Pope Francis died on Easter Monday, April 21, 2025, at the age of 88 at his residence in the Vatican's Casa Santa Marta. pic.twitter.com/jUIkbplVi2

— Vatican News (@VaticanNews) April 21, 2025

Joshua McElwee reporting for Reuters, “He was 88, and had suffered a serious bout of double pneumonia this year, but his death came as a shock after he had been driven around St. Peter’s Square in an open-air popemobile to greet cheering crowds on Easter Sunday.”

To choose for his successor, CNN reports “Cardinals from around the world must gather for the conclave in which Francis’ successor is selected. It typically takes between two and three weeks for a pope to be chosen, though it can stretch slightly beyond that if cardinals struggle to agree on a candidate.”

Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis is the successor of Pope Benedict XVI after he resigned on February 28 2013. Bergoglio was elected via papal conclave on 13 March. He chose Francis as his papal name in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi. Pope Francis is “the first pope from the Society of Jesus (the Jesuit Order), the first from the Americas and the Southern Hemisphere, and the first born or raised outside Europe since the 8th-century Syrian pope Gregory III.”

Pope Francis was the 266th Pope of the Catholic Church, according to the official list maintained by the Vatican in the Annuario Pontificio (Pontifical Yearbook).