Global News Podcast - Catholics around the world mourn death of Pope Francis

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

Vatican says Pope Francis died from a stroke and heart failure. Also: snowfall in Hindu Kush Himalayan mountain range reaches 23-year low.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Krassi Twigg from the Global Jigsaw podcast on the BBC World Service, where we are asking, what does the future hold for the Kurds? In February, Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the biggest Kurdish militant group, the PKK, called for the group to lay down arms and disband. The announcement could change the geopolitical map of the Middle East. The Global Jigsaw looks at the world through the lens of its media. Find us wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Chris Burrow and in the early hours of Tuesday to 22nd April these are our main stories. Roman Catholics around the world are mourning the death of Pope Francis and celebrating the legacy of a man who spoke out tirelessly for the marginalized. The Vatican says the Pope died from a stroke and heart failure. His body will lie in state so the public can pay their respects before his funeral. Also in this podcast... Snowfall in the Hindu Kush Himalayan mountain range reaches a 23-year low.

Thousands of people gathered in St Peter's Square on Monday evening to mourn the death of Pope Francis at the age of 88. Vatican figures led prayers in front of worshippers from across the world, many of whom were in Rome to celebrate Easter. Millions of Catholics around the world will also be praying for the late Pope. He was the first person from Latin America and the global south to lead the church, having been elected to the papacy in 2013 after the resignation of Pope Benedict. Francis recently spent five weeks in hospital being treated for double pneumonia, but made a number of unexpected public appearances since being discharged a month ago, including attending Easter Sunday events in the Vatican. Our religion editor Ali McBall sent this report from Rome.

Dearest brothers and sisters, said Cardinal Kevin Farrell, with deep sorrow I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis. At 7.35 this morning the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father. And with that the end of what was a hugely consequential 12-year term of the 266th Pope was announced to the world. It could barely have come on a more auspicious day in the Catholic calendar, Easter Monday, in the Church's Jubilee year. At midday, the death knell tolled from St Peter's Basilica and rang through the square. Part of the shock being felt here is that, in spite of the Pope's recent ill health,

just 24 hours earlier, he had graced the very same square. First, to wish people here a happy Easter, but then to do what we come to expect of him, making his way through the crowds to bless them. Despite advice last month to rest completely after his five-week stay in hospital with pneumonia, the pope quickly got back to the business of meetings and doing what he appeared to love, speaking to and surrounding himself with people. Last week he met inmates at a Rome prison and just yesterday a brief encounter with the US Vice President, JD Vance. I know you've not been feeling great, but it's good to see you in better health. I pray for you every day.

God bless you and thank you for seeing me. Throughout his papacy, Pope Francis had been focused on reaching out to those on the peripheries of the faith globally, to the marginalized and even to those outside Catholicism. The tributes pouring in from all parts of the world and from people of so many faith traditions and none is a testimony to his success in doing that. He very definitely changed the direction of the Catholic Church, reorienting it away from the hierarchy and from Europe and towards the lives of people and their daily struggles wherever they happen to be. Services to celebrate his life are already taking place around the

world. Well, I heard more from Aleem who was watching events in St Peter's Square. It's extraordinary the shock that people are feeling. I mean you look at what has happened over the last couple of months. In mid-February he was admitted to hospital. Things we hear were touch and go when it came to the pneumonia in both lungs that he had. And yet people thought he was on the mend. They had evidence of that, they thought, because over the last couple of weeks, even though

he was told not to, he was carrying out his work, he was meeting people, he was in the very same square yesterday and now from the Vatican, a notification of the cause of his death. They say that it was a stroke followed by a heart attack that caused his death. And the reason it's causing so much shock is because of this sense that he was on the mend. There was going to be a new phase of his papacy, but he would be able after time to continue some of his work.

So although, as I say we knew that for various reasons he had had health issues over recent years, it has still come as a shock to a lot of people who not only felt that it was sudden, but also felt that he was a man who had tried to do a lot of good things in terms of reorienting the Catholic Church, looking after the marginalised and speaking out for them. I suppose if you're going to look at this point backwards and at his legacy, he had a very different style to the previous Pontiffs particularly and I guess that is going to stand out, you know, perhaps that's why people really

are feeling it today. Yes, I mean some people want to to characterize Pope Francis as being progressive or conservative. For me it's more about the way they reached out. I mean previous popes it was felt didn't mind a small group of faithful I suppose as long as it was a pure church. They didn't want to change anything they wanted to remain very traditional. This was a pope who really wanted to reach out. I mean, his strength was being around people, trying to look at people's faith in their daily lives.

