Pope Francis
17 December 1936 - 21 April 2025
At 9:45 AM, (21 April 2025) Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, announced the death of Pope Francis from the Casa Santa Marta with these words:
"Dearest brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow 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 of His Church. He taught us to live the values of the Gospel with fidelity, courage, and universal love, especially in favor of the poorest and most marginalized. 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."
"Dearest brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow 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 of His Church. He taught us to live the values of the Gospel with fidelity, courage, and universal love, especially in favor of the poorest and most marginalized. 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."
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Pope Francis laid to rest in historic funeral ceremony
Almost half a million people packed into St. Peter's Square on Saturday to say farewell to Pope Francis. Dignitaries from around the world attended the funeral mass.
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Funeral Mass for Pope Francis, 26 April 2025
From Saint Peter’s Basilica and Square, Funeral Mass for Pope Francis presided over by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Dean of the College of Cardinals. At the conclusion, the transfer of the coffin to the Basilica of Saint Mary Major.
Vatican News - English |
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Novemdiales
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Pope Francis's death will be followed by a nine-day mourning period called Novemdiales, a tradition that dates back to Roman times. Vatican flags will fly at half-staff, and the bronze doors of St Peter's Basilica are closed. The 9-day period signifies a time of mourning, prayer, and remembrance for the deceased.
During these nine days, daily masses will be offered for Pope Francis and we will share one short reflection on Pope Francis' writings per day on Flocknote and here. We will gather at St. Patrick's on Wednesday, April 30, 6 pm for Evening Prayer in celebration and thanksgiving for Pope Francis' life and ministry. |
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Day 1: When Do We Start?
“Today,” as Pope Francis point out, is the word Jesus uses to begin his preaching. Today. Not tomorrow. Not then. Today. The Pope invites us to reflect on the eternal today-ness of Jesus’ message. This day, now, even with the very word “today” as recorded in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus still speaks to his people. Today, therefore, Jesus is still proclaiming his word. It is a proclamation, the Pope says, “that runs through all ages and always remains valid.” We members of the living Body of Christ are called to continue proclaiming the fulfillment of scripture in Christ. On another occasion the Pope turned his attention to the passage that Jesus quotes, those resonant lines from Isaiah about bringing “good news to the poor.” “The poor are indeed at the center of the Gospel,’ the Pope reminds us, attracting the notice of Jesus right from the very beginning. “Let us ask ourselves,” the Pope therefore suggests, “what does it mean to evangelize the poor? It means first of all drawing close to them, it means having the joy of serving them, of freeing them from their oppression, and all of this in the name of and with the Spirit of Christ.” Jesus of Nazareth is divine action in the world, and He adopted the manifesto from Isaiah wholeheartedly. “The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free …” |
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Day 2: Pope Francis and Easter
The joy of Easter, Pope Francis reminds us, is a call “to experience the risen Christ and to share the experience with others.” Like the women finding the tomb empty and telling the disciples, or Peter running to the tomb when he heard the news, we are called to respond to the message with action! We are meant to become bearers and sharers of hope: He is Risen! As the Pope suggests, sometimes this means that we have “to roll away the stone from the tomb where we may have enclosed the Lord.” We need to be open to being changed. “A Christianity that seeks the Lord among the ruins of the past and encloses him in the tomb of habit,” the Pope declares emphatically, “is a Christianity without Easter.” Every year, therefore, we should take up anew this opportunity to follow our Lord with joyful hope. Each Easter is an opportunity to proclaim Christ Risen in our own time and place. “Let us make Jesus,” the Pope says, “rise again from all those tombs in which we have sealed him.” Let us embrace this Easter opportunity for “encountering him today as the living God who desires to change us and to change our world.” Let us proclaim the Resurrection by what we do next. |
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Day 3: Pope Francis and the Feast of the Presentation
