Dublin-born Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who was appointed Camerlengo - or chamberlain - in 2019, announced the death of Pope Francis on Monday, April 21.
As Camerlengo, Farrell is the person who essentially keeps the Catholic Church running between the death or resignation of one Pope and the election of a new one.
It was Farrell's duty to verify and announce the death of Pope Francis, and he will now direct preparations and manage the conclave for the election of a new Pope.
At 9:45 AM, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Camerlengo of the Apostolic Chamber, announced the death of Pope Francis from the Casa Santa Marta with these words:
"Dearest brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis. At 7:35 this morning,… pic.twitter.com/De4pEZkvs9
— Vatican News (@VaticanNews) April 21, 2025
On Monday evening, Farrell was due to preside over the rite of the ascertainment of death of Pope Francis and the placement of his body in the coffin in the Chapel of the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta.
Farrell is the first Irish man to ever hold the role of Camerlengo, the highest position an Irish clergyman has ever received.
He was born on September 2, 1947, in Dublin and was raised in the working-class area of Galtymore Park in Drimnagh.
“Kevin’s dad was a very republican man and they all spoke Irish in their home," Farrell's childhood friend Alan Whelan told The Sunday Times.
"They were also very private in their own way."
Whelan added: “Unfortunately, Kevin rarely gets any mention in the Irish papers.
"He’s often referred to as an American cardinal in the States, which would be like calling me a British head teacher.”
Indeed, Farrell is a dual Irish-US citizen and spent many years working in the US.
August 22, 2018: Kevin Farrell speaking at a Press Conference at the Ireland World Meeting of Families in the RDS in Dublin. (RollingNews.ie)
Kevin Farrell's clerical life
A brief biography issued by the Vatican says that Farrell attended the University of Salamanca in Spain and the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He holds a licentiate in philosophy and theology from the University of St. Thomas in Rome. He entered the Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ in 1966 and was ordained a priest on December 24, 1978.
After ordination, he served as chaplain of the Regnun Christi Movement at the University of Monterrey in Mexico. Since 1983, he exercised his pastoral ministry in the parish of St. Bartholomew in Bethesda, in Washington, DC.
He became a cardinal in 1984 in Washington, DC, where he held the following positions: assistant pastor in the parish of St. Thomas the Apostle (1984-1985); director of the Spanish Catholic Center (1986); acting executive director of the Catholic Charitable Organizations (1987-1988); secretary for financial affairs (1989-2001); and pastor of the Annunciation parish (2000-2002).
He was appointed titular bishop of Rusuccuru and auxiliary of Washington on December 28, 2001, and received episcopal consecration on February 11, 2002. Since 2001, he has held the office of vicar general for administration and moderator of the Curia. On March 6, 2007, he was appointed as bishop of Dallas in Texas.
On August 15, 2016, Pope Francis called him to serve in the Roman Curia, as prefect of the new Dicastery for the Laity, the Family and Life.
He was created and proclaimed Cardinal by Pope Francis in the consistory of 19 November 2016, diaconate of San Giuliano Martire.
On February 14, 2019, Pope Francis nominated him to serve as Camerlengo.
On September 29, 2020, Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Kevin Farrell as president of the Commission for Confidential Matters.
On June 2, 2023, the Pope appointed Cardinal Keven Joseph Farrell as President of the Vatican City State Supreme Court, with effect from January 1, 2024.
August 21, 2018: Cardinal Kevin Farrell (L) with Archbishop Diarmuid Martin at the evening mass for the opening ceremony of the World Meeting of Families at the RDS In Dublin. (RollingNews.ie)
Kevin Farrell on priests and marriage
In 2018, Catholic News Agency reported that Farrell had told the Irish Catholic publication Intercom that "priests are not the best people to train others for marriage."
"They have no credibility," he said, "they have never lived the experience; they may know moral theology, dogmatic theology in theory, but to go from there to putting it into practice every day....they don't have the experience."
Farrell's sentiments to Intercom echoed comments he offered a year earlier, saying that priests have "no credibility when it comes to living the reality of marriage."
Kevin Farrell and Mary McAleese
Also in 2018, Cardinal Farrell denied former President of Ireland Mary McAleese and two other females permission to speak at an International Women’s Day conference at the Vatican.
The conference was moved, and in response, President McAleese slammed the Catholic Church as a "primary global carrier of the toxic virus of misogyny" and "a male bastion of patronizing platitudes.”
Kevin Farrell and Theodore McCarrick
In 2001, Farrell was consecrated as a bishop by the now defrocked Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, and, according to the Associated Press, served as his vicar general in the archdiocese of Washington until McCarrick's 2006 retirement. Farrell lived in the same building as McCarrick.
A month after McCarrick was removed from public ministry by the Holy See following an investigation into claims that he had sexually abused a teen, Farrell told the Associated Press that he had never heard any rumors about McCarrick or suspected anything.
"That might be hard for somebody to believe, but if that's the only thing on your mind, well then you'll focus on that," Farrell said at the time.
"I was focused on running the archdiocese. What Cardinal McCarrick was doing here, there and everywhere and all over the world, didn't enter into my daily routine of running the archdiocese of Washington."
He continued: "At no time did anyone ever approach me and tell me. And I was approached by over 70 victims of abuse (in different cases) from all over the United States after 2002," when the US sex abuse scandal first erupted.
He added: "Never once did I even suspect.
"Now, people can say, 'Well you must be a right fool that you didn't notice.' I must be a right fool, but I don't think I am. And that's why I feel angry."
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