A big factor for him was trying to move away this church from being very heavily clerical, being led by clerics, and more into people's daily lives. But he did that through reaching across denominations, other faiths, people who were not of faith. And you know, he spoke out about issues others could connect with when it came to the environment, when it came to being anti-war. These were things that spoke out to other people. So yes, a very definite change in direction in the Catholic Church, but one that had an impact beyond the Church itself.

If there was criticism of his 12 years, do you think it's fair to say that critics would focus in on sexual abuse and perhaps him not tackling that topic quite as forcefully as some would have liked? I think a lot of the heaviest criticism was from people actually very close to him, to the Vatican. It was those who thought he was too progressive, he was moving away to the traditions of the faith. When it came to dealing with sexual abuse, I mean one thing he did do was recognise quite early on that he would be judged on how he dealt with that. There were huge scandals in the Catholic Church. And

he did try to introduce some initiatives, like for example mandatory reporting, where he said anyone in any church who doesn't report sexual abuse when they know it's going on risks being kicked out of their position. And one thing he certainly did was meet a lot of victims and survivors and say sorry. Their entire trips focused primarily on saying sorry to victims of abuse. So he did focus on that, but there are those who say, well, he did make mistakes, and although he said sorry for them, he should have done a better job of making sure these rules that he introduced were implemented everywhere the same. Ali McBull. Juan Carlos Cruz-Cheliu was abused by a cleric in Chile when he was a boy,

and he says one of the few people in the church willing to listen to him was Pope Francis. It had been a long time advocating for people who had been sexually abused in the church and nobody had listened and finally he sent investigators to the United States, where I was living at the time. He realized that he had made a mistake. He was ill-informed. So he invited me and two friends to come over and spend... I spent a week with him in Santa Marta, and he and I talked long hours about the situation and ever since he started changing the attitude towards sexual abuse in the church and it

made a 180 degree change, right? It was incredible to feel, listen to, to feel that my problem and the problem of so many others was finally taking an important place. After that meeting we had, he put out a statement saying that he had made a mistake and that he apologized and he gave my name and then he wanted all the bishops in Chile to come to Rome. And of course, he had the report that had been done by Vatican officials and then we were there and then they all came and he fired everybody he asked for their resignation. So it was pretty incredible. It had never happened.

Juan Carlos Cruz-Celius speaking about his meetings with Pope Francis. Still to come in this podcast... This is what the media does. They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputation. It's not going to work with me. The US defence secretary Pete Hegs, is accused of discussing classified information in a second group chat.

I'm Krassi Twigg from the Global Jigsaw Podcast on the BBC World Service, where we are asking what does the future hold for the Kurds? In February, Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the biggest Kurdish militant group, the PKK, called for the group to lay down arms and disband. The announcement could change the geopolitical map of the Middle East. The Global Jigsaw looks at the world through the lens of its media. Find us wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Let's hear more now about how the Pope is being remembered around the world, starting

in Latin America. In Argentina, a special mass was held in Buenos Aires, where Francis was once Archbishop. It was led by the current Archbishop Jorge Garcia Cueva. We are certain that Pope Francis now rests forever in the arms of God. We are certain that beyond the pain we feel in our hearts today, Francis will never leave our hearts, nor the heart of the Argentine people, because love is stronger. There was also a special mass in Mexico City and our correspondent Will Grant spoke to me from there. There are hundreds of faithful mourners essentially making their way to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe,

the main cathedral in Mexico City, where they will be honoring Pope Francis, his life and obviously remembering and reflecting on him. Of course, he had such an important impact in this region as the first Latin American pontiff. And I think so many people in Mexico, the faithful, and there are many nuns and local priests who are among the congregation here, wanting to pay their respects, but also just so many ordinary Mexicans, the people whom Pope Francis really saw as the core of the Church. There are a lot of some of Latin America's very poorest turning up here, some almost barefoot, but appearing in order to pay their respects.

And would you say that Argentina is a country that was proud to essentially have had a pope from there? Because he never actually visited while he was pope, so there was always that sort of political difficulty. There was a political element to Pope Francis being Argentine. As the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he was accused of having too close a relationship to the military junta during the 1970s and 80s. And of course, that he didn't want to become embroiled in the modern day polarization in Argentina. And I think it is suggested by some of his biographers

that that may be why he didn't return to his homeland after he became Pope. But I think he was held in huge regard by his countrymen. One of the most important Argentines. To have the first Latin American Pope be an Argentine, not a Brazilian, not a Mexican, but an Argentine, was a source of great pride for the people of his nation. It's interesting because the president of Argentina, Javier Millet, has declared seven days of mourning and he's put out a message saying that he did acknowledge their political

differences but also paying tribute. Certainly, I mean as a candidate Javier Millet was very insulting to Pope Francis, even going so far as to sort of insult him directly, to say he was promoting communism in the region and things of this nature. That softened by the time he became the president of Argentina and the relationship had repaired somewhat. But I think that is also part of gives us a little insight as to the kind of tone of the politics that I think Pope Francis wanted to avoid by a visit to Buenos Aires and being dragged back into the sort of national political debate. Will Grant in Mexico City. The Christian community in the Middle East is mourning Pope Francis, especially Palestinian

