“After a quiet night, the Pope is resting,” the Holy See Press Office said Saturday morning, March 1, after Pope Francis’ 16th night in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital. He woke up this morning, drank coffee and read some newspapers as usual.
An informed Vatican source said he did not have another bronchial spasm during the night; yesterday’s spasm was “an isolated episode” and “was related to the bronchi, not to the stomach.” It was not caused by something he had eaten, the source said.
On that occasion, the source said, “He coughed and inhaled what he coughed,” and this had to be aspirated, that is, removed from his lungs. The pope’s respiratory condition worsened following this isolated bronchospasm, and his doctors promptly started him on non-invasive mechanical ventilation, to which he responded positively. As a result of that ventilation, “the gas exchange values are reported to have returned to levels similar to those before the episode.”
Yesterday, Vatican sources said it would take 24 to 48 hours for the doctors to assess the pope’s clinical condition following the isolated bronchospasm. They want to see if yesterday’s crisis has caused a new infection in the lung called “pneumonia by inhalation.” This is his 16th day in the Gemelli Hospital, where he is being treated for double pneumonia, and his condition is frail.
Throughout the world, people are praying for the pope’s recovery. Last evening in St. Peter’s Square, the Argentine cardinal Víctor Manuel “Tucho” Fernández, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, presided at the recitation of the evening Rosary, attended by many cardinals, Romans and pilgrims from many countries. He introduced the Rosary by saying: “Let us pray for the health of the pope. And certainly he would like that our prayer be not only for him, but also for all those who, in this dramatic and painful moment of the world, bear the heavy weight of war, poverty and sickness.”
America has learned that in Venezuela last weekend, many poor people in churches were praying for the pope’s health and are imploring the intercession of José Gregorio Hernández, the lay doctor of the poor for whose canonization Francis gave the final approval from his hospital bed last Monday, when he received the two top officials from from the Holy See’s Secretariat of State. Some of these poor people made an image of the saint-to-be pushing Pope Francis in his wheelchair.
A constant stream of well-wishers come at all hours of the day to pray for Pope Francis at the statue of St. John Paul II that stands in front of Gemelli Hospital, where photos of the Jesuit pope have been placed, together with flowers and lighted candles.
Among those who came there this Saturday morning was Patrick, from the United States. He told America: “I came here to be close to Pope Francis for my emotional solace following these recent health scares. After several years of living in Rome, I’ve discovered that physical closeness nurtures a unique spiritual richness, especially at the tomb of St. Peter, but also at those of the other apostles and of other saints and holy men and women. This physical nearness is an important element of the Jubilee. I join all the well-wishers in praying for the pope’s full recovery.”
On this day, too, the Spanish cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, L.C., a friend of the pope, turned 80 and so lost the right to vote in the next conclave, thereby reducing the number of cardinal-electors to 137 from 71 countries.
Since up to now the cardinal was president of the commission of cardinals that governs the Vatican City State, he also resigns that post today and hands over this important role to Sister Raffaela Petrini, an Italian nun whom Pope Francis has appointed as the first woman governor of the Vatican City State. The Vatican is expected to publish a medical bulletin with further updates about the pope’s condition this evening.
