Friday March 31, 2023 | 8:15 a.m.
Pope Francis, whose health experienced a “clear improvement,” spent a second night at the Gemelli hospital in Rome, where he is receiving antibiotic treatment for infectious bronchitis.
On Thursday night, the medical team was reassuring about the health of the 86-year-old Argentine pontiff.
The antibiotic treatment “produced the expected effects” and the pope could be discharged “in the coming days,” the medical report said.
On Thursday, the Vatican assured that Jorge Bergoglio was improving and had “returned to work.”
However, their participation in the Holy Week celebrations is uncertain, starting with the Palm Sunday mass scheduled for this weekend that marks the beginning of the Easter celebrations.
The Argentine, who suffers from chronic health problems and uses a wheelchair due to knee pain, is hospitalized in the private apartment reserved for the popes on the tenth floor of the Gemelli University Hospital, where John Paul II was hospitalized for several times during his papacy.
Francisco underwent “medical checks” on Wednesday after suffering “respiratory difficulties” in the previous days. These tests “revealed a respiratory infection” that forced his admission, a spokesman for the Holy See had indicated.
On Twitter, the pontiff said Thursday that he was “moved by the many messages received” and expressed “his gratitude for the closeness and prayer.”
“I hope he recovers very quickly and that he can celebrate Easter here, from San Pedro,” Tina Montalbano, a 60-year-old Italian tour guide, told the AFP news agency as she walked through the vast Vatican square.
“The fear is always there, but it seems that everything is going well for the moment,” he added.
The hospitalization surprised public opinion because on Wednesday Jorge Bergoglio participated with total normality in the traditional general audience in Saint Peter’s Square, during which he appeared smiling, greeting the faithful from his “popemobile”.
The Argentine pontiff was already admitted for a dozen days at the Gemelli hospital in July 2021 for a colon operation. Francisco acknowledged that this intervention left “sequelae” due to anesthesia, which is why he gave up knee surgery.
The pain in this joint, which has forced him to cancel several hearings in 2022 and postpone a trip to Africa, fuels speculation about an eventual resignation.
The leader of the Catholic Church has always left open the possibility of emulating his predecessor, Benedict XVI, who resigned in 2013.
But their messages on this option are ambivalent.
In July 2022, he said he could “step aside”, but in February he stated that the resignation of a pope “should not become a fad” and that such an idea was “not on his agenda at the moment”.
The pontiff is constantly cared for by a team of doctors and nurses, either in the Vatican or during his trips abroad.
A more than necessary measure due to his age and his medical history, since at the age of 21 he was on the verge of dying from pleurisy and suffered a partial ablation of one of his lungs.
