Pope Francis is not slowing down, despite his medical problems
Pope Francis has often been called the “pope of surprises” – and he surprised everyone this weekend.
On Friday night, the Vatican said that although “the pope’s condition remains stable,” the doctors “have not yet given an indication of when he will be discharged from the hospital.”
Then on Saturday morning, the Vatican said the pope would give his blessing from his window at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital.
Yet on Saturday night, the medical staff said Francis was being discharged on Sunday and returning to his home in the Casa Santa Marta at the Vatican.
Italian Doctor Sergio Alfieri, director of the medical surgical department of the hospital, said the pope will be required to observe a period of rest for two months and must continue his drug regimen and his motor and respiratory physiotherapies.
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Francis was admitted to Gemelli Hospital on Feb. 14 with “acute respiratory failure” due to a polymicrobial respiratory infection, meaning it had various components, including viral and bacterial elements, and “a severe bilateral pneumonia.”
Alfieri told journalists on Saturday evening there were two times the pope’s “life was at risk” during his more than a month in the hospital, but he has been getting better.
The doctor also said that although Francis is no longer suffering from pneumonia, there is still some bacteria in his lungs that will potentially take months to disappear.
The whiplash for Vatican journalists probably wasn’t planned by Vatican officials. Pope Francis is known to be strong-willed, and the 88-year-old head of the Catholic Church obviously thinks he still has work to do.
Speaking to journalists on Friday, Argentinian Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández – the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and a close advisor to the pope – said Francis wants to spend his remaining time – however long that might be – working, rather than resting.
“He is doing very well physically. Now he needs rehabilitation, because so much time with the high-flow oxygen dries everything, and he almost needs to learn to talk again,” Fernández said, noting doctors “want to be one hundred percent sure, they prefer to wait a bit, because he has his way of living, he wants to completely spend himself.”
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Fernández said Francis only went to the hospital last month at the strong insistence of his closest advisors.
“Imagine how hard it is for him, but he is one of those Jesuits from before, from other times, who have an immense strength and ability to sacrifice, to find meaning in these dark moments,” the cardinal said.
Despite his age, the pope has a busy schedule on his 2025 calendar. Less than two months before he went to the hospital, he began the Jubilee Year, based on the theme “Pilgrims of Hope.” It is also the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, which condemned the Arian heresy, which denied the Divinity of Jesus Christ.
Pope Francis has been hoping for a meeting with Bartholomew I, the Eastern Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople, in the modern Nicaea, the city of İznik in northwestern Turkey, which about 70 miles from Istanbul. Of course, the pontiff’s medical crisis has put off these plans, which were originally being looked at for May.
RELATED: For Francis, Council of Nicaea anniversary is about Christology, not just Christian unity
Of course, the issue of Synodality is also on the pontiff’s agenda.
On March 15 – while Francis had been in the hospital for a month – Synod Secretary-General Cardinal Mario Grech sent a letter to the world’s bishops announcing another step in the synodal journey, decreed by the pope himself: A three-year phase focused on applying the synod’s conclusions at all levels of the Church to help integrate synodality into daily church life before an “ecclesial assembly” at the Vatican in 2028.
Any long stay in a hospital can remind a person that time is short, even if they aren’t 88.
When announcing the pope was leaving the hospital, Alfieri said Francis will be continuing his work at the Vatican, pointing out he was working during his 5-week hospitalization.
However, the doctor said the pontiff would be required to abstain from meeting groups and from holding particularly strenuous meetings and activities during his 2-month period of rest assigned by medical staff.
It is doubtful anyone is placing bets on the idea the pope will follow the doctor’s rules.
Follow Charles Collins on X: @CharlesinRome