Pope Francis is now on his 33rd day in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital recovering from pneumonia in both lungs. Vatican sources said today, March 18, that his condition “continues to be stable” within “an overall complex situation.” He spent the day as usual in prayer, doing some work and receiving various therapies—pharmacological, respiratory and physical therapy.
His doctors have reported in all their latest bulletins that Francis is responding positively to the respiratory therapy and the physiotherapy, and this is producing “gradual, slight improvements” in his overall condition. An informed Vatican source said the same was true today, March 18.
The pope’s doctors are trying to wean him gradually from receiving oxygen, it seems with some success. The same informed source revealed that last night Francis did not use mechanical ventilation, meaning he did not wear a mask over his nose and mouth to receive oxygen; instead, he used nasal tubes. It remains to be seen if this will also be the case tonight.
Dr. Anna Lisa Bilotta, who works in the Salvator Mundi International Hospital and is not treating the pope, told America some days ago that it would be a significant step forward if the pope could return to breathing autonomously, without needing to receive oxygen.
The pope’s doctors have made clear, however, that the recovery process from the double pneumonia is slow, and this slowness is compounded by his “complex” situation: that they are treating various pathologies, that he is 88 years old and that he has been in the hospital for more than a month.
Last week, the pope’s doctors declared that the pope’s life was no longer in imminent danger but said he still needs to receive hospital treatment to completely overcome the pneumonia and reach a stage of recovery that can enable him to return with reasonable security to the Vatican, where they know he will resume work and have little rest.
As the situation stands today, there is growing confidence in the Vatican that Francis will return to Santa Marta, the Vatican guesthouse where he has lived since his election on March 13, 2013, to continue his ministry as pope. The only question is how soon will he return.
Yesterday, Buckingham Palace surprised many in Rome by announcing that King Charles III and Queen Camilla would meet Pope Francis in the Vatican on April 8. The Vatican press office has not commented on this, except to say that such visits are usually planned in advance, meaning that this had possibly been planned before Francis went to the hospital and that the Vatican only announces the visits of heads of state to the pope a few days before they happen.
Asked if he thinks this meeting on April 8 is feasible given that the pope is still in the hospital, Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica and the pope’s vicar for Vatican City, replied: “If it has been announced, I think it’s one of the possibilities that they will be able to make happen,” the Italian news service ANSA reported.
Asked whether fewer pilgrims have come to St. Peter’s Basilica since the pope was admitted to the hospital, the Italian cardinal said, “We have not perceived a lower influx [of pilgrims]; we still have a lot of people coming,” though “perhaps a few less at the events in which the pope was scheduled [to give] an audience.” But, he said, “as regards the ordinary, daily influx [to St. Peter’s Basilica], I do not think it has decreased, we see a lot of people coming. Indeed, perhaps the desire to pray for the pope also moves this.”
Vatican media today republished a letter from Pope Francis to the editor in chief of Corriere della Sera, Luciano Fontana, who had first published it on the front page of the Italian daily. Francis wrote in response to a letter he had received from the editor. He signed his letter “Francesco” and dated it March 14 from Gemelli Hospital. He thanked the editor for his “words of closeness” and then went on to speak about war and peace, at a time of increased plans for rearmament in Europe to counteract the threat from Russia and increased investment in arms in the United States, China and the Middle East.
On Sunday, March 2, in a message from his hospital bed, the Argentine pope had said, “From here, war appears even more absurd.” He continued that thought in today’s letter, saying: “Human fragility has the power to make us more lucid about what endures and what passes, what brings life and what kills. Perhaps for this reason, we so often tend to deny limits and avoid fragile and wounded people: They have the power to question the direction we have chosen, both as individuals and as a community.”
Pope Francis called on all who work in the field of communications “to feel the full importance of words” and use them to promote harmony, not division; peace, not war. “They are never just words: they are facts that shape human environments,” the pope said. “They can connect or divide, serve the truth or use it for other ends.” He insisted: “We must disarm words, to disarm minds and disarm the Earth.”
He again denounced war, saying it “only devastates communities and the environment, without offering solutions to conflicts” and emphasized how today, “diplomacy and international organizations are in need of new vitality and credibility.”
“Religions can rekindle the desire for fraternity and justice, the hope for peace,” Francis said, but this requires “commitment, work, silence, and words” and for people to be “united in this effort.”
