Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It's Monday, April 21st. We come on the air with breaking news.

Pope Francis has passed away. The Vatican made the announcement early this morning, saying the 88-year-old

Bishop of Rome returned to the House of the Father. Just yesterday, Francis made a surprise public appearance

to bless thousands of people in St. Peter Square. He then drove through the Pope's mobile.

The Pope had been recovering from pneumonia. He was in the hospital for five weeks and was discharged less than a month ago.

MSNBC's Chris Jansing has a look back at his life and legacy.

Francis the pastor, gathering excited children on the Popemobile, ever the warm and humble priest he showed the world the day he was elected in 2013.

Asking for prayers, dressed in a simple white cassock and an iron cross, not the traditional gold.

No surprise from a man who is cardinal in Buenos Aires, lived in a small apartment,

rode the subway, and cooked his own meals. He could understand regular people. I'm an

ordinary person, an ordinary guy, with an extraordinary job. And I think that the message was,

I am one of you. But then, surprising many as Pope,

by bluntly taking on controversial causes, speaking out against the invasion of Ukraine.

Criticizing those who wouldn't wear masks during the pandemic, calling couples who had pets instead

of children, selfish, and as the first

Pope to address a joint session of Congress, challenging the U.S. to open its arms to refugees

and abolish the death penalty. Even earlier, just months after his election, saying something

revolutionary for a Catholic church leader, that the church must welcome the LGBTQ community.

If a person is gay and seeks God and has goodwill, who am I to judge?

It's the Pope saying something that no other Pope has said not only in terms of the implications of that statement,

but the very willingness to speak with such kind of spontaneity and ease on a grave matter

to reporters at the back of a plane. By that December, Time Magazine and the advocate named

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