Christians who feel that he had often spoken up for them. From Jerusalem, Sebastian Usher reports. Pictures of Pope Francis are being given pride of place in Bethlehem, where Palestinian Christians still vividly remember his visit more than a decade ago. One souvenir seller told the BBC that the Pope always gave them hope. In his final Easter Sunday message, Pope Francis once again addressed the war in Gaza and the suffering of both Palestinians and Israelis. Palestinians also remember the calls he would make to a priest in Gaza City to check on

the well-being of Christians sheltering in the Catholic Church there. The Pope's visits to a number of other countries across the region helped bolster the morale of dwindling Christian communities in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, as well as trying to advance into faith dialogue. Africa has around a fifth of all Catholics and has the fastest growing Catholic population in the world. Outside the Holy Family Basilica in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, this woman told the BBC why she thought the Pope was so important for Africa. Like Africa, for some people they look at us as a black continent. I don't know whether it's because our colour is black, but for him he reached

out to us and he brought changes. He reached out. Like political leaders would be oppressive to their people, he would speak out. He has spoken out. Africa correspondent Mayani Jones gave us more reaction. For the millions of Catholics that follow the teachings of the Church, today is an incredibly sad day, an incredibly mournful day. Many of them are more conservative and didn't always agree with Pope Francis, particularly on his stance around LGBTQ issues, but they did respect the fact that he was always willing to highlight some of the challenges facing the continent. Just yesterday during his Easter service he called for peace for some of the continent's conflicts including in Sudan,

South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo and that is the country that he visited himself in 2023 and this is a thing that many Africans admired about the pope that he didn't just talk about the conflicts on the continent but he was also willing to travel here, to meet the Catholics that were here, to try and draw attention to the world, to some of the issues that affect Africans, like wars, like migration. So he will be greatly missed. We've spoken to officials here who say that his legacy will live on forever. And early in the day, the African Union released a statement saying that he provided moral clarity at a time when the world is increasingly fractured. Finally, a tribute from the Philippines, Asia's biggest Roman Catholic nation.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa told the BBC that Francis was very much in touch with the modern world. More than anyone, he understood what technology was doing to humanity. I've been to the Vatican four times since 2021 and each time I meet him, I marvel at both the moral leadership and the political leadership because Pope Francis really held back the tide of conservative thought that threatened to bring us back to the Middle Ages. The world will change. Pope Francis lived in a sometimes horrendous world and he looked for our humanity.

The last hashtag that we had with him was hashtag be human. Be human. And human is empathetic. It is all inclusive. And you look for the good. The Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa. In the next few days the formal process of laying the pope to rest will take place before cardinals arrive in the Vatican to decide on his successor. But before his death, Pope Francis had already chosen to change some of those traditions.

Our correspondent Mark Easton told me more about what will happen in the coming days and the legacy Pope Francis leaves behind. He has completely designed the funeral ceremony and it's very different from the funeral service that we saw for Pope Benedict, which was the classic grand affair, huge big coffin, huge amounts of people, lots of bling. This is going to be a really paired back thing. Yes, there'll be the St Peter's Square moment, and then our expectation is that the coffin will go in a sort of procession away from the Vatican. Unlike most of his predecessors he's elected not to be buried under the basilica in the Vatican, but actually in another major basilica, Santa Maria Maggiore, in the Esquilino neighbourhood.

And that's an interesting area for him to have chosen. It's a church in one of the less glamorous neighbourhoods of Rome. It's near the bus station and the railway station. It's also where a lot of immigrants arrive and set down their roots. It's a the bus station and the railway station. It's also where a lot of immigrants arrive and set down their roots. It's a very diverse area. And in that way, it's very much in keeping with his philosophy, which was that the Catholic Church should be a home for everyone from whatever background. And so I think his funeral will reflect that part of him. You could put it this way, he wanted the church to be less Roman and more Catholic, less European and more reflecting the diversity of the great

