “the value of a smile, a gesture of friendship, a kind look, a ready ear, a good deed, in the knowledge that, in the Spirit of the risen Jesus, these can become, for those who receive them, rich seeds of hope” – signs of the resurrection!
God’s power to transform our lives abounds. The sublime gift of God’s love, manifested through the Paschal Mystery, turns the logic of our world upside down. And the Church, the body of believers in and through which the risen Christ is present in our world, continues to be our greatest hope – not because of our righteousness but because of the wideness of God’s mercy.
One of the greatest signs of the Church’s credibility is the presence of those who have responded to the Lord’s call and opened their hearts to the life-giving waters of Baptism and a renewed sense of determination to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.
On Holy Saturday night, 215 catechumens and candidates from throughout the Diocese of Scranton will be baptized into the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and present themselves for full communion in the Catholic Church. These catechumens and candidates – our relatives, neighbors and friends – will join with tens of thousands of catechumens and candidates from around the world to publicly profess their faith in Jesus Christ and to assume their place in his body, the Church. Their very presence in our midst affirms the reality of the living God continually at work in and through his daughters and sons who proclaim his word, experience his life in the sacraments and live his gospel in humble service.
Sisters and brothers, we are blessed beyond measure by the merciful presence of God alive in our midst. Thank you for your dedicated service to the Gospel and for all that you do to build up the local Church of Scranton and to care for one another in the spirit of the Risen Christ. Your faithful and selfless ways, your prayers and your service of the least among us are visible signs to our world that Christ’s presence has indeed been made manifest through the communion of love, which is our Church.
As we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus – the great feast of our redemption and our reason for hope – may we give thanks, rejoice and be glad!
