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LAST UPDATE | 2 hrs ago
POPE FRANCIS HAS died at the age of 88.
In a statement, the Vatican said: “Pope Francis died on Easter Monday, April 21, 2025, at the age of 88 at his residence in the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta.”
He was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on 17 December 1936, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
His Italian grandparents emigrated to Argentina in 1929, travelling third-class on a boat while his grandmother hid her possessions in the lining of her jacket.
Francis was also the head of the Jesuit order in Argentina from 1973 to 1979, during the country’s brutal military dictatorship.
Following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI on 28 February 2013, a papal conclave elected the then-Argentine cardinal as his successor on 13 March 2013.
He was the first pontiff to adopt the papal name Francis, and did so in honour of St Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of the poor and animals.
Francis was also the first Jesuit to become pope.
Francis was admitted to the Gemelli hospital in Rome on Friday 14 February for bronchitis and his hospital stay was later extended due to a “complex clinical picture”.
The Pope asked for more openness about his health as he received treatment and evening updates provided by the Vatican revealed the seriousness of his condition in stark terms.
Francis’s bronchitis later developed into pneumonia in both lungs, which sparked widespread alarm as he had part of a lung removed as a young man.
Francis spent 38 days in hospital before he was released on 23 March, and he had faced two “critical episodes” while hospitalised which put his life in imminent danger.
He was seen in St Peter’s Basilica recently, greeting people without his usual papal attire on 10 April. He also met with US vice-president JD Vance yesterday and also wished the crowds on St Peter’s Square a “Happy Easter” as he waved and in his traditional “Urbi et Orbi” (“To the City and the World”) benediction he called for freedom of thought and tolerance.
This morning, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, sadly announced the death of Pope Francis, with these words:
“Dear brothers and sisters, it is with deep sorrow that I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis.
“At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and His Church.
“He taught us to live the values of the Gospel with fidelity, courage and universal love, especially in favour of the poorest and most marginalised.
“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 One and Triune God.”
Francis made tackling climate change one of the cornerstones of his papacy and published an encyclical in 2015 titled Laudato Si, which called for “swift and unified global action” to tackle climate change.
Earlier this year, he became the first sitting pope to publish a memoir and in it, he hit out at the “hypocrisy” surrounding his decision to allow blessings for same-sex couples and labelled some of Israel’s actions in Gaza as “terrorism”.
Francis was working right up to his hospitalisation and in one of his last public actions, he weighed in on US politics, criticising US president Donald Trump’s deportation plans.
He also explicitly rejected vice president JD Vance’s attempts to use Catholic theology to justify the administration’s crackdown on immigration.
Francis continued to work while in hospital, spending 20 minutes with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, keeping in contact with the only Catholic parish in Gaza, and working with his “closest collaborators”.
Indeed, doctors initially said they were afraid to send him back to the Santa Marta apartments as they feared he would “start working again as before”.
In October, Francis named 21 new cardinals in a move that cemented his mark on the group that will soon gather to elect his successor.
One of the people elected to the College of Cardinals by Francis was Father Timothy Radcliffe.
Radcliffe has often publicly challenged the Catholic Church’s teaching on LGBTQ+ issues and publicly raised the issue during the first phase of the Church’s historic Synod in 2023.
In his autobiography, Francis revealed that he had a “feeling” that his papacy would be “brief, no more than three or four years”.
“I never imagined that I would have made all those journeys to more than sixty countries,” he wrote.
One of these countries included Ireland. Francis arrived for a two-day visit in August 2018 as part of the World Meeting of Families, a Catholic festival held every three years in a different country to discuss what it means to be a Catholic family.
During a mass in the Phoenix Park, the pope asked forgiveness for “abuses in Ireland, abuses of power, conscience and sexual abuses” perpetrated by Church leaders.
Elsewhere in Dublin, a large crowd marched in silence to remember abuse victims and express their anger and hurt over the Catholic Church’s historical role in Irish life.
Francis also revealed in his autobiography that he will not be buried in St Peter’s Basilica, writing: “The Vatican is the home of my last service, not my eternal home.”
Instead, Francis will be buried at the Santa Maria Maggiore, one of four papal basilicas in Rome.
He also described the funeral service planned for him as “excessive” and “arranged with the master of ceremonies to lighten it”.
“No catafalque, no ceremony for the closure of the casket, nor the deposition of the cypress casket into a second of lead and a third of oak,” wrote Francis.
“With dignity, but like any Christian, because the bishop of Rome is a pastor and a disciple, not a powerful man of this world.”
In his memoir, Francis said he had received many blessings but when reflecting on his own mortality, he asked “the Lord for just one more”.
“Look after me. Let it happen whenever You wish, but, as You know, I’m not very brave when it comes to physical pain… So, please, don’t make me suffer too much.”
