Francis died Monday, after Goldberg visited him at the Vatican over the years — including an October 2023 trip where she gifted him with “Sister Act” merch.

Whoopi Goldberg with Pope Francis at the Vatican in June 2024.Credit: 

Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty

Sister Act actress Whoopi Goldberg has shared an emotional tribute to Pope Francis, the revered Catholic leader who died Monday at age 88.

After the Vatican announced Francis’ death on April 21, Goldberg, 69, shared a photo of herself to Instagram, showing herself standing next to Francis on one of her many visits to the Italian site.

“He was the closest in a long time that seemed to remember that Christ’s love enveloped believer and [non] believer,” Goldberg wrote in the caption for the image, which showed her smiling as she looked at Francis.

Goldberg said Francis felt, to her, “more like Pope John the 23rd, who made belief real” with his more liberal approach to welcoming people into the religion.

“Sail on Pope [Francis] with your love of humanity & Laughter,” Goldberg finished.

Goldberg has long expressed her admiration for Francis, including several times from her post as moderator of the long-running daytime talk show The View, where she said Francis was a fan of  Sister Act, the 1992 box office smash that starred Goldberg as a woman who enters witness protection as a nun.

“I thought, I’m going to walk into this building and I’m going to burst into flames,” Goldberg previously joked on the air of of her Italian journey to Vatican City in 2023. “I brought him some stuff from Sister Act that he asked for.”

Later, Goldberg also revealed that, during the October 2023 trip to see him, Goldberg offered Francis a cameo role in her long-gestating Sister Act 3 film: “I offered one. He said he’d see what his time was like,” the star said on a May 2024 episode of The Tonight Show.

Whoopi Goldberg gives Pope Francis ‘Sister Act’ merch while visiting the Vatican.ABC

“This is supposed to be the guy that you talk to. I like him. He’s annoyed a lot of people because he said some things that people don’t think are correct, but I do. You’re the Pope. You say, ‘We welcome everybody. We want everybody at our party. We’re not going to judge you. Only God judges you,’” Goldberg told host Jimmy Fallon of Francis at the time.

Goldberg and Fallon were also part of a group of around 100 comedians from around the world who again traveled to visit Francis at the Vatican in June 2024, with the leader thanking the group — which also included Stephen Colbert, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Chris Rock, Conan O’Brien, Tig Notaro, Stephen Merchant, and Ramy Youssef — for their “power to spread peace and smiles” to the world.

Francis, who had chronic lung disease, suffered a health scare in February, after a respiratory emergency led to double pneumonia. The development led to an outpouring of support from around the world, including from the cast of Conclave at the 2025 SAG Awards.

Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell announced Monday “with deep sorrow” that Francis died at 7:35 a.m. local time,

“He taught us to live the values ​​of the Gospel with fidelity, courage, and universal love, especially for the poorest and most marginalized,” Farrell said in a press release, according to a Google Translate version of the Italian-language statement.