Pope Francis draws our attention to the way that the feast of the Presentation is about encounter. He is particularly interested in how this episode takes place “between the young and the old.” This was a profound spiritual moment shared by “two newlyweds,” as the Pope describes Mary and Joseph, and the elderly and faithful Simeon and Anna. The Pope draws our attention to their respective dispositions. Mary and Joseph are not just going through the motions. They clearly really believe that what they are doing is important, even if they wonder what it all means. Meanwhile, Simeon and Anna were clearly “guided by the Holy Spirit” and “full of life!” Their encounter was not only between generations, therefore, but was also what the Pope calls “a unique encounter between observance and prophecy.” “It’s good for the elderly to communicate their wisdom to the young,” the Pope reminds us, “and it’s good for the young. Perhaps we might pray this week for the wisdom to respond to the promptings of the Spirit, and for the Grace to leave a joyful mark on all the people we might encounter, young or old. people to gather this wealth of experience and wisdom, and to carry it forward ... addressing the challenges that life brings.” Perhaps we might pray this week for the wisdom to respond to the promptings of the Spirit, and for the Grace to leave a joyful mark on all the people we might encounter, young or old. |
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Day 4: Pope Francis and turning the other cheek
“To go beyond instinct, to go beyond hatred,” Pope Francis suggests, is fundamental. However bad it gets, Jesus calls on us to see those who wrong us as God sees them: as creatures loved into existence, still capable of good. Understandably, we find this challenging. But, as the Pope points out, Jesus faced such situations himself and shows us what turning the cheek really means. By not trading strike for strike, Jesus avoids becoming like those who struck him in the first place. Jesus does not give in to injustice. Rather, he reveals it. During his Passion, as the Pope explains, Jesus “asks for an account of the wrong done to him.” He calls it out, gently but firmly. “With his question,” the Pope affirms, “Jesus denounces what is unjust. But he does so without anger, without violence, indeed with kindness.” In any conflict, whether personal or international, we are therefore called to unmask the absurdity of hatred by being the “one who has a greater inner strength,” to use our voice rather than fists, or gestures rather than words. Ultimately, as the Pope declares: “Turning the other cheek does not have to mean suffering in silence, giving in to injustice.” It means transforming the moment to bring light to the darkness. |
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Day 5: Pope Francis and power
“History teaches us,” Pope Francis reflected, “that kingdoms founded on the force of arms and on the abuse of power are fragile and sooner or later collapse.” Jesus made clear that his kingdom is not the usual worldly one with which Pilate was familiar. Rather, as the Pope puts it, Jesus “did not come to dominate but to serve. He did not come amid signs of power, but with the power of signs.” Therefore, we should focus on aligning ourselves and the Church with the values of Jesus’ kingdom. As the Pope suggests, one characteristic of this kingdom is that it is “liberating, there is nothing oppressive about it.” Jesus, he adds pointedly, “treats every disciple as a friend, not as a subject.” The Church, therefore, should be a place of welcome. The Church should also be a place of transparency and truthfulness. As the Pope says, “when Jesus reigns in the heart, he frees it from hypocrisy, he frees it from subterfuge, from duplicity.” If we really “live under the lordship of Jesus,” the Pope points out, then we cannot “live double lives.” Telling Pilate that he bears witness to “the truth,” Jesus invites us to do likewise. |
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Day 6: Pope Francis and the Eucharist
Pope Francis pointed out that at the Last Supper Jesus “breaks himself apart.” In doing so, the Pope suggested, Jesus shows his followers “that the aim of life lies in self-giving.” The Pope reminds us that “we find the greatness of God in a piece of Bread, in a fragility that overflows with love, that overflows with sharing.” In the fragility of the Eucharist, the Pope adds, we find “the strength of the love that becomes small so it can be welcomed and not feared.” The Pope also highlighted how the Eucharist reveals “the strength to love those who made mistakes.” It was on the night he was betrayed, with Judas at the table, that Jesus “responds to Judas’ ‘no’ with the ‘yes’ of mercy.” “When we receive the Eucharist,” the Pope explained, “Jesus does the same with us: he knows us; he knows we are sinners; and he knows we make many mistakes, but he does not give up on joining his life to ours. He knows that we need it, because the Eucharist is not the reward of saints, no, it is the Bread of sinners.” “The Eucharist,” the Pope said, “is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.” That being the case, we might do well to ask ourselves what situation or person we are being strengthened to help. |
