Pope Francis died on April 20 at 88, marking the end of an epoch for the Catholic Church and the beginning of its search for the next spiritual leader, who will also become proprietor of the Vatican’s library and vast art collection.
He was born in 1936 as Mario Bergoglio, and was named Pope in 2013, following the resignation of Benedict Pope Benedict XVI. Francis was the first Jesuit priest to lead the 1.3 billion Catholics worldwide and having hailed from Argentina, he was the first from the southern hemisphere to hold the position. He signaled almost immediately upon his election a principle of austerity and altruism over pomp, as the first pontiff to take his title from St. Francis of Assisi.
Though keeping a hardline on Catholic doctrine, Francis distinguished himself for his willingness in the modern era to advocate on behalf of occupied peoples. He was a vocal critic of the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, and called out the persecution and destruction of their Christian populations. During a papal visit in 2022 to Canada, which he called a “penitential pilgrimage,” he apologized to First Nations leaders and the survivors of residential schools for the role of the Catholic church in forced assimilation of Indigenous communities.
The late Pope’s alignment with St. Francis of Assisi, the Italian mystic, poet, and friar who adopted an impoverished life of itinerant preaching, also aligned him more closely than his predecessors with the arts. St. Francis is one of the most beloved figures in Catholicism, and his pastoral travels are frequent subjects of church painting. Giotto’s frescos in the basilica at Assisi narrating the life of St. Francis have been credited as a touchstone of Italian Renaissance. Pope Francis, a trained chemist, took inspiration from the frescos in his encyclical address and titled it Laudato Si’ (Praise Be to You), from the Saint’s Canticle of the Creatures. The encyclical was published in 2025 in the lead up to the signing of the 2015 Paris climate accord.
Francis made headlines at the 2024 Venice Biennale when he stopped by to see the Holy See Pavilion, marking the first time a Supreme pontiff had attended the prestigious international exhibition.
Francis, then 87 years old met, with the president of the Venice Biennale, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, and the curator of the 2024 main show, Adriano Pedrosa, who had organized that year’s presentation under the theme “Foreigners Everywhere.” Francis traveled to Venice by helicopter and touched down in the Women’s Prison on the island of Giudecca. Some of the works in the show, titled “With My Eyes” and curated by Chiara Parisi and Bruno Racine, were created in collaboration with inmates.
Speaking to the crowd gathered at the prison, he cited the late Catholic nun and activists Corita Kent, Frida Kahlo, and Louise Bourgeois as women whose works have “something important to teach us,” as ARTnews reported at the time.
“The world needs artists. This is demonstrated by the multitude of people of all ages who frequent art venues and events,” Francis added. “I beg you, dear artists, to imagine cities that do not yet exist on the maps: cities where no human being is considered a stranger.”
In his address, Pope Francis also acknowledged the impact of climate change on the lagoon city, which has since introduced a €5 charge for day visitors in an attempt to reduce crowds. “Venice is one with the waters on which it stands, and without the care and protection of this natural environment it could even cease to exist,” he said.
The Venice Biennale acknowledged the death of Pope Francis in a statement published to its website today, writing that its leadership board expressed “their profound sorrow” for the news and remembered “with deep emotion the extraordinary gesture of closeness made by the Holy Father.”
“Foreigners Everywhere,” the statement added, “focused on artistic expressions that addressed human rights, the marginalized, and the most vulnerable. It reflected on the building of a culture of encounter—an approach that was respectfully considered to be close to the sensibility of Pope Francis.”
Under his leadership, the Vatican also opened a dialogue about the return of colonial-era artifacts that the Vatican Museum acquired from Indigenous civilizations.
“The Seventh Commandment comes to mind: If you steal something you have to give it back,” Francis said during a press conference onboard the papal plane in 2023, as quoted by the Associated Press. Francis had recently returned to Greece three fragments of the Parthenon sculptures that were held in the Vatican Museums’s collection for two centuries. Pope Francis, in his inaugural public address of the debate, called the restitution “the right gesture” for institutions to make when possible.
“In the case where you can return things, where it’s necessary to make a gesture, better to do it,” he said. “Sometimes you can’t, if there are no possibilities — political, real or concrete possibilities. But in the cases where you can restitute, please do it. It’s good for everyone, so you don’t get used to putting your hands in someone else’s pockets.”
Pope Francis’s administration was not free from controversy. In April 2024, nearly 50 employees at the Vatican Museums filed a class-action complaint against the administration over allegedly unsafe working conditions. The workers, many of whom are custodians, claimed that they were treated as “commodities” by an institution with labor rules that “undermine each worker’s dignity and health,” according to a petition first reported by the Corriere della Sera. The complaint cited poor overtime pay, as well as health and safety risks purportedly caused by cost-saving initiatives at the museum such as reduced security at highly attended attractions.
The workers called for greater transparency on the process of promotion, the reinstatement of seniority bonuses, and a structure for sick days that they claim would be closer to the norm for Italy. It was an unprecedented legal action in the history of the papacy, and while still ongoing, its means of resolution is unclear. Unions are not permitted in Vatican City; the Holy See, the effective central bureaucracy for the Catholic Church, is not a member of the court or a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights. However, it did sign onto the European Union monetary convention in 2009, suggesting a willingness to uphold European human rights law.
