​President Diomaye Faye welcomes “a living hope for millions of believers” 

  Le Sénégal shares the emotion aroused by the disappearance of Pope Francis. In an impressive message of recollection, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye expressed his “great sadness” at the announcement of the death of His Holiness, saluting the memory of “a major spiritual figure”. “Through his commitment to the most vulnerable and his constant appeal for dialogue between peoples and religions, he has embodied a living hope for millions of believers and men of good will”, declared the Head of State. President of a country with a Muslim majority but with a strong tradition of peaceful religious coexistence, Diomaye Faye wanted to address, on behalf of the Senegalese people, his “most saddened condolences” to the Catholic Church, to the Catholic community of Senegal and the world, as well as to “all those and those whose message has inspired”. Pope Francis, the first Jesuit and Latin American pope, died on Easter Monday at the age of 88. His death marks the end of a pontificate deeply devoted to the poor, the internal reforms of the Church and the insistent calls for peace and social justice. Elected on 13 March 2013 following the historic resignation of Benedict XVI, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, archbishop of Buenos Aires and known for his simplicity, became the first non-European pope in nearly 1,300 years. He chose the name of François, in homage to Saint François of Assise, a symbol of poverty, peace and brotherhood. The Pope died at dawn on Monday, April 21, in the Vatican. The communiqué of the Holy See mentions a death due to respiratory complications, after weeks of convalescence.