Pope Francis died on Easter Monday at age 88 at his residence in the Vatican's Casa Santa Marta, according to the Vatican.
Pope Francis was the first non-European pope in more than a millennium, and one of the most popular pontiffs in decades.
The son of Italian immigrants, Jorge Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires and was proud of his Argentine heritage.
Bergoglio set many precedents: the first Jesuit pope, the first pope to take the name of St. Francis of Assisi, and the first pope from the global south.
On his election in 2013 — after the surprise resignation of Benedict XVI — he broke with tradition, opting to live in a Vatican hotel rather than the opulent papal quarters.
Francis cleaned up Vatican finances, long tainted by corruption.
He created a kitchen cabinet of nine cardinals to help reform a dysfunctional bureaucracy.
Francis' staunch environmentalism and critique of laissez-faire capitalism met with vehement opposition from conservatives within and outside the catholic church.
A master at blending the spiritual and the political, Francis emerged as a daring, independent broker on the global stage.
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