Vatican Reveals Pope Francis’s Cause of Death

 

The Vatican revealed on April 21 that His Holiness, Pope Francis, suffered a stroke, which led to a coma and then irreversible heart failure.

He died at 7:35 a.m. that same day in his apartment at the Domus Sanctae Marthae. He was 88 years old.

The news came with the declaration of death, made by Dr. Andrew Arcangeli, the Vatican’s director of health and hygiene, who noted the pontiff was already suffering from multiple bronchiectases, arterial hypertension, and Type II Diabetes.

The octogenarian was hospitalized for more than a month, battling double pneumonia and suffering two episodes of respiratory failure that required him to use a ventilator and to undergo two bronchoscopies to remove the mucus buildup in his lungs. He also, at one point in his hospitalization, showed signs of kidney failure.

While cleared from the hospital, Pope Francis’s participation in any Holy Week or Easter celebrations was left unconfirmed by the Holy See press office. His public interactions, including the meeting with Vice President JD Vance on Easter Sunday, remained limited.

The cause of death was not immediately revealed to the public, and comes after Dr. Arcangeli, his vice director, the dean of the College of Cardinals, the Cardinal Camerlengo, and Pope Francis’s family members gathered in the chapel at Domus Sanctae Marthae to place the pope in his coffin and have the formal declaration of death.

Meanwhile, a rosary service was held in St. Peter’s Square for the repose of the soul of the Holy Father, led by His Eminence Cardinal Mauro Gambetti.

Pope Francis’s body will be transported to St. Peter’s Square on April 23 and placed there for a public viewing, with more information to be released by the Cardinal Camerlengo on April 22. After that, he will be buried in the nearby Basilica of St. Mary Major.

“I have always entrusted my life and priestly and episcopal ministry to the Mother of Our Lord, Mary Most Holy,” the pope wrote in his last testament. “Therefore, I ask that my mortal remains rest, awaiting the day of resurrection, in the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major.”

“I wish that my final earthly journey conclude precisely in this ancient Marian shrine, where I go to pray at the beginning and end of every Apostolic Journey to faithfully entrust my intentions to the Immaculate Mother and to give thanks for her gentle and maternal care,” he added.

He asked for a simple tomb between two of the basilica’s chapels with the inscription simply reading “Franciscus.”