Jorge Mario Bergoglio, an Argentinian son of Italian immigrants who became Pope Francis, turned out to be a consistently surprising pontiff who forced his Roman Catholic Church to look beyond its ...

The pope was formally pronounced dead by the cardinal camerlengo — currently Irish-born American Kevin Farrell — who is one of the most important Vatican officials during the interregnum period.

VATICAN CITY — On his last day — Easter, the holiest on the Christian calendar — Pope Francis doubled down on the defining theme of his papacy: mercy. After a private audience with Vice President JD ...

The death of Pope Francis has triggered a period of mourning in the Vatican and signals the start of a millennia-old process of picking a new pontiff. It is a procedure steeped in tradition, but one ...