Pope Francis twirls a football presented by a member of the Circus of Cuba, during his weekly general audience in the Vatican in 2019 (AP) -
With humility and compassion for the poor and disadvantaged, Pope Francis led the Roman Catholic Church from his ordination in in 2013 until his death on Easter Monday.
The 88-year-old pontiff had emerged from his convalescence after suffering pneumonia just a day before on Easter Sunday to bless the thousands of people in St Peter’s Square in Vatican City.
Pope Francis tours St Peter’s Square in his popemobile after bestowing the Urbi et Orbi (Latin for to the city and to the world) blessing at the end of the Easter mass in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Sunday (Andrew Medichini/AP) (AP)Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, as a teenager in Buenos Aires, Argentina (Bergoglio family photo via AP) (AP)The Pope with a group of Syrian refugees who arrived in Italy with the pontiff’s charter plane after his visit to the Greek island of Lesbos in 2016 (Filippo Monteforte/Pool Photo via AP) (AP)
During his papacy, Francis spoke out passionately on the plight of migrants fleeing war and poverty, the pressing need to protect the environment and tackle climate change, and what he saw as the iniquities of unfettered capitalism.
An Amazonian indigenous girl gives Pope Francis a plant during the offertory of a mass in 2019 Alessandra Tarantino/AP) (AP)The Pope prays near the US-Mexico border fence along the Rio Grande, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico in 2016 (Gregorio Borgia/AP) (AP)Francis dons a headdress gifted to him during a visit with Indigenous peoples at Maskwaci in Alberta, Canada (Eric Gay/AP) (AP)During a visit to East Timor, Francis was welcomed to Dili by young dancers (Gregorio Borgia/AP) (AP)
Seen as an outsider when he was chosen to succeed Benedict XVI, the Argentine was the first Latin American and the first Jesuit to lead the Roman Catholic Church.
Francis kisses a baby passed to him in St Peter’s Square (Andrew Medichini/AP) (AP)Pope Francis tries to catch his cap as wind blows it away while arriving for his weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square in 2024 (Andrew Medichini/AP) (AP)The Pope waves to the faithful in St Peter’s Square in Rome after the historic canonisation of Popes John XXIII and John Paul II in 2014 (Niall Carson/PA) (PA Wire)Francis blesses a young girl queuing for communion during the closing mass of his visit to Ireland at Dublin’s Phoenix park in August 2014 (PA) (PA Wire)
Francis also met world leaders and royalty, with the King and Queen among the most recent visitors granted an audience during their trip to Rome earlier this month.
The King and Queen meet Pope Francis during a private audience on April 9 (The Vatican/PA) (PA Wire)The Pope met Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh in 2014 during their visit to the Vatican (PA) (PA Wire)Then-prime minister Rishi Sunak welcomed the Pope ahead of a session during the G7 leaders’ summit in Puglia Italy in June last year (PA) (PA Wire)The Pope reaches to embrace Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill after signing a joint declaration in Cuba in 2016 (Gregorio Borgia/AP) (AP)The Pole met Iraq’s leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf in 2021, becoming the first pope to visit both the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq (Vatican Media/AP) (AP)Francis, left, meets pope emeritus Benedict XVI, who served as the leader of the Catholic Church before him, in 2013 (AP) (AP)
