The Vatican announced on Monday that Pope Francis had died in the morning, a day after appearing publicly for Easter and delivering an address where he called for peace in Gaza and in other conflict zones.
Pope Francis, who died at 88, had been outspoken in his calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and critical of Israel’s killing of civilians. He also kept in close contact with the Holy Family Church, the only Catholic church in Gaza, by holding nightly phone calls with its priest and parishioners.
“I think of the people of Gaza, and its Christian community in particular, where the terrible conflict continues to cause death and destruction and to create a dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation,” Francis said in his Easter address, which was read by an archbishop due to his poor health. “I appeal to the warring parties: call a ceasefire, release the hostages, and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace!”
Palestinian Christians in Gaza told Reuters that they were “heartbroken” at the loss of Pope Francis. “We lost a saint who taught us every day how to be brave, how to keep patient, and stay strong. We lost a man who fought every day in every direction to protect this small herd of his,” George Antone, head of the emergency committee of the Holy Family Church, told the news agency.
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, said in a condolence message that Gaza was a “symbol” of Francis’s pontificate. “He was always close to the poor and against war. ‘War is a defeat,’ he repeated this continuously,” Pizzaballa said.
Pizzaballa has visited Gaza twice since October 7, 2023, and is believed to be a potential candidate to become the next pope. “I want to send a clear message to decision-makers. Enough killing!” Pizzaballa said after visiting Gaza in May 2024. “The war must end, and avenues for various aid must be opened to avoid an imminent humanitarian crisis. I hope this nightmare ends quickly.”
In December 2023, Israeli snipers killed two Christian women at the Holy Family Church, an incident Pope Francis denounced as “terrorism.” Over the past 18 months, Francis has also called for an investigation into whether Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide and said Israel’s bombing of civilians was unacceptable, comments that angered Israeli officials and their supporters in the West.
Munther Isaac, an Evangelical Lutheran Pastor in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, said in a post on X that Francis was a “dear friend” of Palestinians and Palestinian Christians. “Pope Francis was beloved in Palestine. He conveyed true compassion to Palestinians, most notably to those in Gaza during this genocide,” he said.
In 2014, Francis prayed at the West Bank barrier wall, known as the apartheid wall, during a visit to Bethlehem. “When Pope Francis stopped, touched the wall, and said a prayer, it was truly a monumental moment that made waves in world news. Pope Francis couldn’t help but notice the ugliness of this concrete structure at the heart of Bethlehem,” Isaac said.
Pope Francis had also consistently called for peace in Ukraine through negotiations and pointed to the root causes of the conflict, including NATO expansion. “May the risen Christ grant Ukraine, devastated by war, his Easter gift of peace, and encourage all parties involved to pursue efforts aimed at achieving a just and lasting peace,” he said in his Easter address.
Francis also called for a settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan and for an end to conflict in Yemen, which has been under heavy US bombardment. “I also think in particular of the people of Yemen, who are experiencing one of the world’s most serious and prolonged humanitarian crises because of war, and I invite all to find solutions through a constructive dialogue,” he said.
Why is Gaza Antiwar and the Pope's primary concern? As of early 2025, an estimated 122.6 million people worldwide have been forcibly displaced from their homes, including refugees and internally displaced persons, according to the Source: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Why is Gaza Antiwar and the Pope's primary concern when Syria, Sudan, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Yemen, the Ukraine, and a dozen other Countries have massive forced displacement? Hamas initiated this action and could stop it at any time.
Why is Gaza Antiwar and the Pope's greatest concern? There are nine African countries with more than 1 million displaced account for more than 90 percent of the total forcibly displaced population in Africa: Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Somalia, Nigeria, Ethiopia, South Sudan. Why is Gaza Antiwar's primary concern?
The pope has no more concerns, great or small, at least on this plane of existence.
But one reason Gaza was important to him had to do with the Israeli attacks on Christian churches and the Israeli murders of Palestinian Christians.
Why is Trumpenführer treating Gaza as a real estate opportunity?
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Don't you know that he is playing 5D chess for peace?
You have to give it to the guy though, he is almost a 100% pro in fooling a lot of people even outside of MAGA. He even fooled me in 2016, not knowing too much about him. well that changed a few months into his term, I saw a lot of smoke and mirrors and terrific acting most for show.
He wants to build mansions for Miriam Adelson.
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The Pope didn’t approve of Genocide.. Duh!
Not this Pope and not this genocide, at least.
Didn’t read the article I see.
I did. I am making an allusion to many other Popes who, y'know, supported the Crusades, signed Nazi Germany's first treaty with a foreign country, laundered money for the Nazis during AND AFTER World War 2, gave assent to the forcible conversion or slaughter of indigenous peoples worldwide for Catholicism.
