Pope Francis is alert and nonetheless making jokes despite having double pneumonia, Italy’s Prime Minister mentioned Wednesday (February 19, 2025) after visiting the 88-year-old pontiff in hospital.
Francis was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital with bronchitis final Friday, however the Holy See revealed on Tuesday that he had developed pneumonia in each of his lungs.
The improvement prompted widespread alarm over the Pope’s well being, after a sequence of points lately, from colon and hernia surgical procedure to issues strolling.
“I was very happy to find him alert and responsive. We joked as always. He hasn’t lost his proverbial sense of humour,” Giorgia Meloni mentioned in an announcement after her go to.
Amid widespread hypothesis on-line, together with experiences of his dying, the Vatican issued an early bulletin Wednesday saying he had spent a “peaceful night” within the hospital’s papal suite and had breakfast.
“The pope is breathing on his own. His heart is holding up very well,” a supply within the Vatican added.
Francis has been talking to mates by phone, has been away from bed and sitting in a chair, and dealing on and off, the supply mentioned.
‘Complex image’
The Argentine Pope, who has been head of the Catholic Church since 2013, retains a busy schedule despite his age and illnesses, and this 12 months is busy with celebrations of the holy Jubilee 12 months.
But he had struggled to learn his homilies within the days earlier than his hospital admission.
After an preliminary prognosis of bronchitis, the Holy See revealed on Tuesday night that “the laboratory tests, chest X-ray, and the Holy Father’s clinical condition continue to present a complex picture”.
A “polymicrobial infection” which has come on high of “bronchiectasis and asthmatic bronchitis, and which required the use of cortisone antibiotic therapy, makes therapeutic treatment more complex”, the Vatican mentioned.
“The follow-up chest CT scan which the Holy Father underwent this afternoon… demonstrated the onset of bilateral pneumonia, which required additional drug therapy,” it added.
Bronchiectasis is when the bronchi, or air passages, thicken attributable to an infection or one other situation.
The pontiff had a part of his proper lung lower away when he was 21, after growing pleurisy that nearly killed him.
The Vatican has cancelled a papal viewers on Saturday and mentioned the pope wouldn’t attend a mass on Sunday, though it has but to announce plans for his weekly Angelus prayer, which is held on Sunday at noon.
‘Vital vitality’
Cardinal Baldassare Reina, vicar common of the Diocese of Rome, known as on all parishes within the Italian capital to wish for the pope’s restoration.
Candles, some with footage of the pope on them, have been set on the backside of a statue of Pope John Paul II exterior the Gemelli hospital, the place pilgrims have been coming to wish.
“I hope he recovers as soon as possible because this is the Jubilee year and he has so much to do for young people, for everyone, it’s very sad,” mentioned Annamaria Santoro, an Italian girl whose son was in the identical hospital.
The Vatican printed drawings made by youngsters within the hospital for Francis, in addition to letters from dad and mom asking him to wish for his or her sick offspring.
Jesuit theologian Antonio Spadaro, who’s near Francis, advised Italy’s Corriere della Sera each day the pope may very well be in hospital for 2 to a few weeks.
“It is clear that the situation is delicate, but I have not perceived any form of alarmism,” he mentioned.
The pope “has an extraordinary vital energy. He is not a person who lets himself go, he is not a resigned man. And that is a very positive element, we have seen that in the past”, he mentioned.
The Pope has left open the choice of resigning had been he to grow to be unable to hold out his duties.
But in a memoir final 12 months Francis mentioned it was only a “distant possibility” that might be justified solely within the occasion of “a serious physical impediment”.
Published – February 19, 2025 10:10 pm IST
