Pope Francis, the 266th pope and the first from the Americas and the Global South, has died. He was the spiritual leader of 1.3 billion Catholics, head of state of the Vatican, and proprietor in trust of the Vatican's vast art and architectural collections. Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Argentina, he was the first Jesuit pope and the first to take the name Francis, signaling a commitment to austerity and social justice. His papacy, beginning in 2013 after Benedict XVI's resignation, addressed theological controversies, church culture wars, interfaith relations, Vatican financial reform, the clergy sexual abuse crisis, and cultural restitution from the Vatican's holdings.
This matters because Pope Francis was a transformative figure for the Catholic Church and its relationship with art and culture. His personal style—living in a guest house, using a small car, and being called "Papa Francesco"—redefined the papal image as a "people's Pope" rather than a prince of the church. His alignment with St. Francis of Assisi connected him to Renaissance art history, notably Giotto's frescoes, and he brought the climate crisis into church doctrine. His apology for forced Indigenous assimilation in Canada and his engagement with cultural restitution from Vatican collections mark significant shifts in the church's handling of historical injustices, making his legacy deeply relevant to the art world and broader society.