I don't know if Francis ended The Vatican's billion-with-a-B dollar legal defense fund established to protect, hide, and withdraw peddoe priests from jurisdictions seeking to prosecute them for their crimes. It was not money to compensate victims, mind you – it was there to make sure an absolute minimum number of Catholic priests faced legal consequences for their actions.
If he tried to be a reformer, neat – but the RCC is still a definitively established criminal enterprise dating back centuries and to the present day.
So you’re departing completely from the subject of Pope Francis to your preferred topic of the nasty old Catholic Church – favorite target of Zionist ideologues too.
Well maybe the Church isn’t perfect but it at least presented the World with a leader who until his last breath spoke out against the purist example of evil in our lifetime.
Francis is the RCC and vice-versa. One is irrelevant without the other.
Sure as s**t the RCC is a milleniae-old garbage pile of corruption and outright crimes against humanity. I’m sorry if you didn’t know the extent of their criminality and/or found it in yourself to overlook it if you did know.
But no sooner will I weep for or praise a ridiculous relic of the Dark/Middle Ages as the Papalcy than I’d cheer or pine for the return of the Shogunate, Mayan Empire, Hittites, Phoenicians, or other quaint dead-tech concepts into our modern era.
I’ll grant Francis spoke out against great evils and in the same breath point out he did sweet f**k all with the wealth and prestige of The Vatican to stop any of it. Lard tunderin’, The Vatican could sell off its art collection OR real-estate holdings and provide clean drinking water for EVERYONE EVERYWHERE on Earth.
None of this has anything to do with the Catholic religion, and EVERYTHING to do with the stain on history that is & remains The Vatican.
Guilt by association is intellectually lazy as well as unjust.
I know the history of my Church and Country and have come to terms with both. In the balance, they’re a positive force for civilization’s advancement.
Exactly how selling off Church assets would result in the solution to the worlds problems you leave unexplained. The Church has amassed such an art collection because it was saved from destruction by vandals. Let it stay in their charge so it may be appreciated by the generations to come.
“…they’re a positive force for civilization’s advancement…”
Yeah, tell that to hundreds of Indigenous groups around the world. Every Canadian is about 3 steps removed from someone who was a victim of their Residential schools. There are numerous examples of the RCC’s wholesale endorsement of extermination and ethnic cleansing of “lesser peoples”.
Tell that to the HIV crisis in Africa and Asia propagated by The Vatican’s horses**t nonbiblical stance on condom use.
The RCC has ALWAYS been dragged into modernity, kicking and screaming, by social forces opposed to the Church and against which the Church opposed until it couldn’t afford to. I welcome you to show ONE progressive stance the RCC took that it wasn’t first forced to by secular progressive evidence and consensus of societies around it.
Even as a kid in the ’80s and into the ’90s before I quit involuntary Catholicism completely, every week the parish Father in his 2nd Act “aside”, spoke of and asked for prayers for the across-the-board dwindling of active Catholics and men joining the priesthood.
The Internet, better information, and the media’s comparatively recent willingness to expose mass Vatican scandals, have only made Catholic numbers WORSE in the 30 years since.
“The Church has amassed such an art collection because it was saved from destruction by vandals”
…then not returned to its owners. Who likely died in the Holocaust the RCC looked the other way on.
Yeah, I remember my aunt visited The Vatican and RAVED about all the art nobody could see because it was tucked away in Vatican vaults.
Vatican Apologists are f**king embarrassments to Reason. You’re normally an astute Commenter, Bann’d. I am HORRIFIED you have bought into revisionist-history Church bulls**t propaganda White-washing. Horrified.
You're normally an astute Commenter, Bann'd.
As are you Uncle S. but I’m horrified that you’ve become peep’s wingman on this thread… SHAME!
If you think there’s any congruence between jakesqueek and myself apart from use of the English language, I’ve a bridge to sell you, Old Nick.
For the record, I have Blocked "I'm with the banned". The only difference between Bann'd and the likes of peep and jake is that IWTB openly lies, dodges, deflects, and Apologizes for the corrupt criminal syndicate that is The Vatican, instead of for the Apartheid State of Israel like the others do.
Exact same willful ignorance; exact same mindless unconditional fawning that indicates their position on any given topic may well be equally poisoned by personal bias that favours emotions and irrationality over facts and evidence.
I'm spending too much time & effort trying to reach close-minded liars. Bann'd was a good kid but on discovering he's sold his humanity and morality to support a scummy Classical Era criminal enterprise that's older yet somehow nearly as abhorrent as the modern ASI governance, I no longer trust anything they have to say.
"Exactly how selling off Church assets would result in the solution to the worlds problems you leave unexplained."
You SERIOUSLY can't figure out how Bill Gates donates ass-tons of money to charitable causes worldwide (and he has less $$$ than the RCC) ???
