WASHINGTON

US President Donald Trump and his wife Melania will travel to Rome to attend the funeral of Pope Francis, in what would be his first overseas trip since taking office in January.

"We look forward to being there," Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social on Monday.

The 88-year-old pontiff died of a cerebral stroke and irreversible heart failure earlier Monday, Vatican doctor Andrea Arcangeli said in a death certificate.

Francis, the first Latin American pontiff, was born in Buenos Aires in 1936 to Italian immigrant parents. Ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1969, he studied in Argentina and later in Germany before rising to lead the Catholic Church in 2013.

The Vatican has yet to release details for his funeral.