Buenos Aires, Argentina - April 21, 2025 The Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge García Cuerva, celebrated Mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral following the death of Pope Francis, which occurred early this morning at 2:30 a.m. in Argentina. The religious ceremony at the emblematic Catholic church in Buenos Aires, where the Pope lived and carried out much of his pastoral work as a priest, was the first formal reaction of the Catholic Church following Jorge Bergoglio's death. Bergoglio's last Mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral took place on February 23 before a small group of priests. Three days later, he boarded an Alitalia flight with the promise that he would return to Buenos Aires a week later, but this never happened. The Congregation of Cardinals elected him as the successor to Benedict XVI, who had resigned from his ministry.