President Donald Trump posted a heartfelt farewell to Pope Francis just hours after the world learned that the Roman Catholic Church leader died overnight on Easter Morning.
Trump, who has identified as Presbyterian for most of his adult life, wrote a traditional “rest in peace” message on Truth Social, a sentiment shared by 1.4 billion Catholics around the world who have worshipped under the Pope’s authority since he was anointed in 2013.
“May God Bless him and all who loved him!” Trump’s brief message added.
The two men met once in 2017 during Trump’s first administration. He was joined by First Lady Melania, his daughter Ivanka, her husband Jared Kushner, and former U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
“Thank you so much,” Trump said in front of the Vatican press corps at the time while shaking the pope’s hand. Later, he said it was “a very great honor” to sit across from Pope Francis in his private study for a 30-minute discussion.
On Easter Sunday, Vice President J.D. Vance visited with Pope Francis, who sat in a wheelchair that he also used to bless the masses in St. Peter’s Square earlier in the day. Vance wrote that he seemed in “good health” and was similarly stunned by news of the Catholic leader’s death.
“My heart goes out to the millions of Christians all over the world who loved him,” Vance said in a statement. “I was happy to see him yesterday, though he was obviously very ill. But I’ll always remember him for the below homily he gave in the very early days of COVID. It was really quite beautiful.”
Church cardinals will now gather to elect a new pope in a private affair that closely resembles the processes detailed in the hit 2024 film “Conclave,” said Dennis Doyle, a professor emeritus of Catholic research at Dayton University in Ohio.
“This was fairly accurate,” he said about the film, based on the novel by author Robert Harris.
“There were just a few differences, like some of the Latin wasn’t exact, the carpet was red in the movie and it’s beige in real life,” Doyle told Fox News. “The seating arrangements were done very dramatically in the movie. They’re not exactly that way in real life. And even the way the voting was done was not exactly the same.”
Francis, 88, had suffered a severe bout with pneumonia in recent weeks, leading to his hospitalization and brief recovery before he passed. The headstrong leader reportedly refused to seek treatment until advisors and his personal doctor explained that he would certainly die without being admitted.
“It was his belief that he may not live very long,” Neomi DeAnda, a trained constructive theologian, told Fox News Digital. “He was already in his 70s when he was elected pope, and he wanted to be prepared when God called him home.”
He will be laid to rest in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, the holy Italian ground Francis selected to be his final resting place.
“It has some significance for his grandparents,” DeAnda told Fox News Digital. “His grandparents were the ones who immigrated to Argentina with his dad and, I believe that they lived close to and visited that Basilica.”
“That has been his favorite place to visit,” DeAnda also said. “It’s a place that he goes to every time that he is going on a trip. He goes there to pray before he goes on a trip.”