Pope Francis, 86, hospitalized in Rome since Wednesday for bronchitis, is expected to leave hospital on Saturday, the Vatican announced on Friday.
“The return of His Holiness to Saint Martha (his residence in the Vatican, editor’s note) is scheduled for tomorrow, following the results of the last examinations this morning”, announced in a press release the director of the press service of the Holy See, Matteo Burnished.
The 86-year-old Argentinian Jesuit, whose state of health is “significantly improving” according to his doctors, spent a “serene” second night at the Gemelli polyclinic in Rome, where he is receiving antibiotic treatment for infectious bronchitis. we previously learned Friday from a Vatican source.
Thursday, the Vatican had already indicated that Jorge Bergoglio was better and had “returned to work”. But no official communication has been made so far on his participation in the Easter celebrations, the main highlight of the year for Catholics, in particular at the Palm Sunday mass scheduled for Sunday in Saint Peter’s Square and marking the opening of the Holy Week.
“Based on the information I have, the pope will leave Gemelli tomorrow,” Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, told the Adnkronos agency on Friday. Asked by AFP, the Holy See did not confirm this information.
Francis, who suffers from chronic health problems and uses a wheelchair due to knee pain, is hospitalized in the private apartment reserved for Popes at 10e floor of the Gemelli University Hospital, where Pope John Paul II had stayed several times in his time.
Created in 1981, this small apartment includes a bed, a television, a kitchen, a bathroom, an office and medical equipment, as well as a small chapel, according to the media.
After referring to “scheduled examinations”, the Vatican spokesperson finally revealed on Wednesday that Francis suffered from a “respiratory infection” and had experienced difficulty breathing in recent days.
On Twitter, the pope said Thursday “touched by the many messages received in recent hours”. “I express my gratitude to everyone for their closeness and their prayers,” he wrote.
US President Joe Biden again expressed his thoughts for the pope on Thursday a few hours later. “Jill and I keep Pope Francis in our prayers and send him our best wishes for his speedy and full recovery. The world needs Pope Francis,” he tweeted.
Medical background
“We are worried for him, we hope he recovers soon […] It’s sad to know he’s sick,” Nadia Milza, 23, a hospital worker, told AFP.
This sudden hospitalization took the world by surprise, especially since on Wednesday, Jorge Bergoglio had again participated as every week in the general audience in Saint Peter’s Square, during which he appeared smiling, greeting the faithful from his “popemobile “.
The bishop of Rome had already been hospitalized for ten days at the Gemelli hospital in July 2021 for a heavy colon operation. He admitted to having kept “after-effects” of the anesthesia, which led him to rule out knee surgery so far.
The pain caused by this joint, which notably forced him to cancel several appointments in 2022 and to postpone a trip to Africa, is at the heart of conjecture on his possible renunciation.
The head of the Catholic Church has always left the door open to this possibility. His predecessor Benedict XVI stepped down in 2013, taking the world by surprise.
François, for his part, blows hot and cold on this delicate subject.
After having mentioned in July the possibility of “putting oneself aside”, he had judged in February that the “resignation” of a pope should “not become a fashion”, ensuring that this hypothesis was “not on his agenda for the moment “.
The pope is constantly monitored by a team of caregivers, both in the Vatican and during his trips abroad.
A precaution all the more necessary since he has a heavy medical history behind him: at 21, he almost died of pleurisy and suffered the partial removal of a lung.