On Monday, the Vatican released the cause of death determination for Pope Francis: A cerebral stroke, followed by a coma and a heart attack. 

What to know:

• Cause of death: The Vatican says Pope Francis died of a stroke that put him into a coma and led to heart failure. The death was confirmed Monday by Dr. Andrea Arcangeli, the head of the Vatican’s health department. Francis, who suffered from chronic lung disease and had part of one lung removed as a young man, was hospitalized for 38 days earlier this year following a respiratory crisis that developed into double pneumonia.
• The next pope is still to be decided: The death of a pope sets in motion a series of carefully orchestrated rites and rituals. Eligible cardinals will eventually vote for a papal successor in the Sistine Chapel in a process known as “the Conclave.”
• Francis charmed some and alienated others: The Argentine-born Jorge Mario Bergoglio brought a breath of fresh air into a 2,000-year-old institution that had seen its influence wane during the troubled tenure of Pope Benedict XVI, whose surprise resignation led to Francis’ election. But Francis soon invited troubles of his own, and conservatives grew increasingly upset with his progressive bent, outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics and crackdown on traditionalists.

Fox News covered the release on video as well:

🚨 #BREAKING: Pope Francis's official cause of death has been released, per Fox News

The Pope had a stroke early this morning, went into a coma, had a heart attack, and later passed away.

Trump will be traveling to the Vatican later this week to attend his funeral. pic.twitter.com/F5pQoOmPl6

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) April 21, 2025

The Pope was 88 years of age.

See Also: BREAKING: Pope Francis Dead at 88

Death of a Pope: Catholic Cardinals Prepare for High-Stakes Succession—Will Trump Be a Spoiler?

Earlier on Monday, my colleague streiff produced a biography of Pope Francis and the controversies that surrounded his term.

To say that Francis's papacy was conflicted is an understatement. He made environmentalism a pillar of his social teaching and devoted a major encyclical to the subject. In retrospect, his ventures into environmental policy and climate change will probably be viewed as unwise as Pope Paul V's opinions on astronomy. He emphasized pastoralism over hide-bound clericalism, which is laudable. Unfortunately, along the way, he muddied a lot of waters concerning homosexuality, divorced and remaried Catholics, and the role of women in the Church that we'd thought definitively settled by Pope John Paul II. His pronouncements on immigration and the death penalty put him in the position of developing doctrines previously foreign to Catholicism. His dislike of the American Catholic Church, orthodox seminarians, and traditional Catholics became legendary.

A cerebral stroke occurs when a blocked blood vessel or bleeding in the brain prevents blood from perfusing a portion of the brain. If serious, these can be very quickly fatal, often bringing on coma and heart failure, which appears to have been the case here. Strokes can come on quite suddenly, with symptoms including aphasia (inability to speak) and confusion. The onset of the stroke appears to have been in the early morning, but there's no indication as to whether or not the pontiff reported any symptoms.

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