Pope Francis (December 17, 1936 – April 21, 2025)

The world, including Nigeria with about 45 million Catholics (about a quarter of its population of 200 million), was thrown in mourning in the early hours of Easter on Monday 21 April 2025, following the announcement of the death of Pope Francis. Born on December 17, 1936 in Buenos Aires, in Argentina, Pope Francis died at the age of 88 in his residence in the Santa Marta del Vaticano house.

Announcing the disappearance of Pope Francis at 9:45 from the Santa Marta house, Cardinal Kevin Farrell Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, he said: “Brothers and sisters cane, with deep pain I have to announce the death of our Holy Father Francesco. At 7:35 this morning, the bishop of Rome, Francesco, returned to the home of his dad.

“His life has been dedicated to the service of the Lord and his Church. He taught us to live the values ​​of the Gospel with loyalty, courage and universal love, especially in favor of the poorest and most marginalized. With immense gratitude for his example.

The body of the deceased pope, invoiced for the burial on Saturday, was transferred to the Basilica of San Pietro on Wednesday morning, so that the faithful can pray before his mortal remains, following the first congregation of the cardinals. The rite of the certification of death and positioning in the coffin took place on Monday evening at 8:00 in the chapel on the ground floor of the residence of the late Pope in the Santa Marta house.

During the rite, the death declaration was read aloud. The act was validated by Cardinal Farrell and the ceremony lasted just under an hour. The seals were placed on the papal apartment on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace and on the apartment on the second floor of the Santa Marta house, where Pope Francis lived. Starting from Monday evening, the closest collaborators of Pope Francis began to pay homage to the late Pope.

Pope Francis was the first Latin American pontiff of the story that enchanted the world with his humble style and his concern for poor but alienated conservatives with criticisms of capitalism and climate change.

The Vatican said that Francis died of stroke that put him in a coma and led his heart to fail. The bells infiltrated the Catholic churches from its Argentine native to the Philippines and through Rome while the news spread all over the world.

Francis, who suffered from chronic lung diseases and was part of a lung removed as a young man, was hospitalized at the Gemelli hospital on February 14, 2025, for a respiratory crisis that developed in double pneumonia. He spent 38 days there, the longest hospitalization of his 12 -year -old papacy.

He made his last public appearance on Easter Sunday, one day before his death, to bless thousands of people in the square of San Pietro, attracting applause and applause. Previously, he met vice -president of the United States JD Vance. Francis formed the blessing of the same loggia in which he was introduced on March 13, 2013, like the 266th Pope.

From his first greetings that night – an extraordinarily normal “good evening” (“good evening”) – to his embrace of refugees and oppressed, Francis marked a very different tone for the papacy, underlining the humility for the Hubris for a Catholic Church besieged by the scandal and the accusations of indifference.

The Argentine NATO Jorge Mario Bergoglio brought a breath of fresh air into a 2000 year institution that had seen his influence fall during the troubled mandate of Pope Benedict XVI, whose surprise resignation led to the Francis elections.

But Francis soon invited his problems and conservatives angry more and more with his progressive turn, the dissemination of LGBTQ+ Catholics and the repression of traditionalists. His biggest test came in 2018 when he mistreated a notorious case of sexual abuse of the clergy in Chile and the scandal that made a beautiful appearance under his predecessors broke out again.

And then Francis, the Pope who loves the crowd and who trout the suburbs, sailed in the unprecedented reality to lead a universal religion through the pandemic of the Coronavirus from a closed Vatican city.

“We realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented,” said Francis to an empty square of San Pietro in March 2020. Asking for a rethinking of the global economic framework, he said that the pandemic showed the need for “all of us to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other”.

On Monday, world leaders expanded Francis’ commitment to marginalized. President Bola Tinubu led freely from Nigeria, describing Pope Francis as a humble servant of God, a tireless champion of the poor and guiding the light for millions. Tinubu reflected on the pope’s legacy, defining his death a sacred return from his creator in a moment of renewed hope for Christians.

“His holiness served the Church and the master of the Church until the end. In 2013, he climbed to the global stage with a message of mercy, urged us to see the face of Christ in the marginalized, the refugees, the migrants and forgotten,” said Tinubu.

French President Emmanuel Macron, whose country is largely Catholic, wrote on X: “From Buenos Aires to Rome, Pope Francis wanted the Church to bring joy and hope to the poorest … this hope will survive him forever”.

Blueprint The disappearance of Pope Francis is united to cry, whose revolutionary approach to evangelization has rekindled the hope of the marginalized and poor all over the world. We are, however, consoled by the meaning of the death of the Pope who coincided with the resurrection of Jesus Christ, an indication that Pope Francis returned to his master, Jesus Christ.