Pope alert, joking regardless of double pneumonia, Italy PM says

Candles with the images of Pope Francis are seen beneath the statue of late Pope John Paul II, exterior Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome, on February 19, 2025, the place the Pontiff is hospitalized since February 14, 2025
| Picture Credit score: ap

Pope Francis is alert and nonetheless making jokes regardless of having double pneumonia, Italy’s Prime Minister stated 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 event precipitated widespread alarm over the Pope’s well being, after a collection of points lately, from colon and hernia surgical procedure to issues strolling.

“I used to be very completely satisfied to seek out him alert and responsive. We joked as at all times. He hasn’t misplaced his proverbial sense of humour,” Giorgia Meloni stated in an announcement after her go to.

Amid widespread hypothesis on-line, together with experiences of his demise, the Vatican issued an early bulletin Wednesday saying he had spent a “peaceable night time” within the hospital’s papal suite and had breakfast.

“The pope is respiratory on his personal. His coronary heart is holding up very nicely,” a supply within the Vatican added.

Francis has been chatting with associates by phone, has been off the bed and sitting in a chair, and dealing on and off, the supply stated.

‘Complicated image’

The Argentine Pope, who has been head of the Catholic Church since 2013, retains a busy schedule regardless of his age and illnesses, and this 12 months is busy with celebrations of the holy Jubilee 12 months.

However he had struggled to learn his homilies within the days earlier than his hospital admission.

After an preliminary analysis of bronchitis, the Holy See revealed on Tuesday night that “the laboratory checks, chest X-ray, and the Holy Father’s medical situation proceed to current a fancy image”.

A “polymicrobial an infection” which has come on prime of “bronchiectasis and asthmatic bronchitis, and which required using cortisone antibiotic remedy, makes therapeutic remedy extra advanced”, the Vatican stated.

“The follow-up chest CT scan which the Holy Father underwent this afternoon… demonstrated the onset of bilateral pneumonia, which required extra drug remedy,” it added.

Bronchiectasis is when the bronchi, or air passages, thicken as a consequence of 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 just about killed him.

The Vatican has cancelled a papal viewers on Saturday and stated 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.

‘Very important power’

Cardinal Baldassare Reina, vicar common of the Diocese of Rome, known as on all parishes within the Italian capital to hope 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 hope.

“I hope he recovers as quickly as attainable as a result of that is the Jubilee 12 months and he has a lot to do for younger folks, for everybody, it is very unhappy,” stated Annamaria Santoro, an Italian girl whose son was in the identical hospital.

The Vatican printed drawings made by kids within the hospital for Francis, in addition to letters from mother and father asking him to hope 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 3 weeks.

“It’s clear that the scenario is delicate, however I’ve not perceived any type of alarmism,” he stated.

The pope “has a rare very important power. He isn’t an individual who lets himself go, he’s not a resigned man. And that could be a very optimistic factor, we have now seen that previously”, he stated.

The Pope has left open the choice of resigning had been he to develop into unable to hold out his duties.

However in a memoir final 12 months Francis stated it was only a “distant risk” that will be justified solely within the occasion of “a severe bodily obstacle”.