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Day 7: Pope Francis and the Holy Family
“God did not create us to be lone rangers,” says Pope Francis, “but to walk together.” The Pope invited us to reflect on this mystery of togetherness during the Feast of the Holy Family. “Each of us has our own story and the family is the story from which we originate,” he explains, adding that this Gospel “reminds us that Jesus too is the son of a family story.” The Pope wants us to appreciate that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph experienced earthly problems and difficulties. “The Holy Family of holy cards does not exist,” he says bluntly. It is a figment of pious imagination. As today’s Gospel story (Luke 2:41-52) relates, Mary and Joseph sometimes experienced considerable anxiety. Elsewhere in the Gospels we learn of other trials they faced. If we think of the Holy Family as untroubled and permanently blissful, then we misread the history of Jesus. The Holy Family endured hardship. Through their troubles, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph show us important lessons about coming together in times of trial and being open to the grace of putting the needs of others first. May we pray to be like them, not in rosy tinted picture-card bliss, but in real-world faith, hope, and love. |
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Day 8: Pope Francis and Christmas
Pope Francis drew our attention to the way that Elizabeth greets pregnant Mary with joyful astonishment! He saw this as an exemplar of how we should live our faith in the festive Christmas season. We need to be astonished again! “To celebrate Christmas in a fruitful manner,” the Pope said, “we are called to pause in ‘places’ of astonishment.” He offers three examples of what this means. Firstly, he drew attention to the astonished recognition of other people. At a time of year when many of us will reunite with friends and family, we are called to see how “every face is marked with a semblance to the Son of God.” The second place of astonishment the Pope suggested we turn to is “history”. We need to look beyond markets and finances and see with faith the work of the Lord who exalts the lowly and uplifts the poor. “The God of Christmas,” the Pope quiped, “shuffles the cards” of history. Economics does not rule human destiny, God does. Thirdly, we should find astonishment in “the Church.” The Pope longed for us to embrace an understanding of the Church “that is able to recognize the many signs of faithful love that God continuously sends her.” He hopes that “Mother Church … always has her doors open wide, and her arms open to welcome everyone.” |
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Day 9: Pope Francis and Pentecost
“At Pentecost,” said Pope Francis, “the Spirit made the apostles go forth from themselves and turned them into heralds of God’s wondrous deeds.” The Pope mentions this in Evangelii Gaudium, his Apostolic Exhortation focused “on the proclamation of the Gospel in today’s world.” In it, he points out that “Jesus wants evangelizers who proclaim the good news not only with words, but above all by a life transfigured by God’s presence.” Highlighting that we are called “to pray and work,” the Pope encouraged Christians to joy-filled action. Pentecost is not only about what we receive, but what we do in response. However important or useful our interior prayers and personal pieties might be, any authentic response to the Spirit should make us look beyond ourselves. “Mystical notions without a solid social and missionary outreach are of no help to evangelization,” the Pope suggested. We are not called to be passive receptacles, storing up fuzzy feelings. Action, therefore, is crucial for Christian living. While acknowledging the worthiness of initiatives like regular Eucharistic adoration, the Pope stressed that the Christian calling should never become “a privatized lifestyle.” Our prayer should direct us to sharing the love of Christ with others, especially those in need. “In union with Jesus,” the Pope said, “we seek what he seeks and love what he loves.” So, at the Feast of Pentecost we recall that having received the Spirit we are not meant to retreat from the world, but rather become Spirit-bearers to and in it. |
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Francis and the Flock
