Following Pope Francis' death Monday at age 88, the Vatican will have an acting head until a new pontiff is chosen during the conclave process. That acting head, or camerlengo, is Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who was born in Dublin, Ireland, and ultimately became a naturalized US citizen, NPR reports. Francis nominated the 77-year-old as camerlengo (which means "chamberlain") in 2019; Farrell had come to the Vatican at the pope's request—"summoned out of the blue" is how the AP puts it—in 2016, and once there he rose quickly. Farrell was ordained as a priest in 1978 and served in Mexico before coming to the US in 1984; he was bishop of Dallas, a position to which he'd been appointed in 2007, when he was sent to the Vatican.
As camerlengo, Farrell was responsible for verifying and announcing the pope's death and taking other ceremonial actions such as sealing the papal apartment, and he will also organize the conclave and preside over the pope's burial. His position does not prevent him from being elected pope himself, though only two camerlengos have ever been elected pope in the church's history. When Francis asked him to serve in the position, "I said to him I would accept ... but on one condition," Farrell said in a 2022 interview. That condition was that Francis must agree to preach at Farrell's own funeral—illustrating Farrell's hope that the pope would outlive him, something he wanted because he appreciated the way Francis was moving the Catholic Church away from the culture wars and back to a culture of inclusion.
Farrell is no stranger to controversy: He once lived and worked with Theodore McCarrick, the cardinal Francis defrocked in 2019 following a Vatican investigation that concluded he had molested children and adults; Farrell said afterward that he never suspected McCarrick of misconduct. Farrell was also criticized by some for refusing to allow Voices of Faith to hold a Women's Day event at the Vatican in 2018, which some believed was because of speakers at the event who supported same-sex marriage. (More Catholic Church stories.)
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