Catholic church. And that's something that he certainly has made sure to do when it comes to choosing a successor because he's had a large hand in changing the foundations of how they'll be selected. Yeah, 135 cardinals will come together probably 15, 16 days from now to choose the next pope and 80% of them pretty much will have been chosen by Pope Francis. He will have picked them out and said those are the people. And it's interesting, we've got 18 cardinals from South America, 18 cardinals from Africa. That is going to really change potentially the way that the process happens. You know, conclaves, well,

anyone who's seen the movie knows, you know, that these things can be a real surprise. I think this could be a major surprise. I mean people are even saying well could we have a black pope? It's not impossible. There are some people who are suggesting that there are cardinals from Africa who would be qualified for that kind of role. Aside from the mechanics of the selection process that's clearly on the way, what do you think he'll be most remembered for? What do you think his legacy will be? One, it will be on a church which reaches out to the marginalized, to the dispossessed. When he was in Rome, he would invite the homeless to come in. He wore shabby shoes. People used to say, you know, some people who came and saw him would go, well, he's one of us. What do

you mean? Well, look at his shoes. And I was talking to Cardinal Nichols this afternoon, the Archbishop of Westminster here in London, who was reflecting on the fact that he wanted the church, the Catholic Church, to be a universal place, open to everyone. And I think, to what extent the next pope, the next chapter in the Catholic story will be more conservative or more liberal, the extent to which it will be more global and less European. I do wonder whether that point of saying this is a church that needs to reach out to those who are on the margins of our societies that that will actually be something that whoever comes into office after him will find very difficult to reverse.

Mark Easton. Now to some of the day's other news. President Trump has denied that the US defence secretary discussed classified information in any group chat on the Signal Messaging app. The New York Times has reported that Pete Hegseth created a group called Defence Team Huddle in which he shared information about air strikes on Yemen. Senior Democrats, including the Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, have called for Mr Hegseth to be removed from his position. Our North America editor Sarah Smith reports. Pete Hegseth included his wife, his brother and his personal lawyer in a mobile phone group chat in which he shared sensitive details of a planned military attack.

The operational details, including the flight schedules for the fighter jets targeting Houthi rebels in Yemen, were shared on the Signal app. This is the second time the defence secretary has found to have been sharing attack plans this way. A journalist was mistakenly included on a separate signal group and also saw advanced military plans. Asked about the latest controversy Mr. Hegseth turned his eye on the press but didn't actually deny the story. This is what the media does. They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their

reputations. Not gonna work with me. Mr Mr Hicks says the wife, a former Fox News producer, does not work for the Department of Defence but has already drawn criticism for accompanying her husband to sensitive meetings with foreign leaders. President Trump has said he has great confidence in his defence secretary saying he's doing a great job and dismissing the signal story as fake news from disgruntled employees at the Pentagon. Sarah Smith. Scientists say that snowfall along the Hindu Kush Himalayan mountain range has reached a 23-year low, threatening nearly 2 billion people dependent on snowmelt for water. The report by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development calls

for reduced global carbon emissions to address low snow levels in the long term. Our South Asia regional editor Alfie Haberschen reports. The mountain range is known as the World Water Tower or the Earth's third pole, with more snow than anywhere outside the Arctic and Antarctica. But according to the research, the peaks that stretch 800 kilometres from Afghanistan to Myanmar have less snow than before. And the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development says it's melting nearly 25% faster than normal. Sheh Muhammad led the study.

Twenty years back, the snow season was starting around October, November until March, April. So there was a long season when we were receiving snow in these mountains, but now we have seen almost no snow until January. The mountain range runs through some of the most populated countries in the world like China, India and Pakistan. It's the source of 10 of Asia's largest rivers and with this news scientists say droughts could follow in places already hard hit by heat waves. It is significant for the people who are living in the mountains, for their households and also for their agriculture but also for the people who are living in the mountains, for their households and also for their agriculture, but also for the people who are living downstream.

For irrigation, because there are reservoirs and these riverbases and if there is less water available then there is less energy generation. The report says early weather warning systems and stringent water use may help ease the problem, but that global emissions must be reduced to save the rich water supply that nearly a quarter of the world relies on. Alfie Haberschen with that report. And that's all from us for now. There will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later on. If you'd like to comment, do send us an email. Our address is globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk.

You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Just use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll. The producer was Richard Hamilton. Our editor is Karen Martin. I'm Chris Barrow and until next time, goodbye. I'm Krassi Twigg from the Global Jigsso podcast on the BBC World Service, where we are asking what does the future hold for the Kurds? In February, Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the biggest Kurdish militant group,

the PKK, called for the group to lay down arms and disband. The announcement could change the geopolitical map of the Middle East. The Global Jigsaw looks at the world through the lens of its media. Find us wherever you get your BBC podcasts.