Find the Pope in the Pizza:
If we consider the whole Easter season of 7 weeks, then 7/52 or ~13% of all popes should die during that timeframe. Likewise 13% should be invested or elevated or whatever the proper term is for their selection.
May he Rest in Peace.
266 popes (there is some minor disputes yet 266 would probably be the Vatican approved number)
Pentecost seems to add an unfair 7 days to Easter to the Annunciation - 40 days later. Yet it doesn’t matter. None have died between 40-49 days of Easter.
Five have did within 40 (really 22)
Pope Francis (2025) (Easter Monday)
Pope Leo XI (1605) (13 days after Easter)
Pope Pius V (1572) (22 days)
Pope Martin IV (1285) (Easter Wednesday)
Pope Agapetus I (536) (Easter Wednesday)
and that is 1.88%
Agree. Benedict was a fucking monster. Francis wasn’t perfect but I believe he meant well in his own way.
Slightly OT about Easter, but not worth its own thread
It’s just that definitions about calendar events differ between countries and certainly between different denominations within the same religion. For the Swedish Lutheran Church, this current week is Easter week. The one leading up to Good Friday is called “Quiet Week.” Cathloics in Spain celebrate Easter from palm Sunday to Easter Sunday.
I’m currently unemployed and technically eligible to be Pope*, but I think openly declaring you are interested mostly eliminates you.
Francis was the first non-European Pope in centuries, and the first from the Western Hemisphere.
He was the first Jesuit Pope, and had a hard** science (Chemistry) education (though I’ve heard “master’s degree” isn’t quite accurate)
He championed the poor and underserved, and softened the stance on homosexuality.
He certainly had flaws and didn’t go far enough on many issues, but certainly one of the better popes.
Brian
* male and technically Catholic
** hard vs soft, not hard vs easy
He did meet Vance.
Sad, but not surprising. He must’ve forced himself to live through Holy Week and the Easter Weekend. At least it was quick when it happened; no long drawn out Papal death watch like with John Paul II. The Conclave will be interesting.
For Catholics, “part of the Easter holidays” extends for a full seven weeks after Easter, so it’s almost certain that some Popes have died in that season.
I think the big question is who will succeed him. He did a lot of good for the Church, but the Church is too big, too old, and too traditional to change quickly: It’ll take another two or three Papacies to make any real changes.
Protestant here. This is sad news. He seemed to be as progressive as the RCC would allow him to be and I talked to people that met him and he seemed like a truly nice guy. It will be interesting to see what direction the College of Cardinals goes now. I bumped the papabile thread.
I’m at a loss as to how anyone could see Francis as smarmy or pompous. On the contrary, he was the least pompous pope in my lifetime, and I go back a few popes. Francis was a good antidote to Benedict.
While I disagree with some of Francis’s stands, and I wish he’d gone further on others, he did many things I approved of, including advocating for migrants; urging greater acceptance of LGBTQ people; closing the “death penalty” loophole; advocated for considering harming the environment as a sin; said atheists can go to Heaven, chastised both Trump and Vance; told Catholics who oppose abortion to be equally opposed to the death penalty, the impoverished, and other vulnerable groups; and abrogated the traditional Mass, which rigid Benedict had reinstated.
I hope the next pope is like Francis.
How eerie. Last night I dreamt about the pope, where he was like James Brown stalling getting off the stage while a Cardinal kept trying to put a satin cape on him. Then I wake up and see he really died.
It’s a sign from Heaven. You’re papabile! 
I liked Francis. A great and humble man with a good heart.
I hope he didn’t infarct after Vance started complaining about not being sufficiently thanked.
With the recent release of the movie Conclave, lots more people will have an idea of how a new pope is elected. This would be a good time to watch it.
The protocol, ceremony, dress, secrecy, political machinations-- I’m sure those were portrayed accurately. And the stepped-up security in the modern techie age is pretty mind-boggling. They didn’t have to worry about cell phones, drones, hidden cameras, etc., in the Middle Ages. I guess just stuff like poison, stabbings, and maybe, rats. (The furry kind.)
The trivia section of the IMDB link on Conclave is really fascinating.
Did Meeting JD Vance Kill the Pope?
It’s certainly humiliating and depressing that one of the last moments of Francis’s consequential life involved being in the same physical space as JD Vance, one of the most contemptible creatures currently scuttling around our poor distressed planet. But is that proximity to the vice president a cause of Francis’s death? Was meeting with JD Vance, even for a couple of minutes, a dreadful enough experience that Pope Francis chose to die rather than risk it ever happening again?
First thing I thought, was that it was hard for even a Pope to survive such an encounter with someone with weapon’s grade bad faith.
On edit: And yes, I responded without seeing @K364 reply!
With the caveat, of course, that none of us have any idea how accurate that idea is. Nobody actually knows but God and the Cardinals, and they ain’t telling.
Of course, with the high turnover in cardinals, it’s even quite plausible that every conclave works completely differently. Maybe the movie is an accurate depiction of some conclaves, but not others.
Au contraire, you’re right that God isn’t telling, but enough living people have participated in past conclaves that the process is well-known. Not to mention the Vatican staff who have been around for many years. If it was all that secret, how would they know how to do the next one?
Is 'Conclave' an accurate portrayal of the pope selection process? : NPR
NOTE: There is a major spoiler in the NPR article. If you plan to see the movie, suggest you skip the article.
In the Oscar-winning film Conclave, the complex political structure of the Catholic Church is laid out on the big screen as the College of Cardinals gather to elect a new pope. Based on a book of the same name by novelist Robert Harris, the plot of the film is fictional, but the papal election process, known as a conclave, is real.
According to Rev. Thomas Reese, a columnist at Religion News Service with a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, the film was quite faithful to the truth.
…
My bold.