The White House marked Pope Francis’s death Monday morning in a brief statement posted on social media.
“Rest in Peace, Pope France,” the official White House X account posted.
The post included two images: one of the pope with President Trump and another of Francis with Vice President Vance, which was taken on Sunday.
Vance met with the pope on Easter Sunday, the day before France died. Vance remarked on his visit this weekend, saying in a message Monday that the pontiff was “obviously very ill” but that he was happy to have met with him.
“I just learned of the passing of Pope Francis. My heart goes out to the millions of Christians all over the world who loved him,” Vance wrote on X.
Francis died Monday at 88 at his residence in the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta after battling a long series of health complications stemming from a chronic lung disease, the Vatican announced.
The pontiff had been hospitalized on Feb. 14 with bronchitis, contracted pneumonia four days later and was listed in “critical condition” by the Vatican on Feb. 22. He never fully recovered.
The pope, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Argentina in 1936, broke barriers in the Catholic Church when he became the first leader of the Vatican City State to hail from the Americas, and the first to represent the Jesuit order, an intellectual wing of the church that prioritizes philanthropy. He was known for his human-rights advocacy and sharp political edge.