And further reflecting on his own death, Francis wrote: “Our time is pressing: When you want to seize today, it is already yesterday; and if you want to seize tomorrow, it is not yet there.
“These years of my papacy have been a life of tension, looking beyond.
“The journey of the Church, our lives, the foundation of our joy, the reason for our hope – these are dependent on the Lord, and certainly not on convenience or trends.
“And when we are rather more tired, the Lord knows even when to take us in his arms.”
Official health updates provided to the media during the pontiff’s hospitalisation stressed that Francis had been regularly sitting in an armchair in his room, and he was said to be in good spirits in the days after his admission in mid-February.
However confirmation that he had developed pneumonia in both lungs sparked widespread alarm, especially because he had part of his right lung cut away when he was 21, after developing pleurisy that almost killed him.
He had been using a wheelchair since 2022 because of persistent knee pain and then used a cane during rare moments standing up.
In recent years, Francis also had colon and hernia surgery.
While Francis said that “even during the days of surgery I never thought of resigning”, he nevertheless acknowledged that resigning was “always a possibility” and that had he resigned, he would have remained in Rome, “as emeritus bishop”.
Francis also wrote in his memoir that he “had the feeling” his papacy would be “brief, no more than three or four years”.
“I never imagined that I would have made all those journeys to more than sixty countries,” he wrote.
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Heartbreaking.
Unimaginable pain waking up not knowing what happened to your kid .
I was in college in Dublin when he went missing. It struck a chord with those of us around his age.
I hope some new and relevant information will be found.
I’m exactly the same Philip and I remember the story and his face just stuck with me so well. I can’t imagine how his family feel if it struck us all at that time so deep. Some closure is really needed on his case.
It was a horrible windy wet night when Trevor disappeared. I used to work in the area and remember all the volunteers sticking “Missing” notices up as the days went on and on. God bless his poor family not knowing what happened.
Honestly though what the hell happened to this guy ? This story still to this day gives me the chills ! he literally vanished into thin air ! Scary. Heart goes out to the family.
Many think he slipped into the canal and locks were open/opened later and out to liffey then sea. Its v sad. I remember this case well.
@Boo!-Fight the Board: That would need grand canal docks to be empty.
Did he have to walk over the Dodder on his route home?
I often thought about that myself but there’s a lot of water between Baggot Street and where the Canal meets the liffey. Surly somebody would have spotted a body in very slow moving water.. I think Donal McIntyre done a documentary on this case and he had a lad in a black hoody on CCTV following Trevor in a few places on his walk home..
@Get Lost Eircodes: Yeah, he had to cross the canal and the Dodder. They were flowing unusually fast because of all the rain.
I remember this happening very well, Trevor was same age group, it was a shock, a fit strong young man going missing like that. I remember walking to my student flat in Ranelagh same night, it was miserable and wet, no taxis (and even when they were running you could be waiting an hour or more to get one from the city centre) then all the posters going up.
The Gardai were very slow off the mark and missed a lot of basic stuff though. There would be no cctv footage if his friend Conleth Loonan hadn’t got it preserved by the bank. They never retrieved the last voicemail he left on his friends fphone that was deleted. The email he sent from work on his way home wasn’t retrieved. Who knows what would have been found if the canal and river were searched earlier?
That’s sad. Especially at this time of year
I can’t even imagine how families get on with their daily life after something like this. The not knowing, it’s just awful. Someone has to know something, Dublin is never ever quiet, even at that time.
Just terrible somebody knows something.
It’s hard to grasp the concept of a fully grown human being simply just “vanishing”. And possessions, or things, cannot evaporate into thin air either. Like, we all wear coats, shoes, maybe jewellery, and Trevor was carrying a huge golf umbrella that night too, surely even one thing belonging to him was found, or has surfaced? The eerie CCTV footage showing Trevor being followed closely is no benefit either, even if it was someone trying to mug him for his wallet, or if he had been injured by them, some evidence would be left behind. How have his poor family lived with all the ifs & buts of this whole ghastly scenario hanging over them, for so long, is just beyond human endurance.
Thoughts with his family this time of year, an awful experience for them.
The recent documentary showed CCTV footage where he is clearly being followed. It quite chilling to see.
Very sad for all concerned but should have highlighted the need for more CCTV in the capital just like they have in London.
VERY SAD
Terrible on the family,may the perpetrators rot in hell
You don’t know whether there is or is not a perpetrator (s) Tommy.
it is one of 3 things, there may not be any perpetrators.
(1) Accident
(2) Murder/Abduction
(3) Voluntary disappearance ( extremely unlikely by all accounts but cannot be 100% definitively ruled out since he just completely disappeared)
As a father it was something like this that had my nerves gone when they were out socialising.I feel so sorry for trevors father.It must be awful.
God 16 years? Doesnt seem like it. I have a son now myself and its awful to imagine. Hope can be a cruel mistress
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