Navarrosa, who is currently writing his thesis on the pope’s 2016 encyclical 'Amoris Laetitia,' recalls meeting Francis in 2021 and says he had hoped to meet him again. “I’m not worried about the future of the church, because it is guided by the Holy Spirit,” he says.

Pope Francis’ funeral will be a more modest event, after the pontiff broke with longstanding Vatican tradition to simplify the ritual. It will likely take weeks to choose a new pontiff.

Pope Francis, the first Latin American leader of the Roman Catholic Church, has died aged 88 He died of stroke and subsequent irreversible heart failure, the Vatican says in a statement