Pope Francis Passes Away at 88

 

Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State, has died at the age of 88. He passed away at his residence in the Vatican's Casa Santa Marta.

Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on December 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Pope Francis was a trailblazer in many ways. He was the first pope from the Society of Jesus (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.