The sovereign pontiff has been hospitalized since Wednesday in Rome.
Pope Francis, hospitalized in Rome, suffers from a respiratory infection and will remain in hospital “A few days”, announced the Holy See on Wednesday March 29 in the early evening. Exams “have revealed a respiratory infection (excluding Covid 19 infection) which will require a few days of medical care in hospital”, is it specified in a press release.
The Vatican had first announced at midday the hospitalization of Francis, citing “scheduled examinations”. “In recent days, Pope Francis has been having difficulty breathing and this afternoon he was admitted to the A. Gemelli Polyclinic for medical checks”, finally declared in the evening the spokesman of the Holy See Matteo Bruni.
The Vatican did not say whether the pope would be able to preside over Palm Sunday Mass or the celebrations planned for Holy Week and Easter.
A heavy operation in 2021
In the morning, the Argentine pope, who in mid-March crossed the 10th anniversary of his pontificate, had participated as every Wednesday in the weekly general audience in Saint Peter’s Square, during which he appeared smiling, greeting the followers of his “papamobile”.
François, who has been in a wheelchair since May 2022 due to chronic knee pain, had already been hospitalized for 10 days at Gemelli Hospital in July 2021 for a major colon operation. In an interview in January, he hinted that his problems with inflammation of the diverticula – hernias or pockets that form on the walls of the digestive tract – had returned.
Jorge Bergoglio explained that he kept “aftereffects” of the anesthesia undergone at the time of this intervention, which have led him to rule out the possibility of knee surgery so far.
A daily “personal health assistant”
His knee pain, which notably forced him to cancel several appointments in 2022 and to postpone a trip to Africa, is at the heart of conjecture around a possible resignation. He always left the door open to this scenario, like his predecessor Benedict XVI, who had given up his charge, taking the whole world by surprise.
In July, François confided that he could not “no more traveling” at the same pace as before, going so far as to mention the possibility of “put aside”. But in February he ruled that a pope’s renunciation should not “not become a fad”ensuring that this hypothesis did not appear “not on his agenda at the moment”.
Caregivers follow him permanently, both in the Vatican and during his trips abroad, but his recent health problems have led him to officially create a new function, that of“personal health assistant”.