Pope Francis experienced a setback in his recovery from double pneumonia when he had “an isolated crisis of bronchospasm,” a sudden narrowing of the airways in the lungs, according to the latest medical report from his doctors at Gemelli Hospital, which the Vatican released after 7 p.m. this evening, Feb. 28.
“This afternoon, after spending the morning alternating between respiratory therapy and prayer in the chapel, the Holy Father experienced a brief bronchospasm episode. This led to vomiting and accidental inhalation, which quickly worsened his breathing,” the report said. “Doctors immediately performed bronchial aspiration and started non-invasive mechanical ventilation, which has helped improve his oxygen levels.”
Pope Francis “remained conscious and oriented” throughout the episode, the report said, and was “cooperative with medical staff.”
“His condition remains serious,” it said, and the doctors continue to maintain “a permanent guarded prognosis,” meaning he is still not out of danger.
Informed Vatican sources said that with this relapse, the pope has again entered a “critical state.” According to the medical team that treats him, it will take 24 to 48 hours to fully evaluate how this affects his clinical condition. They specified that the crisis began at 2 p.m. local time and ended “during the afternoon” and that the pope is currently resting, helped to breathe with a mechanical ventilation mask that covers both nose and mouth, a different and more powerful instrument than the Ventimask mask, a much lighter device, mentioned yesterday. The move to a Ventimask had been described as a step forward compared to the nasal cannula with high-flow oxygen that the pope began using after his respiratory crisis on Feb. 22.
[A prayer for Pope Francis during his grave illness]
Dr. Anna Lisa Bilotta, who works in the Salvator Mundi International Hospital in Rome and is not treating the pope, said, “There has been a worsening [of his condition], although not due to the clinical conditions but to an unforeseen accident which is the bronchospasm. This crisis, which he may have had while he was doing physiotherapy, caused him to have an episode of vomiting, which he inhaled and that probably reached the bronchial tubes. That is why he had to be aspirated because he was not breathing, and the related inhalation of vomit, and so he is getting mechanical respiration aid after the broncho-aspiration.”
This morning, the Vatican had announced that Pope Francis had “a tranquil” 15th night in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, where he is being treated for bilateral pneumonia “and was resting.” Later in the morning, he received the Eucharist.
After waking up, the 88-year-old pope had breakfast and read some newspapers as he normally does, an informed Vatican source said. He then continued with the treatment and respiratory physiotherapy prescribed by the doctors, using a Ventimask for oxygen when he needed it.
Medical reports over the past few days seemed to show slight improvement in the pope’s health, and the last three statements have not described his condition as “critical” but instead speak of a “complex condition” that requires time for the therapy to prevail over the infection. At the same time, they remain cautious and repeat that “the prognosis is guarded”; in other words, his recovery is not guaranteed.
Today, the Vatican announced that Francis delegated Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, major penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary, to preside in his stead at the traditional Ash Wednesday liturgy at the Basilica of Santa Sabina on Rome’s Aventine Hill, on March 5, which marks the opening of the 40-day season of Lent. Francis had been scheduled to lead this celebration in the Jubilee Year, but hospitalization has ruled this out.
Responding to a question about the pope and Lent in an interview published today in the Italian daily La Stampa, Cardinal Michael Czerny, S.J., remarked: “For us, for the whole church, for the whole world, Lent already began on the day Pope Francis entered hospital. We are all on a journey of penance, prayer and hope.”
The cardinal, the prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, said people well understand why the pope will be absent from the Ash Wednesday celebration but, he said: “One lives the faith everywhere, and in every situation. The pope is doing so [in hospital]: He is praying, he is offering his suffering, and accompanies the people of God. And we pray for him, we accompany him, and we continue to carry forward our mission and the vocation of every Christian. The church will carry on, awaiting the return of Francis.”
Cardinal Czerny concluded: “On March 27, 2020, Francis prayed alone in St. Peter’s Square, under the rain, for the whole world threatened by Covid. Today, the whole world is praying for Francis.”
Many people, even the pope’s doctors at the Gemelli, are struck by his good humor, even in his current situation. To understand this, it is perhaps worth recalling what Pope Francis said in his interview with America on Nov. 22, 2022, when asked why he seems so happy and joyful, even amid crises and troubles. He responded:
I am happy because I feel happy, God makes me happy. I don’t have anything to blame on the Lord, not even when bad things happen to me. Nothing. Throughout my life, he has always guided me on his path, sometimes in difficult moments, but there is always the assurance that one does not walk alone. I have that assurance. He is always at my side.