What has your religion DONE to your humanity & morality that "Na'ah, The Vatican displaying oil paints on canvas from 300 years ago is WAY smarter'n selling them to feed 300 MILLION PEOPLE RIGHT NOW" is your unashamed stated opinion ? WITAF ???
Seriously, the only "out" you have right now (to everyone else reading this) is to admit you're joking and pranking yaer ol' Scottesh Uncle Sape here. I'll accept that as true if you say it & end this ethos you reeaaaaaaally don't want to staple your name to.
Bill Gates sets up tax shelters and NGOs to keep all the money he’ll never live long enough to spend under his control.
The people starving are starving because the government wants them to starve and throwing money at it raised by putting rare art in a glorified hock shop in Manhattan won’t change that.
Your defense of a corrupt institution is embarassing.
If you ever need hospitalization, and I sincerely hope you never do, you can thank the Catholic Church for that particular institution.
Now, get thee to an exorcist!
That turned out poorly for Savita.
“Savita Halappanavar (1981-2012) was a dentist of Indian origin, living in Ireland, who died from sepsis after her request for an abortion after a prolonged miscarriage was denied on legal grounds….
…Halappanavar discussed abortion with her consulting physician but her request was promptly refused, as Irish law at that time forbade abortion if a foetal heartbeat was still present, with her midwife furthermore stating that “Ireland is a Catholic country”.”
Dr. Halappanavar left behind 2 children and a husband. Yeah, I’ll get right on thanking The Vatican for fatally denying women bodily autonomy.
The Church isn’t responsible for Irish law – which does allow for an abortion in such circumstances, Nice try.
The tragedy was a case of medical misadventure. It happens, no need for a scapegoat.
The RCC directly influenced anti-choice laws in Ireland, as well as a nautical sh*t-ton of other countries; Philippines, Mexico, efforts in Canada and the US, et. al.
Dr. H’s pointless, needless death is 100% attributable to Catholic nonreligious doctrine forbidding abortion / female body autonomy. You cannot weasel around it.
Thankfully the outcry from the rational public forced a change to Irish law – AGAIN dragging Catholic morality kicking & screaming into modernity. At the cost of a human f**king life.
“Medical misadventure” is bulls**t and you’re light-years from stupid enough to make that claim. Dr. H suffered for 2-3 days and died horribly because THE proper lifesaving medical procedure was denied EXCLUSIVELY on a religious legal basis.
Astounding that f**kwit anti-choice saps “defending unborn life” so wantonly, ironically, and cruelly GIVE ZERO F**KS about an actual, living person and their suffering. F**k them and their broken, absent morality and empathy. How in the spirit of Mother Teresa; and how wildly unlike the Satanic Templars who’d have acted on Savita’s choice THE INSTANT she made it.
I don’t make the claim of medical misadventure, the investigating authorities did.
These are facts.. Better do your homework.
Repeating a claim is the same as endorsing it.
You know Dr. Halappanavar died because of a rule in place DIRECTLY and EXCLUSIVELY due to Vatican doctrine shat out upon otherwise reasonable nations and states.
Explain why Dr. Halappanavar could not receive the abortion she actively consented to and fairly demanded. The one that would SAVE HER LIFE.
At the root of your pathetic f**king excuses is “because an organisation run by a dude in a funny hat said no.”
Do you even HEAR the horses**t you type out as you think it ? Do you not step back, inhale your humanity buried in a closet under a blanket of religious dogma, and find the decency to admit that IT WAS WRONG to let Dr. Halappanavar die for religious reasons she doesn’t subscribe to ?
Following religious tenets is one thing – blind obedience to some peoples’ interpretations of an old book, at the cost of a human life, is BEYOND f**king inexcusable.
Convince me I should give a f**k about ANYTHING you have to say, Bann’d, if you’re so willfully immoral about THIS issue.
I’m quoting a competent board of enquires with ALL the facts presented before them.
Take it or leave it.
Peace.
Whataboutism. And not very GOOD Whataboutism, either.
^^^ Why should we give a **** about someone being murdered in the street in front of us when, after all, there are 6 billion people in the world.
Cry and deflect all you want.
1. Israel lost its military deterrence
2. Never been so divided internally
3. Its economy is tanking
4. It's hated all around the world, even by governments in growing numbers,
5. It still can't defeat Khamassss!
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In a book written ahead of the Jubilee Year 2025, Pope Francis called for an investigation into the devastating situation in Gaza, describing the dire need for action to address the suffering of its people.
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The last good Christian is dead.
That won't happen for centuries yet.
There are many MANY good Christians left – none of whom oversee a massive criminal organization like the RCC.
Bigot.
Huh ?
Over the past 18 months, Francis has also called for an investigation into whether Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide
Is there any restrictions to use social media on your phone in Vatican…?!
This is his most honorable achievement.