“Sometimes Jesus calls us, he invites us to follow him, but perhaps we do not realize that it is he who is calling,” Pope Francis once said. Francis explained that these few lines in today’s Gospel passage “contain the whole of Jesus’ message … he calls us to share in his relationship with the Father.” Indeed, he continued, “Jesus wants to establish with his friends a relationship which mirrors his own relationship with the Father: a relationship of reciprocal belonging.” Such listening and reciprocity is at the heart of the late Pope’s call for the Church to become more synodal. “Synodality,” Francis explains, means journeying together. It is, therefore, really “an expression of the Church’s nature, her form, style and mission.” We journey to the Father, with Christ, in the Holy Spirit. As Francis put it at one point: “we are sheep, yet we are also members of the flock.” We must rediscover, he declared, “that we are a people meant to walk together, with one another and with all humanity.” We must learn “to trust that the Spirit will always make his voice heard.” And a good place to start discerning God’s voice, he suggested, is “by listening to each other.” |
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EASTER SUNDAY
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS READ BY CARDINAL ANGELO COMASTRI Saint Peter's Square Easter Sunday, 20 April 2025 Mary Magdalene, seeing that the stone of the tomb had been rolled away, ran to tell Peter and John. After receiving the shocking news, the two disciples also went out and — as the Gospel says — “the two were running together” (Jn 20:4). The main figures of the Easter narratives all ran! On the one hand, “running” could express the concern that the Lord’s body had been taken away; but, on the other hand, the haste of Mary Magdalene, Peter and John expresses the desire, the yearning of the heart, the inner attitude of those who set out to search for Jesus. He, in fact, has risen from the dead and therefore is no longer in the tomb. We must look for him elsewhere. This is the message of Easter: we must look for him elsewhere. Christ is risen, he is alive! He is no longer a prisoner of death, he is no longer wrapped in the shroud, and therefore we cannot confine him to a fairy tale, we cannot make him a hero of the ancient world, or think of him as a statue in a museum! On the contrary, we must look for him and this is why we cannot remain stationary. 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, look for him in everyday business, look for him everywhere except in the tomb. Read More |
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BIOGRAPHY OF THE HOLY FATHER
FRANCIS The first Pope of the Americas Jorge Mario Bergoglio hails from Argentina. The 76-year-old Jesuit Archbishop of Buenos Aires is a prominent figure throughout the continent, yet remains a simple pastor who is deeply loved by his diocese, throughout which he has travelled extensively on the underground and by bus during the 15 years of his episcopal ministry.
“My people are poor and I am one of them”, he has said more than once, explaining his decision to live in an apartment and cook his own supper. He has always advised his priests to show mercy and apostolic courage and to keep their doors open to everyone. The worst thing that could happen to the Church, he has said on various occasions, “is what de Lubac called spiritual worldliness”, which means, “being self-centred”. And when he speaks of social justice, he calls people first of all to pick up the Catechism, to rediscover the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes. His project is simple: if you follow Christ, you understand that “trampling upon a person’s dignity is a serious sin”. Read More |
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In the modern age, a doctor will confirm the Pope's death, but only the Camerlengo (Chamberlin) can initiate the complex process of rituals that begins after his death. The Camerlengo is the Vatican's overseer of property and revenues. It is his job to execute the protocols and organize the funeral. The current Camerlengo is Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who has held the post since 2019. He will refer to a 400-page handbook called "Funeral Rites of the Roman Pontiff" that will guide him through the strict protocols governing a papal funeral.
Firstly, he will call out the Pope's baptismal name three times (Jorge Mario Bergoglio for Pope Francis). This was traditionally done to ensure the Pope was dead and not just sleeping. Only when he receives no answer does he confirm the official death of the Pope. The next step is the ceremonial destruction of the "Fisherman's Ring". This was traditionally a very important step as the ring was used as the seal of the Pope on official documents. Its destruction was to safeguard against any misuse, such as the ring being used to forge documents. Today, the act is purely symbolic and signifies the end of the Pope's authority. Finally, the Papal apartments are sealed, a measure that historically was meant to guard against looting. The first indication that the public receives of a Pope's death is the mourning bell of St. Peter's Basilica. The bell of the Basilica tolls for every year of a Pope's life. It chimed 84 times when Pope Saint John Paul II in 2005. The Vatican has now entered an interregnum period known as Sede Vacante. The throne of St. Peter is empty. |
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What happens when a pope dies:
Death, Interregnum, & Conclave Explained |